MARTIJN ASLANDER
Martijn is a stand-up philosopher, a
sounding board in the boardroom and
co-author of the bestseller ‘Nooit Af’
(the permanent beta principle). He
built the largest burial mound in the
world with his own hands. He was one
of the founders of Lifehacking.nl and
is the co-founder of Permanent Beta
(‘bridging brains, tech and culture’).
With a combination of passion and
“I predict that we are standing on the eve of
a new Golden Age. We are currently in the
middle of a renaissance. And the last one was
followed by a Golden Age. As a country, the
Netherlands has the advantage that we have
an answer to the IPO-driven tech-attack of the
USA, and the non-inclusive, non-democratic
approach adopted by the Asian countries.
The thought leadership - the answers to the
issues of the future - needs to come from the
old world. In fact, this really ought to come
from the Netherlands. Hierarchical distance is
small here, and that will work in our favour.”
TRUST
“In education, there are already
6
THE DIPLOMA IS OBSOLETE
some real gems to be found, namely those the knowledge, but also the contacts.
institutions that understand that the notion The skill set of masters in a master-appren-
of ‘the diploma’ is already obsolete. These tice relationship is far broader than their
are the organisations that are working with experience alone. Don’t get me wrong. I’m
their own certificates, rather than with not advocating setting up the guilds again;
diplomas from expensive standards institu-
tes. And so are avoiding all that bureaucratic
nonsense. I recently spoke to someone from
an MBO vocational college in Groningen that
awards its own micro-certificates. Students
no longer need official certificates, as long
as the employer can trust the teacher’s
judgment. If that’s the case, the paper qua-
lification is irrelevant. This makes it faster
to adapt to changing circumstances. If you
strip this notion back to its core: why do we
have rules, anyway? We have rules because
there’s a lack of trust. The shortcut is, there-
fore, trust. This means that we revert to the
individual’s norms. The master-apprentice
system, for instance, works far better than
learning from a teacher. A teacher is defi-
nitely not always sufficiently in touch with
society, whereas someone who’s standing
with his feet in the mud doesn’t just have
there’s a reason why we got rid of them, but
it’s worthwhile examining the principle.”
THE FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATION
“It seems to me that the most important
function of education is, to put it bluntly,
‘childcare’. If schools didn’t exist, parents
wouldn’t be able to go out to work or pay
their expensive mortgages, and then every-
thing would collapse. The second function
of education is socialisation. We have to
teach children how to behave towards each
other and to accept children from other
backgrounds. The third aspect is that schools
prepare children for society; a sort of citi-
zenship class. Unfortunately, we no longer
do much of this in class. Following on from
our book ‘The Permanent Beta Principle’, we
are currently working on an edition adapted
for education. Everyone I talk to about this
agrees that we are trapped in an incredibly
suffocating system. Nobody knows how
learning really works, so we just try anything.
Even educational experts can’t work it out.
What we are struggling with is not an educa-
tional issue, but a system issue. Nobody has
an overview of the entire system. For this,
you would have to know where the money
is being spent and how the different orga-
nisations work, as well as how the various
powers influence each other. Technology
can help us quickly reveal all these interests.
This is what we are trying to unravel at the
moment. What we have already discovered
is that education is made up of oligarchies.
The management philosophy has focused
on expansion: schools have become bigger,
and hence school heads have had to start
managing. Generally speaking, school heads
are teachers. This results in teachers beco-
ming hesitant managers, who then surround
themselves with a team who will validate
them. A real example of the ‘Peter Principle’:
rising to the level of their incompetence.”
“THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHERE YOU ARE NOW AND WHERE
YOU WILL BE IN FIVE YEARS’ TIME DEPENDS ON THE QUALITY OF
THE BOOKS YOU READ”
SYSTEM RESET
“How can children learn and become prepa-
red for the job market? It’s worth examining
the notion of ‘the job market’. The concept
of ‘work’ has never before been the subject
of such rapid change as now. What is work
actually? Is it sitting in a building from nine
to five, doing something you can already
do? The whole idea on which work is based
is under pressure. And ‘the job market’ only
exists thanks to the friction between supply
and demand. As we now know, ‘internet is
cutting out the middleman’, whereas the very
raison d’être of the middleman relies on this
friction. That’s why I’m wondering how long
it will be before we stop talking about ‘the
job market’ altogether. It’s difficult to predict
anything to do with it because it’s changing
so incredibly fast. Complete sectors are
collapsing. We have just about managed to
recover from the last blow we suffered as a
result of the banking crisis. I think the blow
we’re about to face is going to be much gre-
ater than the one dealt by Lehman Brothers,
and one for which we will no longer be able
to find a solution. Things are going to fail.
And if all the money has gone, what then?
Incidentally, I don’t see this as a problem.
It’s nothing more than a system reset. In
fact, it’s logical that it needs to happen.”
NO RESTRICTIONS OR INHIBITIONS
“In ten years’ time, many professions will
exist that are simply impossible now. And
other current jobs will disappear. The
convergence of all the technologies, of new
influences such as robotics, photonics,
augmented/virtual reality and artificial
intelligence, is considerable. It is difficult
©2018 OPEN INNOVATION ACADEMY
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to grasp how much these technologies will
affect each other. To be able to survive as
an individual in the future, it is essential to
read a lot. The difference between where
you are now and where you will be in five
years’ time depends on the quality of the
books you read. Educational theory is being
overtaken, left, right and centre by all sorts
of developments and media. Unfortunately,
this is affecting our capacity for in-depth
learning, so we have to learn how to learn
and how to read all over again. You need
discipline to cope with ‘in-depth reading’. We
have all become addicted to digital media;
me too. Every time we use it, it causes a
dose of dopamine to be released, giving
us an immediate feeling of pleasure. But it
is important to read properly. If we can’t,
or are no longer able do so, then it helps if
we’re prepared to ask for help: without any
restrictions or inhibitions. After all, there are
only two ways to learn something: either
you master it yourself, or you become good
at calling on other people to help you.”
SITUATIONALLY FLUID
“It is also important to learn how to deal with
loss. For many people, the potential pain
of losing is greater than the joy of winning.
This is, of course, the case from an evolution
perspective, but surely, we must be capable
8 ©2018 OPEN INNOVATION ACADEMY
of tweaking it? The threat of potentially losing
something leads to conservative behaviour.
Almost everything is in your head. Almost all
fears are untested fears. Fear of loss of control
is based on the illusion that things such as
control or power exist. In fact, there are at
least three types of power that are currently
in the process of being severely eroded: the
power of example, the power of expertise
and the power of position. That’s why we are
seeing so much inertia in organisations and
governments. This is a result of the network
and information society. The new form of
power is situationally fluid service leadership;
“FEAR OF LOSS OF CON-
TROL IS BASED ON THE
ILLUSION THAT THINGS
SUCH AS CONTROL
OR POWER EXIST”
the person most capable of taking the lea-
dership role at any particular moment, is the
leader for that time. If you want to achieve a
goal, you will need to mobilise others to get it
organised. If you are ill-tempered, fewer peo-
ple will be willing to help. This has nothing
to do with your hierarchical position or your
expertise, but is governed by the social capi-
tal you yourself have built up. The amount of
help you can ask for is also strongly related
to what you have contributed yourself.”
DRIVING FORCE
“Jimmy’s in Nijmegen is a good example of
a place where young people can learn skills
together. It is a youth centre organised for
and by young people themselves, because
young people find it easier to ask each
other for help than they do to ask adults.
In order to survive in the future, young
people have to learn to embrace their own
insecurities and to boost their self-learning
potential. Teach them to be enterprising. I
was lucky enough to start my entrepreneu-
rial life at the age of fifteen. I simply never
learned that something couldn’t be done.
I’ve seen so many incredible things in my
life! If people say something is impossible,
that’s not necessarily how I see it. My lack
of confidence is my driving force and that’s
something I definitely don’t want to change.
Don’t panic about the possibility of losing.
Appreciate what you have, contribute your-
self, and invest in social capital. Because
that is what you need in a network environ-
ment. Monetary capital is on its way out.”
SOCIAL STATE OF THE ART
“If I was in charge in Gelderland (the largest
province in the Netherlands), I would break
up all the sources of subsidies into smaller
chunks and offer support to a myriad of initi-
atives. I would get into direct contact with the
organisers of the Zwarte Cross festival (music,
theatre and motor cross). Festivals are tem-
porary mini-societies, living laboratories for
innovation. In my opinion, Zwarte Cross is the
most undervalued gem in Gelderland, not so
much the festival itself, but the team behind
it. They are so incredibly smart in how they
use social innovation. I would also regularly
spend time at the Feestfabriek event organi-
sation bureau. For a province, it is important
to be an ‘intelligence organisation’. Set up
a large library and create a platform. Give
authors the opportunity to come and share
their expertise, and make this knowledge
available to everyone by streaming it. Take
steps to open data, and set up an ‘intelli-
gence room’ with lots of processing power,
large screens and dashboards. Make sure you
keep on crunching the data. If you involve the
local population in your data analysis, it will
take no time at all to produce valid informa-
tion. At the moment, this task is often farmed
out to expensive research bureaus that are
only able to find a fraction of the data.”
THE LEVELS OF THE FUTURE
“It is a real shame that provinces all invest
in the same things. Keep each other infor-
med and exchange information! You are
not competing with each other. In any case,
in the Netherlands, we need to get rid of
all of the institutions as soon as possible.
They are just slowing us down and hol-
ding us back. The province, the city plus
its surrounding area are the ‘levels’ of the
future. This means that the city is respon-
sible for the region’s accessibility. Don’t
look at the costs, but at the importance
of the regular bus routes to the villages.
Combine shopping and parcel delivery.
This is important for schools and families.
Digital accessibility via broadband will also
provide a partial solution. These things
will help combat the population decline
that many regions are facing as a result of
the gaps in the current infrastructure.”
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
“Positive effects on education and the job
market can be achieved because the pro-
vince and the cities know local business
and what is going on. This also allows them
to act as a link, helping stakeholders find
each other and learn from each other. For
policy makers, it is essential to understand
to what extent the convergence of exponen-
tial technology is going to affect us. If they
don’t know what is happening in this area,
they will simply go ahead with the purchase
of new wind turbines, for example. This
means setting policy based on the scarcity
of resources, whereas we are heading into
a world of abundance and altruism. I am
convinced that all governments spend money
unnecessarily on things they could get from
citizens for free. The same is true for busi-
nesses that could get things from customers
for free. With one important condition: you
have to ask for it. What we need, therefore,
is a new synthesis of citizens/customers and
governments/businesses. If we can achieve
this, then we can change things without
financial risks. If you can do business with
no risk, you can do business with no fear.
And if you can do business with no fear,
then all of a sudden you can help everyone
extremely quickly. This is what I spend
every day doing. The Polder Model 5.0.” ■
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