1. Contents in August:

Ready – set – bike! p.2

Bicycle expertise for primary schoolers

What is sustainability really? p.3

Our course with the University of Siegen searches for

answers

More excitement for Track! p.5

The latest project by WISS

Fu Shi the Wise p.7

An Alter Ego searching for wisdom

Imprint p.8

Summery and sunny greetings,

Your Innovationsmanufaktur-team

IM-NEWSMAI 2015Dear friends and partners of Innovationsmanufaktur,

It’s August – time for holidays! Fozzy’s holidays were some

time ago already, but they had long-lasting effects: He was

on Yap, testing the local alcohol production … and sent

them in return original Hessian apple wine. International

friendship by alcohol – if only everything were this easy!

Our endeavor to reach a more sustainable orientation of our

financial systems has, however, taken a further step:

Together with the University of Siegen, we imagined and

implemented a course for students and interested outsiders.

We not only worked with students but also with children: In

our project “Ready – set – bike!”, we taught bicycle

expertise to primary schoolers.

The latest project by our Network Wearables in Elite

Athletics (WISS) is sporty as well: “More excitement for

Tracks!” implemented measures designed to gain more

attention for track and fields.

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1.If you see fourth graders carefully driving

around pylons, transporting balls one-

handed, or oiling their bicycle chain –

then you are watching the project “Ready

– set – bike!”

This project, carried out by us and the

Kreisverwaltungsreferat München, is

quite similar to our Schultournee, only not

for the older kids (fifth and sixth grade)

but for fourth graders. Just as in

Schultournee, the goal is to teach the

children traffic expertise, safe and secure

bicycling, and how to repair their bicycles

by themselves. The project aims to

prepare the children for the transition to a

secondary school which often comes with

longer distances that the children

moreover have to cope with on their own.

To this end, two different courses are set

up in which the pupils can train bicycle

skills and standard traffic situations in a

safe environment, for example braking

abruptly, turning sharp corners, or

bicycling with only one hand on the

handlebar.

The bicycling tuition is complemented by

a “bicycle repair shop” in which the

children learn simple repairs and learn

basic maintenance, such as determining

their tires’ correct pressure or how to oil

the chain.

To motivate the parents to deal with the

topic together with their children, a

“bicycle quiz” is also part of the project. It

consists of various questions centered on

bicycles and traffic rules, some of them

so difficult that the children can only solve

them together with their parents, for

example: “Peopkle spend more and more

money on their bicycles. What is the

average price for a new bicycle in

Euros?”. The best solutions are awarded

with a prize.

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1.Long-term instead of short-term thinking,

change instead of saving at all costs – in

short, the re-positioning our financial

system. This has been our concern for

quite some time, now a further step in the

right direction has taken place: Together

with the University of Siegen we

designed and implemented an

interdisciplinary course named “Creative

and innovative sustainability for Siegen

and the region”.

In a preparatory course, students of

business administration and students of

social sciences together challenged and

extended their knowledge of responsible

concepts of the future and discussed

questions such as: What is sustainability?

What is sustainable impact for the

region? How can a project be

sustainable? What is innovation on a

theoretical level?

The focus of the preliminary course was

the design of an original, maximum

sustainable project for Siegen, drafted in

interdisciplinary teams, which was

implemented in Siegen and the region

during the course proper.

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1.To help this, concepts and ideas for

shaping one’s surroundings were thought

out and empirical examples of existing

utopias and social innovations (such as

eco-villages) were presented.

Methodologically instructed, the students

identified relevant areas and developed

their ideas. Those were implemented

during the summer semester, for

example:

• Democratic participation in

designing the city by open Round

Tables

• Supporting the joy of exercise and

movement by creative courses in

the historic city center

• Educational herb gardens in

schools

An important part of the course was to

respect the effect of the projects on the

whole region in a holistic manner: the

direct effects as well as the indirect side-

effects. In closing, a qualitative analysis

of the effects was carried out, whose

criteria had been defined in the

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preliminary course.

A short backstory to this: The starting

point of our engagement for more

sustainable financial systems was a joint

workshop by us and the University of

Siegen, “Financial systems of the future –

money in the service of economy and

society”, which tried to answer the

question, “How can we achieve concrete

effects in our endeavor to curtail the

increasing dominance of short-term

thinking in finances and economy, politics

and society?” Heavyweights such as the

Chairman of the Board at Bosch, Franz

Fehrenbach, or the director of

Stadtsparkasse, Harald Peter, took part

in the workshop.

Several initiatives followed up this

workshop, for example a platform

spanning institutions (that is, the

Universities of Darmstadt, Siegen, and

Bayreuth), or a new master study course

at the University of Siegen, „Plural

Economics“.

1.The sportsmanship of Nikki Hamblin and

Abbey D’Agostino, Usain Bolt’s

sensational Triple-Triple, or Shaunae

Miller’s header for gold – track and fields

offered some amazing moments during

the last two weeks. However, if it’s not

the Olympic Games, almost no-one

watches track and fields.

This was the starting point for a new

project by our network WISS: a

cooperation with the German Association

of Track and Fields and a German TV-

Station broadcasting nationally, with the

goal of representing the athletes better,

explaining the sport better, and thus

raising awareness of and interest in track

and fields.

At a first meeting in Leverkusen, WISS-

and SINN-partners discussed with

externs and javelin and hammer

throwers, and pole vaulters questions

such as

• How does the sport work?

• What constitutes the sport?

Christin Hussong: „I want to experience

my dream“ or Linda Stahl: „With a flat tip

to the top“.

As regards the sport itself, the central

question is how to make it more

interesting and more exciting for the

audience; the ideas in this area

concentrated mainly on generating a

better knowledge of the sport.

One example is the development of a

track-app which would offer an interactive

experience of the sport and its most

important factors. Take for example Pole

Vault: There you have the hardness of

the pole, the speed of the inrun, or the

wind direction, among others. A further

innovative way of offering information

could be an “intelligent” lawn which could

show the landing point, possibly together

with the blast wave, or other relevant

parameters via light signals.

The first impulse that was implemented

at the German Championships was

clarity:

• How can this special feature be

represented during live

broadcasts?

• How do we implement the

generated ideas at the German

Track Championship at the end of

June?

The discussions concentrated on two

focus points: on the one hand the

athletes, who are in the middle of things

an can put their stamp on their sport (as

does Usain Bolt), and on the other hand

the sport itself which can appear boring

to the uninformed even though the

athletes perform incredible feats.

One of the ideas regarding the athletes

was for example to produce short clips

that reveal the multitude of demands of

each sport (e.g. Pole Vault: speed, valor,

gymnastics, reactivity, … or Hammer

Throw: elasticity, pirouettes, drive,

technique, …).

At the German Track Championship,

however, another idea was implemented:

a mobile “stage”, on which the athletes

presented a personal motto, for example

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1.During a Track meet, there is an

immense diversity of activities, many

competitions take place at the same time,

chaos and the milling masses are

distracting the audiences. Thus, the

project team tried to eliminate the chaos

around the javelin throwing station in

order to sharpen the focus on the sport.

Many more ideas are still in the pipeline,

and moreover track is of course just one

of many sports: It was the setting of the

pilot implementation but the concept and

the measures can and will be transferred

to other sports as well. If and when this

happens, you will first hear it from us!

If you just cannot wait this long or have

concrete questions, please do not

hesitate to contact Anna Münzhuber.

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1.At least that is what Fu Shi still believes.

And the discussion had another effect: Fu

Shi had never had a discussion on

wisdom as wise as the one on wisdom

indices. An ingenious coupling of ideals,

values, and pragmatism. Everything was

contested, but nothing antagonized from

the first. Most likely it was the topics of

the discussion that engendered wisdom,

more so than fixed ideas and arguments.

If you think a bit more about it, he should

probably develop some sort of model for

shaping the future “wisely” in order to

achieve the best effect possible; at least

a bigger effect than single wisdoms, as

wise as they may be.

This thought will cook in his brain until the

next newsletter: a wise model as

orientation for designing the future. His is

very curious what this model will look like

… and drinks in the meantime a glass of

white wine as inspiration.

Fu Shi has taken a shine to travelling the

world and letting himself be inspired on

wisdom and divination. Was he in danger

of losing sight of his goal of developing

concrete statements on designing the

future?

Determinedly he asked a fried in

Sheffield: What did the friend see as wise

developments making humans healthier

and happier? He wanted to give him a

concrete opening. And then this:

Wisdom? How can I measure wisdom?

Yikes! He who wanted to understand and

to design was asked to measure? An

index for wisdom? Why ever had he

decided to go to England?!

At first, he thought the idea to be

extremely absurd. But then … maybe this

was exactly what he needed in order to

turn the world of today into the wisdom of

tomorrow. He would at least be able to

speak to the people of today, as fixated

on measuring and on numbers as they

were. And tomorrow, the index itself

could cough up the insight that it was not

the ultima ratio of wisdom.

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1.

Innovationsmanufaktur GmbH – Infanteriestr. 19/3 – 80797 Munich – Germany

fon: +49-89-5527919-0 – fax: +49-89-5527919-20

secrets@innovationsmanufaktur.com

www.innovationsmanufaktur.com

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