The movement of the Festival of Ideas is a real case of network interactions for the co-creation of ideas for current social problems in society.
After introducing the concept of interactive co-creation proposed by Augusto de Franco and deepening the concepts of reproduction fields and creation fields, it is time to learn more about these concepts in practice, drawing inspiration from a real initiative of interactive co-creation - The Festival of Ideas.
The Festival of Ideas was born in 2011 through the initiative of the Ruth Cardoso Center (CRC), with the aim of articulating a network of people interested in interacting and building projects with innovative solutions for social development. It is a permanent process of presenting ideas and transforming those ideas into viable projects. From early 2012 until mid-March 2013, 2,346 people interacted around 532 ideas, which were pollinated 1,963 times in an interactive co-creation process that took place virtually on the platform http://festivaldeideias.org.br. In 2011 and 2012, more than 50 ideas received seed investment from the Festival, and many of these ideas became projects that have already been completed or are in progress.
Since its inception, the movement has grown and evolved to become increasingly a field of interactive co-creation. Actions such as: the development of an aggregator website http://festivaldeideias.org – allowing anyone to publish their idea wherever they want; the opening of weekly in-person co-creation sessions, open, interactive, and free in various locations in the capital and other cities; the freedom to create one's own brand and platform, are practical examples of how we can make a field more interactive and free for co-creation.
But of course, this freedom of associated initiatives must respect the practice of interactive co-creation, which are: 1) open entry and theme (anyone can join to co-create and propose unexpected themes); 2) open outcome (there is no expected result to be achieved); 3) free process (there is no methodology or set of steps that people must follow to achieve a predefined goal: only free conversation); 4) distributed structure (in a co-creation field, everyone interacts on equal terms: there are no leaders, teachers, speakers, coordinators, or facilitators, and all co-creators are netweavers); 5) interactive dynamics (co-creation does not have participatory procedures, such as coordinated meetings, voting, and administratively constructed consensus: no one needs to abide by decisions, everyone is free to interact as they wish).
Creating a field of interactive co-creation is a great challenge, as it presupposes a new way of configuring and interacting with the environment that people are not used to, as they usually experience more environments of reproduction and participation. Furthermore, theoretically according to Augusto, we should not expect results, but rather seek unexpected results, that is, it is pointless to enter this process and already want to know what the result will be.
That’s why the best way to understand this concept is to experience an interactive field in practice. So the invitation is made! Participate in the Festival of Ideas, it is completely open! Enter this field with an open body and mind and allow yourself to be influenced and to influence! It will be much more enlightening and impactful than trying to explain this concept in a few words, which seems simple but is complex in its essence.
