Dit jaar bestond de jury uit Henk de Haan (Oud CDA Kamerlid), Ewout Irrgang (SP Kamerlid), Jeroen Dijst (ABN AMRO) en Celine Pessers (YBA en winnares Bankers vs Politicians 2011).

De jongeren zijn vrijdag 13 april met elkaar in debat gegaan om hun standpunt te verdedigen. Ter voorbereiding heeft iedere deelnemer de vragen toegestuurd gekregen, waarbij in drie verschillende debat rondes de volgende stellingen aan bod kwamen:

- Er moet een transactie taks komen voor Nederlandse Banken
- De overheid moet banken in nood blijven steunen
- Bankiers moeten een eed afleggen.

Na een korte introductie door Ruben Koekoek (Innovatiemanager van Dialogues Incubator en één van de organisatoren) kreeg Gerrit Zalm het woord om Bankers vs Politicians 2012 officieel in te leiden. Zalm ging in op het gebrek aan onderling vertrouwen tussen beide partijen (bankiers en politici) maar ook het vertrouwen naar de maatschappij toe. “De politicus wordt gezien als tweede hands autohandelaar, de bankier staat onder een bank rover’’. Hij ging in op hoe er meer vertrouwen gekweekt kan worden, waarbij je vooral moet laten zien dat je te vertrouwen bent.

Gerrit Zalm op het forum van het Dialogues House

“Als bankier moet je risico’s nemen, echter neem nooit risico’s als deze ten koste zullen gaan van je klanten. De kernwaarden waar wij naar streven zijn vertrouwen, deskundigheid en ambitie.” aldus Gerrit Zalm.

Na de introductie van Gerrit Zalm neemt Laurens van de Horst van Bureau Spraakwater het debat over. Kort licht Laurens de verschillende debatvormen toe. In de eerste ronde worden de vertegenwoordigers van de jongeren organisaties van de politieke partijen op het podium uitgenodigd. In de tweede ronde zal Ewout Irrgang tegen Arthur van der Leij (YBA) debatteren en in de laatste ronde zal na introductie van Henk de Haan het publiek met elkaar in debat gaan. Vervolgens nodigde hij de vertegenwoordigers van de jongeren organisaties van de politieke partijen op het podium uit.

Op het podium staan vertegenwoordigers van de Jonge Socialisten, Dwars, de Jonge Democraten, CDJA, JOVD en SGP Jongeren klaar om de eerste stelling, moet er een transactie taks komen voor Nederlandse banken, aan te gaan.

Vertegenwoordigers van de jongeren organisaties van de politieke partijen op het forum

De publieke stemronde laat zien dat er meer mensen tegen deze stelling zijn dan voor. De jury krijgt het laatste woord. Henk de Haan geeft kort maar krachtig aan dat de enige reden voor deze taks is dat de overheid geld nodig heeft. Jeroen Dijst zegt dat de argumentatie teveel afdwaalde van de daadwerkelijke stelling, om sterker over te komen moet je bij de kern blijven. Ewout Irrgang is van mening dat je moet overtuigen met je brein maar dat je daar ook zeker je hart bij mag betrekken. Emoties in combinatie met kennis.

Ewout Irrgang en Arthur van der Leij

Ook het publiek mag reageren. Het tweede debat is merkbaar levendiger en emotioneler. Uit het publiek komt het argument dat Nederland an sich aangetast zou worden. “Als banken zouden verdwijnen zou dit slecht zijn voor het imago. Banken zijn misschien luier geworden, maar geen steun geven is niet de oplossing. Mensen zouden niet weten wat ze zonder banken moeten doen”.

Tegenstanders vinden dat banken best ‘om mogen vallen’, dit wordt volgens hen dan wel door andere bedrijven opgevangen en zal geen drastische gevolgen hebben. Voorstanders vinden dat banken juist proberen te veranderen en dat door samenwerking grote slagen gemaakt kunnen worden. Ook hier is er weer een verwijzing naar de woorden van Gerrit Zalm. Banken moeten veranderen, hun imago verbeteren maar ze moeten wel de kans krijgen. Men moet dus samenwerken.

Arthur en Ewout mogen beiden een slotbetoog houden. Arthur vertelt dat je er niet van uit mag gaan dat er kleinere banken moeten komen, dat kan immers niet in deze tijd. Ze zullen het niet overleven in de competitie. Ewout brengt onder de aandacht dat ze het allebei eens zijn met de stelling dat de overheid banken in nood moet redden, maar dat duidelijk bepaald moet worden hoe ze gered worden en hoeveel kosten dat met zich meebrengt.

Laurens start weer een stemronde en de meerderheid van het publiek stemt groen, ze zijn voor het steunen van banken in nood. Ook de jury gaat er nog kort op in.

Voor het derde debat wil Laurens dat iedereen zich verplaatst aan de hand van zijn of haar standpunt met betrekking tot de stelling of bankiers een eed moeten afleggen of niet. Er zijn meer tegenstanders dan voorstanders, dus het belooft een interessant debat te worden..

Henk de Haan heeft de eer om het derde debat in te leiden en dit doet hij met een zeer emotionele en sterke speech.

“Ik schaam me dood voor de Nederlandse financiële sector” vertelt Henk de Haan ons. Ook gaat hij in op de vraag of zo een eed nu echt zal helpen om beter gedrag te krijgen van bankiers. Worden ze daar nou echt beter van? Hij is ambivalent in deze stelling. Als een eed iets zou bijdragen, bijvoorbeeld dat mensen beter nadenken en zich afvragen: “is het wel netjes wat ik doe” dan wel. “Maar het is toch triest, dat hiervoor een eed nodig is. Je moet hoe dan ook geen dingen doen die niet eerlijk zijn”. Henk de Haan sluit af met de stelling dat hij er niet veel voor voelt en dat het common sense is dat je eerlijk moet zijn. Het publiek bedankt hem met een hartelijk applaus.

Tegenstanders van de stelling beginnen direct met het standpunt dat het logisch is om fatsoenlijk te zijn. Een eed is niet nodig en draagt niks bij, men moet gewoon gezond verstand gebruiken. Veel mensen staan op om hun zegje over dit onderwerp te doen en het wordt al snel een actief en emotioneel geladen debat. Voorstanders zien deze regeling als een soort van standaard, een houvast wat ‘goed’ is en wat niet. Je zou door een eed iemand erop aan kunnen spreken als hij de fout in gaat.

Het publiek blijft erg verdeeld en de dialoog leeft erg op in de laatste momenten van het debat. Als afsluitend argument komt men met het idee om je ‘titel’ af te pakken als je iemand belazerd, een middel dat bij artsen wordt toegepast. Tevens kan de jonge generatie zich bewijzen en kun je het verwachtingspatroon van de klant, met een eed, positief beïnvloeden.

Laurens richt zich tot de jury die nu de belangrijke keus moet maken: wie wint het Bankers vs Politicians debat 2012?

Celine krijgt als voormalig winnares het woord en vertelt dat het een moeilijke keus was, maar de beslissing is unaniem gevallen. Fatihya Abdi van de Jonge Socialisten. Zij kwam met goede argumenten en combineerde hersens met gevoel. Kennis en emotie werden goed gecombineerd en maakten haar dialoog persoonlijk. Ze wist de aandacht te vestigen daar waar de discussie abstract bleek.

Fatihya Abdi, Winnaar van Bankers vs Politicians met de jury

Paul: For me a dialogue is a form of interaction that leads to increase of knowledge. We live in a world where debate and competition dominate the way we communicate. But these ways do not lead to innovation or new insights. When, in a conversation, you genuinely ask ‘what do you think?’ to your partner, you open yourself up and let associations flow. You create something new by building upon each other’s input. And it’s also more fun to do.


Ruben: Building upon each other’s ideas sounds like theatre improvisation or the way Jazz combo’s improvise. Is that also a way of working you’re advocating within the Dialogues House and Dialogues Incubator?

Paul: My style of working is improvisational. Already at a young age teachers would exclaim: ‘That’s a nice solution Paul, but I never taught it this way!’ Making associations is one of my greatest qualities. That’s why I like the banking sector because in a way I don’t belong to this planned world. And that’s exactly why there is a need for a Dialogues House and Dialogues Incubator.


Ruben: Why did the ABN AMRO support the development of the Dialogues House and Incubator?

Paul: The Board of Directors wanted to disclose the intellectual capital of the people working at the bank. So many ideas and knowledge were remaining idle and could be used for something bigger than just the banking operations. The Board chose to promote entrepreneurship in the spirit of dialogue, as a way to innovate and look at things from different perspectives.


Ruben: How long ago was that?

Paul: That was in 2007. The funny thing is that within 3 months after clearance by the Board the Dialogues House and Dialogues Incubator were up and running. There was a lot of energy in building such a place. And now 4.5 years later it’s still vibrant. The Dialogues House is often referred to as a Future Centre and these last 4 years on average. So we’re doing pretty good and I hope for many more years to come.


Ruben: What’s the impact for the ABN AMRO bank of the Dialogues House and Dialogues Incubator?

Paul: I’m being asked this question often. But the Dialogues House is an open source concept. It’s not about the ABN AMRO. We want to support the development of a positive climate for entrepreneurs.


Ruben: Could you name an example of this support?

Paul: We started a research about successful entrepreneurs that had gone through bankruptcy. Now you have to know that there’s a stigma in the Netherlands about people that go bankrupt. In Dutch society you’re viewed as either stupid or criminal, probably even both. That’s not the case in the US, where bankruptcy is viewed much more positively. Interestingly enough, the persons we interviewed told us they had learned the most from their broke period. Also Boston Consulting Group presented a research that people that had gone bankrupt were more likely to be successful than starters. I would call this type of bankruptcy a brilliant failure. So I suggested the ABN AMRO to make a product that would help bankrupt entrepreneurs. But this was a bridge too far: it might have given the impression the bank would be promoting bankruptcy.


Ruben: So the bank struggled with this paradigm shift. Why not create an experimentation space for such a product?

Paul: It’s interesting to see that people always talk a lot about the things they can’t do. You don’t need to set up specific experimentation spaces. There’s always space to act innovatively. Just take the space you already have at your disposition. In all the work I did, all the positions I had, I experienced a lot of space to initiate and pursue innovative activities. It’s all about having an entrepreneurial mindset. It boils down to: ‘how much space for innovation do I grant myself?’


Ruben: Why do you think people do not take this experimentation space?

Paul: For many people the barriers to act seem too big, insurmountable. It is, however, often a matter of perception. Also within big organisations ambitions may prevent you from taking certain risks. If you want to have a career then you’d better watch out. At least, that’s the perception.


Ruben: what things are important for an innovative culture?

Paul: Having lots of linkage with people outside. They bring in new ideas, new patterns and new linkages.


Ruben: What’s the value of that?

Paul: It could lead to total different new and concepts. A nice example is the cooperation between ABN-AMRO and Phillips. ABN AMRO has many individual costumers trading in small amounts. It is known that costumers would make poorer investment decisions in an emotional state. So they went to see Phillips and developed a device, the Rationalizer, that monitors your emotional state. At this stage it’s not possible to say whether the product will be successful. Maybe it will become a brilliant failure, but it already led to new linkages between totally opposite fields. It’s a combinatoric innovation.


Ruben: What is a combinatoric innovation?

Paul: It’s a new concept of mine, one I’m experimenting with. There’s no clear agenda defined upfront. It’s just the people in the room and their associative power, focusing on the question: ‘What could we do together?’ It leads to many unique and creative ideas. The group really comes up with unique inventions and approaches. Participants look at the issue from different perspectives and start combining ideas and concepts. From this emerges a total new picture, just like the parable with the elephant being touched at 6 different places by 6 blind men. The question with combinatoric innovation çould be rephrased as: ‘will it blend?’


Ruben: Are there any drawbacks with this way of working and innovating?

Paul: The process is a nightmare for managers who love control because it’s an emergent process. It doesn’t fit with their milestones. Also there’s an issue of intellectual property. During the process it’s not clear where ideas originate, so which stakeholder is owner of a specific idea? You need to make provisions around intellectual property.


Ruben: I work a lot with meetings as agents of change and innovation so I’d like to on this issue. As a Dialogues House you bring people together, often physically. So how do you make great meetings?

Paul: I apply the creativity index to meetings. The creativity index tells you that people are creative when they laugh often and ask many questions. It’s not an idea of mine. The NASA already did creativity research at an early stage. They needed to improvise, especially in the beginning of the aerospace. It turns out that the creativity index decreases rapidly with age. My job is to help organisations maintain the creativity index on a high level. This requires an environment in which people are motivated to ask questions and to seek new, unexpected combinations (the basis of humour)!


Ruben: How do you use it in meetings?

Paul: I have a little toolbox with humour and big questions. Actually the humour box is tricky to use… you have a big problem if you have to inject humour in the first place. You can easily kill a meeting with humour. Regarding the big question: the most important question to ask is ‘what do you think?’ This makes for a very powerful question when asked genuinely. Another one is ‘what if…?’ Or ‘Why do we do the things this way?’ If you combine these questions with humour then you have a very productive meeting.


Ruben: Thanks for your views on dialogues, innovation and meetings

Paul: The pleasure is mine.



Paul Iske on Brilliant Failures at TEDxEutropolis

Brilliant Failures at TEDxMaastricht

Paul Iske on Combinatoric Innovation


Originally posted by Ruben Van Der Laan on his blog.

If you were the head of a bank what decisions would you make?
“First of all, I can only give an answer to this based on my experience as a consumer and the digital skills I’ve gathered over the last decade. The first question is why do most of us go to a bank? Van Heukelom asked. “First and foremost, this is where most of us are paid. Because of that, banks have access to an incredible amount of information. They know what I spend my money on, when my account is close to being in the red or when I have a buffer. And the way in which a bank represents my financial situation is important to me—it needs to make sense and enable me to make better decisions. That said we are all becoming savvy as clients and after the financial crisis of 2008, we want to know exactly what our bank does with our money once we’ve deposited it.”

Van Heukelom points out that retail banks, from a simple consumer point of view, have two main functions:
1. Representing information in a usable and comprehensible way anno 2012
2. Giving trust that the money you deposit will be able to be drawn upon at a later date and is being used in a proper way.

Yet, since the “bank run” on Fortis which led to the government taking over Fortis NL and ABN AMRO activities in October 2008, consumer trust has been so deeply eroded that clients may be more likely to see a company such as Google or Facebook (also known for its ability to represent information) as more trustworthy. “Banks lack transparency and because of this, the trust issue looms large,” he emphasizes.

So what are the Banks most afraid of?
When van Heukelom speaks to the higher management layers of large banks in the Netherlands, he finds that they are more concerned with players outside the sector like Google and Facebook, than their traditional rivals, wondering when these international giants will start launching banking-like products. “The fact that Google has banking licenses in a lot of countries including one issued by the Central Bank of the Netherlands could be a sign that at some point they will be encroaching on what’s traditionally seen as territory of the Banks,” he posits. “ Facebook could introduce a global new currency tomorrow!”

“Imagine that your salary goes to the Bank of Google,” he supposes, “I’m confident that within no time, they’ll be able to tell me exactly what they are doing with my money. Wouldn’t that be great? Detailed information about where the money is spent. Total transparency.”
In an article last year by Dave Davies, entitled Why would Google become a Bank, Davies explained that Google had obtained a banking license from the DNB in 2007, although it is a license for digital banking.

So what’s in it for the customer?
Ease of use, total transparency, and convenience through seamless digital services are all important. Integrating payments with email, while being able to enjoy full online and mobile accessibility, would certainly make it easier to pay bills and re-use that information for accounting purposes later on. Google is great in representing information. Much better than the average bank and since Google’s revenues are not based on the traditional banking model, they should be able to charge lower interest rates and fees. Those conveniences, in addition to cost savings strengthen their case even more.

What will happen?
Only time will tell. Whether the Bank of Google will take over the Bank of America, no one knows, and van Heukelom points out that it’s not all about Google. Indeed, it might just be Facebook. Whichever company it is, it is clear that banks should reassess their competition and consider outside-in alliances that before 2007 might have been unheard of.


Joris van Heukelom has been working in the publishing & telecom industry since 1998. Starting at Viacom (MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon), then moving to KPN in 2005 and Sanoma Media in 2007, van Heukelom joined MakerStreet as a partner last year. Throughout his career, van Heukelom has continuously challenged big publishers and telecom companies on their Digital Media strategy, reminding them to keep the end user as a central anchor point.

Last summer he kicked of a StartUpschool with the goal to accelerate and foster innovation in smaller companies and start ups. Van Heukelom sees his role as creating a hybrid mix between innovation in the big and the small world. He holds a Master in Marketing & Advertising and a Master in Communication Science. In addition to being a partner at Makerstreet, he is Chairman of IAB the Netherlands.


Written by Elizabeth Kleinveld, Senior Innovation Manager at the Dialogues Incubator.

Not only did this hack lead to serious consequences for those whose Gmail accounts were broken into, but DigiNotar, which had not improved security after previous encroachments were also criticized for not reporting this hack earlier. In fact, the hack resulted in their going belly up (source).

What does the DigiNotar case demonstrate?
According to Professor Hartel, engineers think in terms of ‘bits and bytes’ too often, disregarding the human factor. At first the programmers did not really consider protection against cybercrime. ‘’Keeping honest people honest with the netiquette” (an etiquette for the web) is what they deemed sufficient, but they hadn’t accounted for the explosive growth of web users. At the end of the day, because the internet was open to all, it was also open to those with criminal intent, yet this wasn’t taken into account. The need for firewalls, security software, passwords which are tough to crack couldn’t be greater and as Professor Hartel emphasized, it requires educating the public to be wary.

The Weakest Link
Professor Hartel explained that updating security technology is not only slow, but also hard to implement. The reason is that big corporations have to balance out what their customers want versus the accessibility of their own offerings. Being too strict with rules and safety measures means it takes to much effort to access your offers, yet if you are too loose with these measures then hackers can easily break into your system. While protocols such as HTTPS help, crime still exists, because the human factor remains the weakest link. Professor Hartel pointed out this phenomenon with an example of an experiment he’d initiated. In this “social engineering” experiment, students came up with ways to “steal” laptops, for example, just by asking for them from unwitting participants, stating that they were from the IT helpdesk. Imagine that in 30 of the 47 “social engineering” cases, no one asked for an ID or questioned the students and as a result, 30 laptops were confiscated, which proved Professor Hartel’s hypothesis that security is only as good as our ability to ask questions and obtain proof for all requests.

So what can we do to deter would-be cyber criminals?
We have to focus on the offender and on the offense itself, taking away opportunities to hack into our systems. As Professor Hartel reminded us, “opportunity forms the thief.” Improving the strength of our passwords, ensuring we have anti-virus programs installed and that we update these on time, and that our certificates are really valid, goes a long way to deter a would be hacker. To decrease the likelihood of an offender’s strike being successful, Professor Hartel outlined a methodology to follow.
The method includes:
- Collecting data about the nature of the problem
- Analyzing the conditions of the problem i.e. is it a one-time thing, based on a weak password or is it a recurring issue, a virus or trojan?
- Systematically studying ways to block attack opportunities
- Choosing the most promising countermeasures and implementing them
- Monitoring the results of the intervention and disseminating the lessons learned

Since 10% of the Dutch computers are hacked, Professor Hartel suggested that one way to decrease the likelihood of being hacked would be to pay your internet service provider (ISP) an insurance premium for safer web usage. Obtaining such insurance would lead to a more secure environment because the ISP would have more responsibility to implement firewalls and patch systems. To conclude Professor Hartel reminded us that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”


Professor Dr. Pieter Hartel is professor computer science at the University of Twente. He already has more than 15 years of teaching and research experience in the field of security and privacy in ICT. Since June 2005 he is a board member of the ‘Netherlands Institute for Research on ICT’, NIRICT.


Written by Amiet Oedit Doebé, a Masters student of ICT in Business at Leiden University. Currently working on his master dissertation on Innovation Management at ABN AMRO’s Dialogues Incubator.

The Netherlands is a country with one of the greatest broadband Internet usages in the world, with over 90% of the population having broadband access since 2008. Imagine that in 1995 only 10% of the population was connected to the Internet. It’s nearly impossible to remember a time without YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, and yet they have not even been around for 10 years. Even more surprising is that when you ask people how long the iPad has been on the market, they often quote four years. In fact, the iPad was officially launched two years ago: on April 3rd, 2010.

Never before have we seen such a quick product adoption as in the case of the iPad. Imagine that when it was first launched within the Netherlands, the most bullish analyst speculated that no more than 800,000 units would be sold countrywide. Two years down the road and approximately 2 million iPads have been sold. So how many have been sold worldwide to date? According to Alex Heath from Cult of Mac, as of March 28th, over 50 million iPads were sold since launch, with a whopping 3 million of the third-generation IPads sold during launch weekend alone.

Van Heukelom illustrates this rapid transition noting that, “three and a half years ago there were only 600 apps available via iTunes and android. Now there are over 1.1 million apps, of which 180,000 are for the iPad alone. Every day an average of 1000 new apps is added. The iPad introduction has unleashed a massive wave of innovation. Within the US market alone, 460,000 app-related jobs have been created since its introduction.” So where is that innovation occurring? Van Heukelom reckons that most of it occurs outside the walls of large corporations.

“Is this not evidence enough that there is something revolutionary going on?” he asks.

Why has the uptake rate of the iPad been so phenomenal?
“Because the device engages a person as if it is really a part of them, an extension of who they are; with the screen’s resolution almost as good as reality and the elements of voice and touch built in, the iPad engages all of our senses except smell.” And Van Heukelom reminds us that the iPad has encroached on Prime time—traditionally the domain of TV, now people engage TV in a totally different way, using their iPad while they watch.

The time of paper brochures has come to an end. In the future (and its already happening), sales people will exhibit their products to clients via iPads. Indeed, the entire sales process will be visualized and processed via an iPad, from client presentations and ordering, to fulfillment and feedback.

During his presentation, van Heukelom spoke about a number of trends taking place at the moment, from frictionless sharing to reducing complexity.

What apps does van Heukelom bank on?
“Without a doubt, ABN AMRO.” What else? “Storify, because it is a new form of digital storytelling, which taps into the need to reduce complexity.” But Medisana shouldn’t be forgotten, as it fulfills our need to understand ourselves better, which relates to the trend on quantified self. This trend, also covered in the March issue of the Economist, is about an individual’s ability to self-track their habits, for example, their nutrition, medication, sleep patterns, etc., using a smartphone or similar device, with the ultimate goal of improving their health and well-being. According the Economist, the quantified self “may provide a glimpse of the future of health care, based on monitoring and prevention.”

So as we ponder how the iPad and related apps have changed the way we read, search the web, and watch TV in merely two years time, we also wonder what the iPad’s third birthday will bring.


Joris van Heukelom has been working in the publishing & telecom industry since 1998. Starting at Viacom (MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon), then moving to KPN in 2005 and Sanoma Media in 2007, van Heukelom joined MakerStreet as a partner last year. Throughout his career, van Heukelom has continuously challenged big publishers and telecom companies on their Digital Media strategy, reminding them to keep the end user as a central anchor point.

Last summer he kicked off a StartUpschool with the goal to accelerate and foster innovation in smaller companies and start ups. Van Heukelom sees his role as creating a hybrid mix between innovation in the big and the small world. He holds a Master in Marketing & Advertising and a Master in Communication Science. In addition to being a partner at Makerstreet, he is Chairman of IAB the Netherlands.

Written by Elizabeth Kleinveld, Senior Innovation Manager at the Dialogues Incubator.