Apart from their wonderful ways with drainage and dykes and generally holding back the colossal waters of the North Sea, I’m constantly impressed and delighted with the Dutch flair for cooperation, their open-minded approach to problem solving, their joyful willingness to tolerate – even embrace - different points of view without getting all hung up and defensive and territorial.

Admittedly it’s a fairly small sample I’m working from, but looking at the way Dutch cultural managers and producers network themselves, set up collaborative marketing ventures, talk to each other and genuinely seek out people with experience from whom to learn - well, it’s impressive.

When the first idea for Audiences Europe Network was raised, it was senior Dutch arts producers, managers and marketers who were at the head of the line, thirsty for Europe-wide cooperation and sharing.  It was instantly noticeable what great team players they are, how they organise themselves for knowledge transfer, and are constantly experimenting with new means of communication, both to customers and internally within professional groups and networks.

At a Scottish Arts Council Conference called Partnerships 2.0, I delivered a workshop on Cultural Marketing Collaboration Around Europe with Amsterdam’s Yolande Melsert who was Director at the city’s pioneering arts marketing consortium, the Bureau Promotie Podiumkunsten (www.promotiepodiumkunsten.nl).  Yolande outlined a few extraordinary networking maneuvers that her Bureau is delivering, streamlining the availability of info and intelligence to audiences and professionals. Check out the web page if you speak Dutch - or even if you don’t to get the flavour.

Yolande says: Collaboration is something that only works if two or more partners have a goal in common: for example to survive, to gain a bigger audience, especially if you can reach something together that you can't reach on your own, when 1+1 = at least 3. I am convinced that working together, building networks and working environments on a base of equivalence (not necessarily equality) is the future.’

I like Yolande’s typically straight-to-the-heart-of-it assertion that it’s all about survival, stupid. Who doesn’t want to survive (or attract more paying customers)?  Therefore why wouldn’t anyone be collaborating?  To a Dutch person, the whole thing is self-evident.

I was at the Gala opening of last year’s Rotterdam Film Festival.  Before the main film event, we had the awards… not the luke-warm snooty affair you might experience in some places, but a genuine, warm hearted, enthusiastic, team-spirited celebration of all that’s great about Rotterdam and its cultural community.  Even I, as a Brit and knowing all of three people out of two thousand present, was cheering and uplifted. It’s good to be with enthusiastic people. Enthusiasm is infectious.

The other year, Rotterdam declared itself European City of Young People – not because the Euro-crats had come up with a new civic accolade for which we bid (or was that beg?). But because the Rotterdamers are proud of their Young People, and their Young City, and all the energy and diverse talents that they possess.  Their ‘Year’ is motivated by a passion for celebration, for focusing effort and resources, and harnessing new ideas and possibilities. It isn’t, I don’t think, all about posturing and posing on the international stage as so many of these kind of things tend to be these days.

Interesting isn’t it? Apparently several other cities around Europe have asked Rotterdam if they can too be European City of YP in succeeding years. It proves the genius of the slogan – Just Do It.   Mind you, I’d add one important little word: together.

Looking down from the plane as I climb out of Schiphol, surveying the colourful patchwork fields bisected by rivers and canals, regulated by locks and dykes, I realise that these Dutch really do work together to support each other – and always have.  Not only are they proud of each other’s achievements, they really care,  for instance that Rotterdam is a forward-looking, pulsating, energetic city, totally in love with life.  But also because the land itself is constantly under threat from the mighty Nordsee.  To the Dutch, collaboration is not just a way of life, it’s a question of survival.

(first published in Rich's Blog www.thatpossibility.com)