“The Text is not to be thought of as an object that can be computed. It would be futile to try to separate out materially works from text… The difference is this: the work is a fragment of substance occupying a part of the space of books (In a library for example) the text is a methodological field… the text is experienced only in an activity of production. It follows that the text cannot stop (for example on a library shelf).”

Policy is not something you do for the record, every four years. Policy is a dynamic process. In the ideal situation it's an exchange of facts and opinions, of success and failure.
The word policy originates from the Greek word polis, which means city. In the good old days the inhabitants of Greece discussed their plans at the public square.
This project is a way of re-defining that democratic process, of developing an open and innovative community. We will fill this page with a shitload of documents like our annual report, our marketing plan, our artistic plan and our funding applications. We hope more people will join this trip.

Why we started? Incubate already has a wiki website where people can write bio's and upload video's. We also ask our community for artistic input and use openorg for our internal organization. It works.

For a lot of people it's a pain in the ass to write policy stuff. It's boring, it's desolate and you think you're writing for people who always complain. They are called funders. But policy is an essential part of every organization and it is fun to collaborate.

You could be critical and say we're showing our strength and our weakness. But what's wrong with that? You could be critical and say that policy is a matter of strategical decisions, of one man, one vision. Too much democracy is bad for arts. You could be critical and say we're outsourcing our vision and giving it back to the crowd. You could be critical and say that collective collaboration not always works and only leads to populism like Trots op Nederland proves. Maybe people would vote for popular artists.
We believe in the creative power of people. We are an existing festival that promotes cutting edge artists and most of the people that are helping us are kinda smart.
Most of the times collective collaboration works. It's called wikinomics. By collaborating and by being critical you can be even more cutting edge. Like Shakespeare said: "I am nothing if not critical."

Normally people write policy plans like it's a top secret. But actually it's always a remix of hip buzzwords like creative industries, viral marketing, city marketing, artistic value, the value of art and that kind of stuff. Add the names of some known and unknown artists, add a board and you're done. Policy is a secret affair in a market full of competition for scarce money. But the organizations are being paid by that scarce tax money. So why not add this knowledge to the public domain?

With policy texts there's always the problem of style. In Dutch literature they called it form or fellow. Sometimes applications are too personal, too subjective. Sometimes applications are too technocratic-al, too objective. The form of wiki is also a form, but it tries to avoid this discussion. It's a plan created by many people in an interpersonal style. The community creates the message. Its like a jungle sometimes.

Hey, but maybe people are stealing your stuff! We really hope so. That's one of the reasons why we write this text in English and not in Dutch and we're using Creative Commons 2.5. It would be great if this project would be an addition to the development of (independent) culture.
If you're stealing this text: here's a warning. There's always a strange relationship between text and reality. There's always a guts factor in an organization that's called X-factor, knowledge or social capital. For example: If you give this plan to the local authorities of Sussex and you don't have any knowledge of organizing stuff it might not work. For an organization you not only need contemplation. You also need action. And organizing also might be a work of art, like writing a text. But an organization is also a small society. Let's bring it back to the public square!