It has been a while since the last Donut. That last Donut left me with a bitter taste. It’s time to sweeten up the glazing a bit and find out if this bitter taste was legitimate. In other words; was the critique I had on the welfare apparatus correct? To get a better overview on the whole situation described in ‘Donuts past middle clash’ I wanted to understand more about the UWV[1] and the possibilities they offer designer-entrepreneurs who got caught up in the welfare bureaucracy.

In this article I assume that nobody would like to be without work or income. Meaning that I assume that our ‘klatergoud’ audience is one that likes to take initiatives as an entrepreneur, academic or team player in a company. This assumption is quite important because if you are not this kind of person you might not see any perspective in the scenarios that I will describe. If you have the ambition to gain strength during tuff periods, you might find this brief article interesting.

This article consists out of a couple of steps through several options that our government facilitates for those who lose their job[2] and recognise opportunity to set up their own business. The UWV has set up 5 possible profiles that you can use if you want to initiate projects for yourself. Some of these profiles can be risky and others might be less durable, but the real difference is defined by the prospective on profit in the future.

The first steps are equal for all profiles. You have to notify UWV when you lose your job at www.werk.nl. The website where you have to enrol in the system. This means that you have officially requested for social security benefits and an appointment for your work coach.

You are obliged to do this even if you don’t want to accept your social security benefits. If you decide not to notify UWV, you even risk a big penalty. Meaning it is important to first enrol and than deny your right on social security benefits. This way you distance yourself from any financial support. This is Profile ‘D’ in my article. It is still possible to revive this decision within 6 months after your contract has finished, but you will receive your money faster if you do this within 6 weeks.

When you choose to accept your welfare you can pick up profiles ‘A’,‘B’and‘C’. Profile ‘E’ applies to those who have no right on their ‘WW’ period. The ‘WW’ period of welfare pays out only a percentage of your old wage. To enlist for this period you need to have worked for one continuous year. The ‘WW’ period consist out of 3 months with and an extra month for every year you have worked on top of your first year. If you have not worked for one continuous year or you have used up your ‘WW period’, than you will automatically shift to profile E ‘Supplementary benefit’. Payment is even lower in this case.

The UWV basically leaves you with 5 profiles;

• A. ‘Normal’ welfare
• B. Welfare with a ‘start-period’.
• C. ‘Cut’ welfare
• D. No financial support
• E. Supplementary benefit

’Profile A’

‘Normal’ Welfare (‘WW’ period); Social security offers a Gift.

In return you;

• have to apply for a job every week.
• are not allowed to enlist with the chamber of commerce or have a tax number (BTW number)
• have to make your portfolio.
• have to notify when you go on holiday.
• have to notify when you are sick.
• have to fill in an ‘extra income form’ if you work on additional work. Only ‘Project hours’ are being reduced from your social welfare. These are pays for by the client.[3]

You benefit because;

• you never have to pay back social security
• there is no shortage based on business hours.
• you are able to earn a higher hour salary and get the rest of

the hours paid by social security (UWV)

‘Profile B’

Welfare with a ‘start-period’; Social security offers a Loan

In return you;

• have to set up a company within a maximum of 26 weeks and a minimum of your ‘WW period’.
• have to make your portfolio in the first 3 weeks.
• have to make a business plan or project plan in the first 3 weeks.
• have to notify when you go on holiday.
• have to notify when you are sick.
• have to pay back a percentages of your social benefit in the case you make a profit during, and in the two years after, your ‘starts-period’[4]. Meaning that subsidies are not included and that you should save approximately 1/3 of your profit over two and a half years.
• have to give up your company, if it is not profitable after your ‘starters period’ and you still rely on social security benefits. You will automatically shift to profile ‘A’.[5]
• have to shift to profile ‘E’ in case you don’t have any right on a ‘WW’ period. Again it is not allowed to have a company.

You benefit because;

• you are allowed to continuo with your company after your ‘starters period’, if your business makes a profit and your are able to supply yourself with food, shelter and insurance like a normal job[6].
• only ‘Project hours’, which the client pays for, are being reduced from your social welfare.
• you don’t heave to apply for a job.
• you are allowed to enlist with the chamber of commerce or have a tax number (BTW number)
• no shortage based on ‘business’ hours
• you are able to earn a higher hour salary and get the rest of the hours paid by social security (UWV)
• other people can work for you
• you can have a partner
• you can set up any kind of company ( BV, NV, ZZP)
• you are able to set up a good administration.
• you can work over the 1225 ‘business’ hours, without being cut on your social security.[7]

‘Profile C’

‘Cut’ welfare; Social security offers a partial gift

In return you;

• have to apply for a job every week.[8]
• will get cut on your social security benefits for the amount of hours that you work on the company. These are ‘business hours’ and not ‘project hours’
• have to predict an amount of business hours that you work on your own company. These hours will be permanently cut from your social welfare. It is a shortage on ‘business hours’.
• will not receive more social security benefits if you work less ‘business’ hours.
• will receive less benefits if you work more hours than you predicted. It will be cut according to the ‘business’ hours that you have spend.[9]
• can’t work over the 1225 ‘business’ hours, without being cut on your social security.
• are allowed to enlist with the chamber of commerce or have a tax number ( BTW number)
• have to make your portfolio.
• have to notify when you go on holiday.
• have to notify when you are sick.
• are able to earn a higher hour salary and get the rest of the hours you didn’t spend paid by social security (UWV)[10]

You benefit because;

• you are allowed to keep your company, if your business does not make a profit
• you are allowed to enlist with the chamber of commerce or have a tax number ( BTW number)
• you are able to earn a higher hour salary and get the rest of the hours paid by social security (UWV)
• other people can work for you
• you can have a partner
• you can set up any kind of company ( BV, NV, ZZP)
• you are able to set up a good administration.

‘Profile D’

‘No welfare’; Social security delivers Nothing

• you never have to pay back social security.
• you are allowed to enlist with the chamber of commerce or have a tax number (BTW number)
• you have to make an appointment with your work-coach.
• you state that you don’t want any social benefits.
• if you want to revive your decision, you can ask for social security benefits within 6 months. ( advisable is to do it within 6 weeks, you’ll get your money faster )

‘Profile E’

‘Supplementary benefit’; Social security delivers a Gift

In return you;

• have to apply for a job every week.
• will get less payment than a normal ‘welfare’ or ‘WW’ period.
• are not allowed to enlist with the chamber of commerce or have a tax number (BTW number)
• have to make your portfolio.
• have to notify when you go on holiday.
• have to notify when you are sick.
• have to fill in an ‘extra income form’ if you work on additional work.

You benefit because;

• you never have to pay back social security.
• there is no shortage based on business hours, only ‘project’ hours.
• you are able to earn a higher hour salary and get the rest of the hours paid by social security (UWV)

Conclusion

The source of the problem that I pointed out in ‘Donuts past middle clash’ was the contradiction between UWV and the tax agency. One tries to stimulate ‘business’ hours over 1225(tax) and the other (UWV) takes those hours out of the little benefits people receive while they start their office.

Although the clue behind ‘Donuts past middle clash’ is still very valid.[11] We can conclude that the contradicting conclusion is only present in profile ‘E’. This means that there are definitely ways to emerge out of this precarious situation. That is why I advise you to deal in the following scenarios;

Scenario 1;

1. Work
2. Unemployment
3. Start-period, ‘Profile B’
4. Profitable company, or a job besides your company

Scenario 2;

1. Work and company (company has to start circa 6 months before unemployment)
2. Unemployment
3. Normal welfare, ‘Profile A’
4. Profitable company, or a job besides your company

Other scenarios end up in loss of money or limit the amount of business hours for a starting entrepreneur. The first scenario works for those who did not get a chamber of commerce number and tax number besides their first job.

If you did, you can use the second scenario, because the UWV considers your company as an obtained right during your job.

Meaning that you are allowed to keep your company when you become unemployed. You have a right to choose profile ‘A’ and continue to work on your company. Social security benefit is not a loan in this scenario. This scenario offers a gift, business hours over 1225 and there is no risk of losing your business as in profile ‘B’. This is the reason why the tax agency gives an ‘unofficial’ advices to first talk to them if you are at risk losing your job and want to start a business. They also advice ‘MSc. and BSc. students’ to get a ‘tax number’ and a ‘chamber of commerce number’ as soon as possible., even if you preparing to work for a boss. You’ll be better prepared for a possible entrepreneurial future and less dependent on bureaucratic institutes. I have to point out that these advices from the tax agency are not official, so no right can be withdrawn from this ‘advices’. But who would have thought that the tax agency would point out the true bureaucratic whole through our welfare donut.

[2] With a job I refer to the situation where you work for a boss and sign a contract to work fulltime or part-time under the rules and regulations of a company that is not yours.

[3] you can make extra money if those hours are better paid.

[4] The percentage that you have to pay back in the ‘2year’ period is related to the profit that you make. If you don’t make any profit you also do not need to pay anything back. They calculate as followed;

((‘profit in two year period’ x 39/52 )/ 2)x 0,7 = has to paid back

[5] The company has to be decomposed, meaning you can not have a Chamber of commerce number, Tax number or company website.

[6] in this case you got free consultancy during your starters period, got time to concentrate fully on your business set-up and you did to need to job-hunt or put time in uninteresting jobs.

[7] hour frame-work that is setup by the tax agency for tax benefits.

[8] in order to substitute the social security hours you still receive

[9]this is contradicting with the stimulation policy of the tax agency in the Netherlands. They stimulate an amount of business hours over 1225 per year.

[10] this is kind of an naive and ideal assumption. Setting up a healthy business will take more time than 40 hours a week that UWV has reserved for your social security benefit.

[11] The incapacity of our society to think in several socio-economical scenario’s, both good and bad

Picture source; http://economistmom.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/mom-donut.jpg

“The position of starting businessmen, who emerge out of social security, is of great importance to the Dutch economy. Their conflicting situation is illustrating how little thought their struggle really gets.” Frank Kalshove; De Volkskrant, zaterdag 13 juni, Economie [1]

The article explains how the institute ‘UWV’, for social security, was demoralising people to emerge out of unemployment with their own business. Kalshoven concludes that entrepreneurs, who are emerging out of the precarious situation of social security, are not as free as others.

In my opinion he describes the obstruction of emerging businessmen and talent. They are trying to arise out of crisis but do not have the same chances, to initiate a business, like others do. This seems a peculiar situation in relation to the current perspectives that we live in. If we like it or not, we do live in a world that faces a luring financial catastrophe. This crisis is one where middle class will be struck by huge losses of employment, making the middle class more and more dependant on their own entrepreneurial initiatives and talent.

Therefore the aforementioned situation seems peculiar and even threatening when policies start to obstruct and even financially punishes[2] small-scale businesses that are emerging in spite of their crisis. This discourages entrepreneurial tendencies instead of a fundamental enhancement of economic activities and trust.

But lets not start off with a doom scenario. Lets have a look at the statement and lesson that could be learned from the article and relate it to a future where governance cannot guarantee your social wellbeing due to a global economical shift or crisis. A future in which more and more people will start their own business out of necessity and not just for fun. It is a future where we’re all businessmen or freelancers in a neoliberalized ‘welfare state’ in which we need to sustain our own residential and economical wellbeing.

The mentioned article stresses the need to improve our financial environment and infrastructure in order to enhance business and talent emergence from crisis situation. It seems valid to describe a future scenario in which we can all save our own souls and enhance a good business environment in heavy weather. Therefore it is important to understand what good came, and crashed, out of crisis. And how we can facilitate initiatives.

As an architect I assemble physical environments and infrastructures for human activity. I would like to believe that my assemblies could facilitate these human activities. A build surrounding that facilitates or helps people to live, dwell and work in good or bad times.

To be able to assist with a building in bad times, it is essential to understand the relation between social activities and infrastructures, specifically in crisis environments.

Therefore I got involved into an elaborative research, with Jouke Sieswerda, on the history of the Bijlmermeer. The Bijlmermeer is a late modern housing area that started out as one of the most popular living environments in its days, but ended up as one of the first ghetto in the Netherlands. The research we did is about the politics, realisation and cutbacks in infrastructure and the build environment, and the consequences this had on human usage and their control over privacy. The title of the book is;

Architecture in Limbo, A short history of public, private and collective spaces in the Bijlmermeer. It describes how physical infrastructures and environments influenced the initiatives of inhabitants to live, dwell or work in a distorted crisis environment.

After this research it was only natural for me to react on our findings and generate a strategy for a sustainable environment for living and working. This strategy enhances the infrastructure and privacy control in order to better live and business possibilities for inhabitants, both in a good or bad economical climate. This way it would be possible to facilitate the emergence of talent that encourages entrepreneurial tendencies even when vicious socioeconomic disasters tend eliminate the middle class from parts of our society.

See ‘Talented Donut – Business in Housing’ by wouter Oostendorp

[2] Recently penalties up to thousands of euros are being given to starting entrepreneurs who are trying to get out of social security. The Uwv (social security) treats non profit hours that one puts into a new business as if these hours directly cause capital accumulation by lets say charging the costumer for it. So don’t think of your company when you are surfing the web, because you will get fined.

How does one find talent or even better; If you have a talent, in what way do you get it ‘out there’!? And what the hell does ‘out there’, actually mean?

These questions are hard and complex especially when it concerns your own talent, and if you want to use your talent for a business; you still have to deal with the development of it into a service, product or commodity.
Maybe its is therefore easier to distinguish yourself from this problem by looking through the spectacles of somebody else

Picture yourself being a consultant, planner or developer! How would you find, nurture and facilitate talent in a way that it can becomes a concrete available commodity that, later on, becomes accessible in a way that it is able to satisfy a demand from a clients or visitors.

In this short text I will try to reflect my thoughts over the aforementioned process and distinguish the three stages of; talent itself, availability of a commodity and the supply of a satisfying answer to a demand. I understand these stages as essentials steps in the emergence of business and I will relate it to accessibility, privacy control and the build surrounding to get an understanding what ‘out there’ could possibly be and how this notion could be related to the city and her physical form.

At first I will explain my position and assumptions. One could argue with these, quite liberal, assumptions but it seems better to clarify these at first. Let it be said that I encourage individual freedom and know the limits of freedom when corporations are being looked up on as individuals. I prefer individual freedom to the freedom of a corporation. Nevertheless I will stress that a good housing district will enhance a healthy business environment. Maybe a sort of decentralized business environment with decompressed space and time infrastructures for local capital accumulation.

In general I understand all (human) activities as a result of personal ideas and initiatives, a sort of visionary moment when an idea is being initiated into action. These activities are acted out as efficient as possible and full fill an intention as fast as possible. In other words; if you have an idea, you will try to successfully act it out in the easiest way possible. Here activity and efficiency are clearly related. If one would like to share this activity with others in an efficient way one would have to choose an audience. I assume that this audience can be can be a clientele, but more importantly is the assumption that this audience (or people in general) can play different roles in our realm of the ‘every day’. One could describe these three roles as; Inhabitant, Visitor or by-passer. These three notions are quite common in the development of housing and environmental planning and relate to the notion of freedom to control privacy.
My last assumption is that; visitors could also be clients, by-passers are potential clients and that inhabitants could initiate a product, service, commodity or action in general. In the case of housing the inhabitant has control over the privacy of the household. They decide what you experience about them and their activities. In a ‘business + residential’ environment, the inhabitant might take their talent, develop it and decide what, where and how your will see the end-result of their action. They are free to act and decide if the end-result of their act is accessible and in what way.
Maybe it is on Internet or maybe it is hidden in some backstreet. Basically they control in what way you perceive their activity, in what way you can engage in the activity (or commodity for that matter).

These assumptions lead me to state that; actions, activity and therefore commodities like products and services, are related to the experience of scale. ‘Out there’ is not just One ‘A’ location or realm.

It consists out of several locations on several scale levels, both in physical and non-physical forms (think of digital and cultural infrastructures in case of the later). To connect these scales we need infrastructures. This way we can initiate an idea on a small scale and articulate it on a regional or global level. You need to appropriated and nurture this infrastructure just as much as you would maintain the product, service or activity. One might have a talent in a certain activity but without developing it to make it available it is just a talent, nothing more, as it can hardly express its value as an offer for a demand.
If you do develop the talent into a commodity or activity and make it available on a certain scale level, you should still appropriate and maintain an infrastructure that enables clients (visitors) and possible clients (by-passers) to reach it.
In short; A good entrepreneur coaches the development of talent into a available commodity and facilitates an infrastructure to make it available to clients on different scale levels.
This facilitation of availability and accessibility is important for the emergence of your own talent and that of those you coach or try to connect with. Like stated before ‘out there’ is not one big realm filled with potential clients or by passers. ‘Out there’ is a specific domain with clients that act as visitor. The entrepreneur is the one that is in control of the privacy of that ‘out there’. The entrepreneur decides what visitors see, experience and take along back home. The entrepreneur inhabits the ‘out there’ as it is generated along side the development of the commodity.

The process I just have described is still quite clear, as it might just involve one, two or three people, who act on pretty specific ideas. But how do we deal with a city? What about its build environment that is full of infrastructural and human multiplicities?
In case of a city there is clearly not just one intention or goal, for which we can assemble a crowd of possible clients that would visit our ‘out there’.

In case of a city it would be more a sort of consultancy that would coach and facilitate a realm assembly for several initiatives. A place for living, working, talent and business that clarifies scale levels, infrastructures and combines these in territories for privacy control. In this way people can appropriate not only the infrastructures according to their needs, but also the territorial scale levels that they need for their ‘out there’.

This creates a multiple scaled environment that not only sustains a healthy business environment with many possibilities to exploit and control the exchange of commodities and economical transactions by its inhabitants. It also enhances the privacy control of the inhabitants over their dwelling environment, enabling people to recognise the larger city, a borough, neighbourhoods, blocks or street and decide if they take part or reside from the activities that are present in these territories.
In this way you do not construct a fixed program or activity, but you design a frame work for appropriation that facilitates availability and accessibility for all that could happen in it.

It is a facilitating city environment that offers multiple territorial realms which are not so much in each other as they are overlapping their scale levels and infrastructures. Meaning that it should be possible to jump from any given scale to another if efficiency is needed. This makes it important that the nodes for scale transition between the territorial infrastructures in a build surrounding are clear. It enhances the clarity for privacy control by the inhabitants of the given territory (think of airports neighbourhoods, or front doors). This clarity could be assisted by its own architecture or program, making it even clearer en charging the spaces in between the territories. I look at the build environment as linked through infrastructure.

An infrastructure for territorial information for both housing and business. An information infrastructure that does not prosper with space and time compression bout rather with decompression of territory, enhancing the decentralization of capital accumulation and thus rewarding business initiatives of the inhabitant by boosting their privacy control in residential area’s.

Now that we understand the relation between talent, business, the build environment and housing, we still have to clarify what the ‘Out there’, as a specific domain with clients or visitors, actually is.

In general; Facilitation, accessibility and availability are the most essential definitions that enable people to comfortably expand their activities through all scales of appropriation. It makes the availability of the activity or commodity accessible.
In other words if you can’t ‘get there’ the commodity might be available but will not be accessible and therefore sieges to exist.

This is also the case for housing areas and especially those housing areas that are equipped with studio’s for business.
In the end ‘the way to go’ has to be obviously readable, and comfortably accessible for a visitor or client to engage with it. Meaning that a visitor or client also has control over their choices of interaction with a service or product and is therefore able to decide on what scale they want to interact with the product or service.

The ‘out there’ should always allow clients/visitors to interact with it on several scales, one has to think of several ‘A location’ on different levels. This legitimacies the reason for a visitor or client to initiate an interaction with the product or service as it levels his personal agenda and needs with the agenda and commodity of the entrepreneur who inhabits the it 1.
All entrepreneurs who can’t answer to these demands will siege to exist or their talent will not emerge at all.

We can understand ‘out there’ as a sort of realm similar to a housing area. It knows several scale perceptions, for example regional, global or local locations and is controlled by its inhabitant to guarantee its privacy and experience quality. It has infrastructure that should be clearly readable in order to be used. These scale perceptions of locations and infrastructure should define territorial boundaries that should be very inviting and clear at the same time.

Remember, as a visitor or client you will only experience ‘so much’of a product, same goes for a neighbourhood, street or households. Its accessibility should be clearly readable, inviting and restricted to certain parts.

If the physical build surrounding or a company does not facilitate this accessibility, the whole will not be readable and business will deteriorate. These definitions are always defined according to the context but in case of spatial planning one has to understand these terms in the context of the public domain and privacy control in our build fabric, the physical world through which we move every day to get to our whereabouts! Enhancing the amount of scale levels and infrastructure in a territorial clarity will improve the richness of a possible ‘out there‘ of an inhabitant and will therefore sustain a richer residence for business and housing in an area or city.

*An entrepreneur could inhabit his product as he is the one who decides what your product experience as a client or visitor is really about. He decides what you will or never will experience about the product or service. In this sense he controls the privacy of his product just like we do with our house. There for you will never see what’s happening behind the scenes of his ‘product’s household’. That’s too private.

Picture: Donut Shop, Brooklyn New York – courtesy of Kit Kaplan Photography

In general:

Facilitation, accessibility and availability are the most
essential definitions that enable people to comfortably expand their
activities through all scales of appropriation. Making the
availability of the activity accessible.

In other words if you can’t ‘get there’ the service- or product
initiation might be available but will not be accessible and therefore
siege to exist in general. In the end ‘the way to go’ has to be
obviously readable, and comfortably accessible for a visitor or
client.

Meaning that a visitor or client has control over their
choices of interaction with a service or product and is able to decide
on what scale they want to interact with the product or service. This
grounds the legitimacy for visitor or client to initiate an
interaction as it levels his agenda with the entrepreneur who inhabits
the product or service .

All entrepreneurs who can’t deliver these will siege to exist or not
emerge at all.

Without the physical facilitation of the build surrounding this
accessibility will not be readable.
These definitions are always defined according to the context but in
case of spatial planning one has to understand these terms in the
context of the public domain and privacy control in our build fabric,
or the physical world we move through every day to get to our where
about!

It seems from the perspective of a designer that initiating a design concept sometimes seems identical as undergoing a personal or business initiative. In both cases the goal is uncertain and not always achievable, but one always demands a high-quality end result.

Considering methods that could provide the initiative or design of a certain level of quality is often seen as a logical step. This step seems to reduce the uncertainty of the person in question, because of the feeling of control over the final quality. The speculation about methods, plans and roadmaps in this case, give some guidance and certainty on unknown roads.

But does it really? Or does this so-called ‘certainty guidant’ in fact work counterproductive? See, my experience is that the speculation about the ‘how to’ or philosophize about the concept of quality in times of uncertainty actually leads to a mental block.

We can endlessly discuss the possible methods, worry about quality or critical remarks on production and design methods or what could be the correct way. As long as it is not put on paper, these talks end in discussions without actually producing or achieving anything at all.

I therefore advocate trusting the intrinsic qualities that you have as a designer, entrepreneur, or initiative taker and to talk less and more to produce more. The first sketches carry the potential for quality and innovation in itself and never serve as a direct response to a particular end. Some sketches seem more relevant or brighter than others.

So stop talking about it and just do it! Go ahead! Draw and write walls full of possibilities and then select which idea you want to achieve quality and innovation with, trust in yourself and put the next step! In this respect, production is far more relevant than the guarantee of quality in an efficient production – or design.

In architecture this is called ‘rapid prototyping’. It is a way to create freely and fast without considering all the matters that work as obstacles in the process. This way things are actually put on paper in which in a later phase one can reflect on it and critically analyze it.

It is a kind of brainstorming, but in a more physical and visual form. Personally, for me, this is really interesting as well as all unused prototypes can be archived or categorized. Just going after what now looks like all unused ideas from a brainstorming session, could be ideas that are very useful later.

In this way, the unused ideas contribute to the development of a fixed value for a company. Experiences and ideas are stored for later to be deployed. This makes your business more efficient and intelligent. It allows it to create a database of knowledge. In this way one can also reverse the process. Namely, one doesn’t achieve practical results because one has a good idea, but one realizes concrete ideas because one strives a good end result and because one is free to create.

My personal conclusion of this? Well, besides archiving a catalog or portfolio of projects already achieved I will also archive ‘to be realized’ projects e.g. ‘potential ideas and concepts’: a donut archive!

This will be presentable and thus suitable for a series of lectures and moments when these ideas can be realized or reach a certain level of urgency. Like a box of donuts of different flavors that you can correctly enjoy at the right time! One with sugar icing, one with cinnamon, one with chocolate etc. Bon appétit!

Lets start archiving our perspectives and use them to predict our future!