Some housing associations, universities and NGOs have joined forces to share their thoughts and ideas on how to create innovative approaches to complex social issues in the Netherlands. From this collaboration emerged 'Pluk' (named after a character from a famous Dutch children's book), an initiative that aims to enhance society's ability to find sustainable, groundbreaking solutions to difficult problems. Reos Partners The Hague acts as managing partner of this Dutch cooperative.

In Pluk, stakeholders work on and learn from a variety of specific, complex, local and national social dilemmas, such as reducing CO2 emissions in neighbourhoods, reintegrating ex-prisoners into society, increasing cultural diversity and desegregation, sustainable urban development, building a coherent approach to education, and co-creation of communal spaces.

For a Pluk, I mapped a conversation on sustainable supply chain integration for social and public building projects. This conversation involved representatives from all parties throughout a building's lifecycle, from planners, financiers, legislators, public administration, architects, contractors, installers, tenants, estate agents, residents, neighbourhood associations, maintenance companies, to demolishers.

In traditional relationships, the roles, responsibilities and authority of all parts of the construction chain are strictly separated. In short, everyone tries to extract as much value as possible from their own piece, and to throw as much rubbish over the neighbour's fence as quickly as possible. In doing so, a lot of value and material is lost in the chain as a whole.

Pluk innovation platform facilitated a conversation between all stakeholders. This required trust. But the payoff was great, new unexpected connections were found through 'de-fencing'. Knowledge could be shared, creating new value. Those connections can be seen in the map in the form of infrastructure.

Wherever overview and insight are needed, idea cartography offers a quick and efficient way to quickly engage groups of people with diverse frames of reference in a conversation.