What should be the "WeBrussels" Name to go for election in 2018?

Copy pasting here my email to the group for visibility and transparence:

If WeBrussels is meant to be non partisan and welcome any political ideology then we could reuse the name BrusselsTogether (and I personally think it would be great to join forces).

Non-partisan here doesn't mean that it cannot have a position, but it means that all its positions should be defined through an open and transparent process (aka idea of a "new parliament").

Now, if that's not the goal of WeBrussels for various reasons, no biggies, let's just keep things separated (and WeBXL could still benefit from BrusselsTogether to share the underlying open and transparent operating system, mutualize costs and create together a participatory budget).

Basically the goal here is that we want to avoid a situation where an association doesn't want to be part of BrusselsTogether because it doesn't share its political ideology.
But if the "party" is non partisan and open to all ideology (as long as it's transparent, open, and share common values such as inclusiveness), then it's not an issue.
By way of comparison, all associations today operate on bOS ("Belgium Operating System") even though Belgium has an opinion on various topics depending on the government of the day that those associations may or may not support. Does that make sense?

We have a meeting July 4th for BrusselsTogether. Would be great to know by then if there is interest to pursue this idea (this would have to be accepted by the majority of the people who make BrusselsTogether today, we are also very open and democratic for making those decisions).

Also, when you say "it would be good to have our own approach", you imply that this is incompatible with joining forces with BrusselsTogether, which I don't think it's true. At the end of the day, BrusselsTogether is the sum of all the people who contribute. So it can be geared towards whatever approach we feel is the best.

Another point: we are really good in Brussels to multiply initiatives and spread ourselves thin because we each want to have "our own approach". While I believe in a "thousand experiments", if the goal is to make a dent in an election, we need to take an approach of federating people and initiatives. The sooner we will develop the muscle to join forces with other initiatives, the stronger we will become.

My main point is you can't be a funding platform, a host to other citizen project and a political party...of course you can think you can be, but it's going to be utter complex for people to understand what they get into or is that just my opinion ?

What if some project don't want to be under the BT host because it is a political party ?

what if the very possibility to be hosted by BT (imagine other collectives) will have issues to get funding if BT is a registered political party ?

can BT as a political party collect funds & redistribute them to other collectives ?
how are these collectives that entered into BT because of it's initial DNA going to decide or not, if BT is to become a Political Party ?

These are all question I ask myself, they are not obstacles, they are just legitimate question that we have to think about, in the choose of other people, because no matter what we may think perception is important, and how citizens are going to perceive this eco system is important, should be clear, easy to understand and transparent.

It's not just BT community that will have to take a decision on the name, it's also WeBXL/WeBrussels participants that have been ideating something under a specific name that will have to decide by themselves if they think it make sense.

I personally think that WeBrussels is a collective hosted by BT with the specific aim of getting into elections and this goal is out of the scope or "reason to exist" of the initial BT narrative and actions, in my view there is a difference between having different projects with different aims (not spreading) and having one giant aggregator of projects, ideas, goals and people that will be utterly difficult to pitch/explain and perhaps also operate. but that's just my opinion, I'm happy to ear counter-arguments and probably learn to let-it-go if these questions find a viable answer.

and by the way: I don't

"you imply that this is incompatible with joining forces with BrusselsTogether,"

No I don't imply that, I think that joining forces is inevitable, WeBrussels main idea is to reconnect with civil society, citizen participation, democratic audit, for doing so it needs to join forces with BT but not only, there is a whole network of associations (outside of BT) NGO's, citizens movements that will need to be connected for this joining of forces to succeed, it's way beyond a technical or ecological approach to join forces, it's about connecting and joining forces with the environnement around us that actually make Brussels what it is.

In short we can reverse the question : why is it that creating a initiative to go in Politics (something that we talked both in a bar, before WeBrussels was even born) must be done under BT "brand name" and not with it's own identity, decided by its participants and democratically articulated for anyone in Brussels to have a say in the construction process ?

Do we really need to all come under "one brand" one name, one identity ?
I don't think so, I think there is a difference between spreading (duplicating) and creating different projects with different aims/goals, articulated in different or similar ways to revive our current eco system.

United in Diversity doest not need to mean: fragmented and divided.

"What if some project don't want to be under the BT host because it is a political party?"
Exactly, hence my first email :-)

It comes down to whether or not WeBrussels aims to be a traditional party or a non partisan umbrella party (what I refer to as "a new parliament"). if it's the former, then you are absolutely right. No question. If it's the latter, then there is a narrative that makes sense to me.

IMHO, a political party 2.0 is a non partisan platform that creates an environment within which citizens are free to experiment and make things happen no matter their political orientation, no matter their origin. Through that lens I think that it makes a lot of sense for BrusselsTogether to have a political party and for WeBrussels to offer a platform for citizens to take initiatives.

I can go either way. I just wanted to offer this opportunity because people in the community have expressed that "BrusselsTogether" would be a great name for this initiative.

Regardless we will work together and help each other :-)
It's more important to get things started that to be hang up on things like this.

Hi there,

I think the first step to be more pragmatic will be to invite knowledgable people to the conversation and make a list that people we know in a spreadsheet. I know some of them (that works as consultant, designers for several political party) => their advices might be good to follow.

But to share my opinion on the topic :

I think that WeBrussels must have the position to be a non classical « party ». Because a party means to represent just a part of the population literally (that then we should avoid to be more representative).

The goals of WeBrussels for me, is to represent All the Civil Society globally (not a part) => then WeBrussels must represent all the member of the civil society (associations, citizens etc) in a political level.

For me you have BrusselsTogether as non partisan and non political association and WeBrussels as the political representation that will then represent BrusselsTogether and other members just in a political level. Whenever the opinion and color of each member of that civil society => WeBrussels must be the collective intelligence summary that will defends them in a political level.

Then it makes sense that you have several entities that’s being a part of an ensemble and it’s coherent. So BrusselsTogether regroup all the initiatives and projects in Brussels and WeBrussels will represent the interests of all the civil society in a political level.

=> No conflict as WeBrussels is non-political and the WeBrussels yes.

But again let's invite some experts and Brusseleirs on this discussion and let's define the position of WeBrussels with clarity and efficience ;-)

Hello,

I believe WeBXL can be a good name.

WeBrussels can be good too, but WeBXL has more authentic feeling.

Bonjour,

Je crois que WebXL peut être particulièrement bon.

WeBrussels peut être bon aussi, mais WeBXL a la sensation plus authentique.

Hallo,

Ik denk dat WebXL een goede naam kan zijn.

WeBrussels kan ook goed zijn, maar WeBXL heeft meer authentiek gevoel.

1. I support the idea that ideally we should get experts to advice on the name. Do we know anybody?
2. I am in favour of keeping different names for WeBXL and BrusselsTogether. While we are a "new parliament", we will be perceived as a political party. This risk can best be managed by having different names for the "party 2.0" and the platform.
3. I fully support close collaboration between BrusselsTogether and WeBXL. Collaboration is what both movements stand for. Moreover, the way decisions are reached, the collective intelligence tools, etc, etc, should be used in both organisations.
4. I like the name WeBXL but some have indicated that it reads like "Web XL". Back to the experts?

It can be We Brussels or We BXL

Mmh, I would prefer We Brussels (the same way than you will pronounce it even if it's "WeBxl" and it's a more correct form for me). Also, I've seen that the webrussels.org is free it will be an easier url to explain than webxl.brussels.

For the name himself, I wasn't convinced by WeBxl (or WeBrussels either) in the begining because it's specific to Brussels but after reading all the well written docs and compare the name of other emerging parties - it makes sense for me.

If we elect a process not a person then it makes sense that is us (We) in Brussels. Then if in other cities they want to reproduce that, they could call it We Leuven, We Liege and make their own.

Also I think that we might need to translate the name in "Nous Bruxelles" in french for instance. So people who are not english native can better identify to the cause (I think that we should avoid the effect of having a name in a foreign language...).

With that in mind, we can play with the "We", like "Votez pour Nous", "Bruxelles est à nous" etc. so the "We" can have a powerful meaning in our branding.

But it will be better to contact some branding experts... Maybe we might contact Unanimous (https://unanimous.eu/) ? They expertise fields are : Scale-up strategy, Understanding market dynamics, Market positioning, Social media & digital strategy. I think that Guilherme already contact them and I have a contact with a Thomas Perissino. Or I might ask to other brand strategists that I know (from Publicis, Mountain View) if you want ?

I'm definitely not the good person for that so I will let you choose and debate about that (already said all I have to say in this topic and I trust in you guys ;-)