What does the planet mean to us? What is real meaning, anyway? Where do we find real value? What is the difference between satisfying desires and the creation of value? Considering the general atmosphere of all the workshops, a number of observations can be made.

Genuine sustainability requires radical change. Technological innovations are not enough. Social and cultural transformations are needed as well -- this means changing lifestyles, attitudes, and values. Currently, our western value systems are deeply flawed, if we want to progress towards sustainability. It came as no surprise that many discussions in many workshops addressed values and attitudes as foundations of behaviours. The entire info-eco debate centres around moral and 'soft' issues like value and care. All the discussions generated genuine enthusiasm and energy amongst workshop participants, but they also caused mixed reactions, ranging from affectionate agreement to aggressive rejection. The energy was there, but there was much criticism about the lack of concrete examples and ideas. Is this what happens when value enters the debate?

The design community apparently has a hard time when it attempts to address value in an explicit manner. Workshops like "designing desires" took a new-age perspective, whereas others like "work" or "education" took a more factual approach. There is no common language that we can use to discuss and give form to value-related issues.

Was all the softness a cheap way of hiding a lack of creativity? Or does the western fixation on rational thinking and argumentation have a hard time dealing with issues that cannot be expressed in words? Maybe the info-eco debate requires us to think, not only with our heads, but also with our hearts...

About the future...

This is not the end of the story. Some workshops have resulted in groups of people still working on the issues that they addressed during the Doors3 event. There will be an 'electronic storylines' website, there is an 'eternally yours' working group, the 'care' workshop lives on in the 'design age network', and one of the games from the 'education' workshop will be developed into a real product.

Also, at the Netherlands Design Institute, we are currently creating new structures and new methods for workshops in 1996, in which we will attempt to use the current findings in order to further investigate the action potential inside the info-eco debate.