What have you done for your state today?

First of all, I would like to thank everyone involved in the First NSK Citizens' Congress for their good humor and very, very hard work, especially Alexei Monroe (who was a very good master of ceremonies) and the other folks put on the Congress. It was a high point of my year so far. Also, thanks to the Founding Members of Neue Slowenische Kunst for all their work and same goes for Haris and Jernej for all the website, a very impressive bit of hard work.

I thought the caliber of the delegates was excellent, and the range of opinions was quite broad, yet we did agree on many important issues. For example, what we (as NSK) should do around micro-nations? This issue was resolved almost unanimously and very quickly, which surprised me. So thanks to the “Hidden Secret NSK Cabal” that choose us so well. Equally, many of speakers were excellent, even though my own views on Neue Slowenische Kunst and NSK might have been very different than their own. Again, I found the diverging opinions stimulating.

I also thought the facilitators who started us off in working groups were also very good and guided us back on topic when needed, so thanks to all the facilitators. Personally, I would have liked a more focused and/or structured format for working groups and especially for the large group work I would like to suggest is to always have the facilitators not be a member of the group, or at least have them not be an active participant in discussion, while working in the large group format.

I felt that we could have accomplished much more in a shorter time if we had more guidance coupled with a set of general background reading material, so we knew more going into the Congress about what we needed to do. I would change this aspect of the process as I think many of us went to the Congress without knowing in full what we were doing there. I also realize that we delegates must take much of the responsibility. The Facebook page should have been used more effectively than it was. We needed to have set up something much more focused, and have more self-imposed structure throughout the Congress. In theory, the Wiki may solve this issue, but then again we will have to see what will happen.

The “Findings” were adequate, if bit obvious for my tastes, and without much “real” derivation from the original vision of Neue Slowenische Kunst and its later incarnation NSK. So how do we make our mark while keeping the internal book of the Laws and convent?

Do we? and can we really “takeover” the real running of the State Machine? If so when and how do we accomplish this goal? How we implement the five the proposed innovations in a realistic matter? Or is this going to degenerate to becoming back what it has been previously, a kind of NSK fan club?

So I ask my Fellow Delegates and others what have you done for your state today?