Judith Stegeman
Last week was the Bubble Week where we worked with 30 students on one task: making Texel a sustainable, self-sufficient island in 2065. This Bubble was created at ‘De Verzamelpost’ in Den Hoorn, where we worked day in, day out, the whole day long and where we even had our meals. The only time we left our Bubble was in the evening, around ten o’clock, when we departed to our sleeping places at ‘De Potvis’, 4 km away. There was only one moment in the week where we left our Bubble in the afternoon for a few hours, doing field research in the surroundings of ‘De Verzamelpost’. This intense Bubble Week was a huge transition compared to the seven weeks before the Bubble Week. The seven weeks before consisted of one lecture of four hours a week, doing 10 hours of research and making a report with a group of three to four people.
What are actually the advantages of working in a Bubble? And what are the disadvantages?
Working at the same place at the same time
Working in a Bubble on one place with a whole group of people makes everyone focused on the same job. Together we had one job and one ambition. By working on the same place we all had to put the same time and effort into the project to reach a good result. Communication and working together is made much easier when everyone is at the same spot at the same time. By focusing so much on this task we had almost no time to think about other things anymore.
Multi-disciplinary team
Our group in the Bubble consisted of different kinds of people from different studies with different kinds of backgrounds and nationalities. This created a multi-disciplinary group where everyone could use his or her own qualities.
Facilitated process
Our process was facilitated in such a way that breakfast, lunch, dinner and drinks were offered to us. We did not have to take care of that by ourselves, which gave us more time to focus on the task.
The sleeping places were at another building which created a distinction between working and free time. Therefore the mind had some rest.
Contact with Texel
The idea of working in a Bubble on Texel is next to the group process that you are at the place of your case. This makes sure you get to know the principles of the island and the people living there. This was mainly ensured by the people coming to ‘De Verzamelpost’ offering a guest lecture to us. However, it would have been useful to have stepped outside of this Bubble as well. Then we would have had time to visit the island and talk to more people of Texel, than only during the fieldwork. I am lucky that I have already been on Texel several times, but mainly the international students have not seen much of Texel this week.
Contact with the group
Stepping outside of the Bubble would have been good for the group as well. Now it was only about working together on the task of sustainable Texel in 2065, but it would have been good to get to know each other better. We did not even know each other’s names at the beginning of the Texel week. How should you work together without even knowing something about the people you work with?
More free time in general would have been good. The working hours were way too long which made the productiveness and communication less efficient. It created some frictions as everyone was tired. It is good to have free time for contemplation. But it is anyhow good for your personal development as you learn how to deal with such a situation.
Crises
Because of this hard work and the not always sufficient communication by the teachers we had a few crises, which led to discussions and finally a good end result. It was funny that we proposed such a structure with disasters for our future plan for Texel as well. Crises make sure that things change.
End result
In the end, the result counts. We made a great story and presentation with the group, which I would have never expected. This good final result made me forget about the negative things of the week. I learned a lot from it.
Out of the Bubble
It can be concluded that working in a Bubble is good for the process and the end result, but it is sometimes important to get out of that Bubble and go into the big wide world as well.