Culture is often thought of as a consistent and stable set of beliefs, values and practices shared by a group of people. However, taking a closer look, culture is not static but continuously and actively constructed, negotiated and reconstructed. This view on culture opens for a whole range of new opportunities, for cultural co-operation, cultural change and Social Design.

This opportunity is what we want to explore with our concept of Cultural Excellence. Cultural Excellence points to the ability to observe, reflect upon culture, develop culture and thereby consciously taking part in the (re-)construction – while continuously striving for excellence.

• Cultural change is a vital part of change management and directly alters the organisation's practices: It is a reflection in the way of how people co-operate, manage, lead and perform. Venturing Cultural Change is practicing cultural change. It is not about communicating theoretical concepts, strategies and values. Instead it is about doing things differently, and as we know, “we are what we do”.
• Cross-cultural Co-creation seems to be a special case of teambuilding. In fact, teambuilding in an international context requires moderate effort, because the cultural differences are more transparent, and there is a greater awareness on cultures being different. This obeservation however is to a lesser extent apparent between generations or within a company. Yet, excellent cooperation is a diversity issue, and excellent team performance is always the result of a conscious and responsible negotiation leading to the improvement of the practice of co-creation.
• Cultural Excellence relates to social design. The SocialDesignSite was initially put to sea as our flagship project. It is a platform illustrating our ideas about social techniques and tools and their implications on culture.