Brokering is the practice of spotting what hinders or slows things down. It identifies gaps, delays, bottlenecks, friction, threshold moments, memory loss, weak links, and poorly managed information, and turns them into opportunities. With this skill, brokers promote technology development that is responsive and more aware of societal needs. Brokers operate at the intersection of human understandings and technological development. In this way, they can reduce friction between technology and society.
Over the past few weeks, we have mapped brokering practices, and built an understanding of what brokering is and how it is perceived in different contexts. The terms broker and brokering contain the possibility to define something new or not recognised into existence. We use the broker and related terms as part of the renewal of technology-related professional vocabulary. It is one thing to talk about intermediaries or mediators, and another to talk about brokers. Mediation or facilitation can be brokering, but not all brokering is facilitation.
Brokering as a professional practice
“Sowing the seeds of new ideas and nurturing the sprouts.”- Quote from a workshop participant
Brokering is like walking through a forest: at first glance, it seems as if nothing is happening, but beneath the surface a complex system is alive. A skilled broker learns to notice such subtle dynamics, who talks to whom, where information bottlenecks form, whose needs and capacities complement each other. By translating across domains and creating the conditions for collaboration, the broker turns scattered signals into clear direction, and hidden potential into real results.
In August, we organized our first workshop on brokering. The aim was to understand how professionals who identify as brokers view brokering, and what they think brokering is. We asked: How would you define brokering? Who or what is a broker? Can you provide practical examples of brokering? Twelve people participated in the workshop, including our five-member Brokers team. The questions sparked a lively and wide-ranging discussion, which is summarized below:
What is brokering? As a phenomenon, brokering is recognized, but it is challenging to define it precisely, in a way that would capture its scope and spectrum. Brokering is more than simply networking; it is about realizing concrete results. Workshop participants characterized brokering as follows:
““Actively creating a shared understanding through collective thinking.”
“Bringing people and things together in a way that generates new thinking and insights, leading to action.”
Who or what is a broker? A broker is an “insider-outsider.” Basically, anyone in an expert organization can act as a broker, some more than others. A broker is:
“An expert who can think beyond their own expertise, recognize gaps in personal or group knowledge, and come up with ways to fill them.”
"Someone who brings people, ideas, and skills together."
"A broker has a good understanding of how people from different fields of expertise think and perceive their work, and knows how to translate this into new action. The broker sees the gap."
Although brokering is recognized, the work done by brokers might be seen as too vague. A broker is "anyone whose role allows for brokering." Although brokering brings considerable added value, it can also place a burden on the broker, as brokering is often "extra work."
Workshop participants expressed a desire for the broker’s role to be recognized. This matters because the broker might be seen as the "the first to be let go." When the expertise behind brokering isn’t understood, its value remains undefined.
Practical examples of brokering? Although the definition of brokering might appear abstract, the discussion underlined its practical nature. Brokering consists of concrete practices:
"I write and illustrate syntheses that arise from the thoughts of the parties, but take them forward as 'issues' that can be built upon and developed."
“Acting as an interpreter between the substance expert and the developer.”
“Challenging prevailing thinking and ‘truths’, and bringing different (or common) perspectives to different tables.”
Prototypes to support vocabulary work
Based on the workshop material, we outlined the key features of brokering and identified the job description of a broker. This is not intended as a complete description of the brokers or brokering practices, but rather a starting point. We will use visual prototypes that can push the thinking forward. For the prototype below, we identified twelve different brokering practices: translator, carer, matchmaker, enabler, contextualizer, innovator, initiator, synthesizer, observer, ally, interpreter, and crossbreeder. To begin a discussion of areas of brokering, we divided these roughly into three categories based on what these practices do in the world: they either add, link, or integrate.
The practices overlap and intertwine with one another, and the categorization is mainly indicative at this stage. Based on the feedback we have received, practices that are perceived as negative are completely absent from the visualisation. These would involve practices like shaking things up, removing, and breaking. Practices that reframe already existing ways to perceive things are also missing from the picture.
Presenting brokering practices in a visual prototype as a full circle may give the impression of a closed case. This is not our intention. The prototype should rather be seen as an open canvas that can grow and develop as the project progresses. Later, this exercise might even produce a tool that enables the development of entirely new brokering practices.
Next, we’ll grow a shared vocabulary of brokering through interviews and workshops. If you’d like to take part, we would be very happy to hear from you. Tell us about yourself and your brokering practices by sending an email to