open space event continued on-line

Birgitt Bolton birgitt at worldchat.com
Sun Apr 20 13:04:54 PDT 1997


Hi Lisa! It is exciting as this story of Open Space on the web unfolds.

Just thought you might like to know of a small attempt at ongoing on-line
Open Space. On April 12th, Larry Peterson, Diane Blair and myself did three
simultaneous Open Spaces in three ballrooms at a large hotel. Topic was
partnerships between business and the school system. A very hot topic here.
We did the Open Space against a lot of odds. First there were keynote
speakers and so on for the group of over 400, then there was a four hour
only period for Open Space in which folks left the big group and met in
three smaller groups. Only time for two discussion time slots. Larry and I
certainly went into it worried about a mini-open space with a group of
folks who didn't know each other, with a hot issue in which there were
people stationed in each room to stop the process (possible hecklers),
sandwiched in between other agenda. The idea (Diane Blair is the champion
of the cyberspace piece) was that we would get the topics up, some
discussion, the reports would be posted on the web site, and discussions
would continue there. After four weeks, the discussion time would end with
a multi-vote.

The Open Space was an amazing success. Even against the odds. The
"hecklers" left because they couldn't find a platform. The topics were
exactly what needed to happen with deep honesty including the CEO of a
large corporation putting up "Do the corporations really have another
agenda". I was amazed at getting this so quickly. Folks felt that they had
their first real chance to get to know each other, listen to each other
(even in this short time frame). Wow!

So it is continuing on-line. I have no idea how it will go but I think it
has lots of potential. We are learning from it. I think better technology
would have worked better (in fact I think Diane called you but had no
budget to do what really should have been done here)--but it is still a
start. (We had strongly urged her to access the wisdom at Metanet.) I think
there is room for an ongoing discussion between you and her. She  sees some
of the potential, but you could help her dream bigger.

The site is for the Learning Partnership and found at http://www.tlp.on.ca

 ----------
> From: Lisa Kimball <lisa at tmn.com>
> To: birgitt at worldchat.com
> Subject: open space at virtual civicnet conference
> Date: April 20, 1997 10:29 AM
>
>
> Hi!  We're going to be doing a very exciting Open Space "event" on the
web
> May 22 - June 30.  CivicNet is a virtual conference bringing together
> people involved in civic and community networking from all over the U.S.
> and many from other countries.  We'll be talking about some of the ways
> technology can leverage efforts to increase the range of stakeholders
> involved in discussions about the future.
>
> In addition to the Open Space activities, there will also be keynote
> "speakers" including Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community
and
> Carolyn Lukensmeyer, co-director of Gore's reinventing government project
> and now director of America Speaks which seeks to support projects to
> increase civic dialogue.   Workshops will include facilitated sessions to
> explore how various group processes can be used in this context including
> Scenarios and Future Search.
>
> Harrison and others have been advising on the design of the Open Space in
> cyberspace and any other OSI'ers who choose to participate in CivicNet
> will be instantly conscripted <grin> for the design team.
>
> To check it out and sign up come to http://www.tmn.com/civicnet
>
> I think this will be a lot of fun.  It will also be a significant event
> for those interested in community networking so please pass this along to
> anyone you know who should be involved!
>
>   * lisa
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> Lisa Kimball   (lisa at tmn.com)   Voice:  703.243.6622   FAX:  703.841.9798
> Metasystems Design Group, Inc., 2000 N 15th St. #103, Arlington, VA 22201
> http://www.tmn.com/~lisa
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>
>
>
>
>




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