Come to the Open Space on Open Space, November 14-16

[Peggy Holman]

To Open Space Practitioners,

The Sixth Annual Open Space on Open Space is coming to Monterey, California
on November 14-16.  This is your chance to join with others using Open Space
to continue your learning and share your questions and discoveries.  It is
also a lot of fun!

The details are available at www.tmn.com/openspace/osonos.htm

Please forward this invitation on to friends and colleagues who would be
interested in participating with the Open Space community.

See you in Monterey,

Peggy Holman
Open Space Institute
425-746-6274

>From  Sat Aug 29 14:57:27 1998
Message-Id: <SAT.29.AUG.1998.145727.0400.>
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 14:57:27 -0400
Reply-To: dgp at cyberus.ca
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.IDBSU.EDU>
From: Parkinson & Gibeault <dgp at cyberus.ca>
Subject: Dialogue at end of OS
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

                                             Dialogue at the end of OS

Hello everyone,

I have two questions around that theme for which I would like your
ideas: one is related to the timing of leader-participant dialogue and
the second is about the facilitation process for this in large groups
and the use of microphones.

I would like to know different ways by which people handle the dialogue
that can occur at the end of the Open Space between the leaders and the
participants. In my own experience, leaders are in the circle and listen
to the presentation that each "action planning discussion group" makes.
After all plans are presented and questions of clarification have been
addressed, leaders give their feedback and a dialogue follows. This
occurs before the closing of the circle. Have any of you done this
differently?

In a relatively small group, the facilitator can keep track of who wants
to speak but in a large group, how do you keep track of who wants to
speak? The fairness and neutrality in this respect is very important. Do
people line up behind a microphone?

I prefer not putting stand up microphones in the circle so that people
lining up to speak do not obstruct the view of others and more
importantly, do not break the space of the circle. I was thinking of
putting the microphones at three locations in the circle, but slightly
behind the circle so that line ups are outside the circle. This may
appear like a detail but I would rather here about the experience of
others and bring the best to the group.

Thank you for your thoughts.

Diane Gibeault


191 Juliette Ave.
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada, K1K 2T5
(613) 744-2638
Fax (613) 744-3347