Open Space in Cyber Space

FamilyFirm at aol.com FamilyFirm at aol.com
Mon Jun 22 17:03:25 PDT 1998


I would greatly appreciate any words of wisdom any of you may have in
combining Open Space and CyberSpace.  I am co-chair of an international
conference for an organization.  It is our annual conference and the
association's members are advisors and consultants from many disciplines who
serve family owned businesses.  The theme is "Continuity and Change: Expanding
the Possibilities."  We have engaged Harrison Owen to facilitate the last
three days of the four day event.

We have also engaged an academic host to create an online conference that will
continue the face to face conference in an asynchronous environment.  The
first stage of online information about the conference is posted at
<A HREF="http://ffi.org/2_New/fall98conf.htm">Conferences</A>  (or, if you
can't use that link try: http://ffi.org/2_New/fall98conf.htm.)  But my
question to you has to do with utilizing online resources prior to the
conference itself.   I have been asked to moderate an online discussion area
at the association's web site to answer questions about OS.  I am also
thinking of creating a bulliten board where people could begin to share ideas
they have for breakout sessions.

I am hesitant, though, about anything that would take away from the chemistry
of OS am wondering if any of you have experimented with this application of
online technology with "the marketplace" prior to the face-to-face gathering.
I have been in a couple of online OS events and things worked out well,  and
have lead a few OS events of various lenghts. I am wondering though about
mixing the two.

Thank you for your thoughts.

Joe Paul

>From  Tue Jun 23 09:00:19 1998
Message-Id: <TUE.23.JUN.1998.090019.0100.>
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 09:00:19 +0100
Reply-To: kloth at tmn.com
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.IDBSU.EDU>
From: Chris Kloth <kloth at tmn.com>
Organization: ChangeWorks
Subject: Re: Open Space in Cyber Space
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Joe Paul,

I assume someone from Meta Net probably has seen your request and
responded.  But incase they are busy with their cyber conference
planning, I suggest you contact Lisa Kimble, Scott Burns or Amy Eunice
at www.tmn.com.  They are in the process of setting up a second annual
conference in cyberspace which will include open space.

There is a community of interest in the world known as "civic
networking" which is doing a lot of learning that speak to the concerns
you raise.  Lisa mand Amy did a workshop I attended at ODNet last yeat
that was very helpful to me.  The punchline, for me was this: All of the
dynamics that occur in f2f meetings can occur in cyberspace and so all
the planning you would normally to facilitate group interatction are
appropriate in cyberspace.

Chris



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