I am not Alan. But I have worked both with Open Space and World Café. I think the café process would be perfect to work with the planning or the sponsor group. You could do a dialogue process to clarify and formulate the theme for the Open Space. One question that Juanita Brown often uses is:
"What key question if explored throughout the system could make a difference to the future of the organisation".
I haven't tried this combination yet but I imagine that it would be a good start of the whole process.
Ingrid
----- Original Message -----
From: Birgitt Williams
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 3:40 AM
Subject: Re: Opening space in the big end of town
Alan,
thank you for this contribution.
I wonder if you could please elaborate a little on the difference between how you perceive conversational processes in relation to what is known as "Dialogue" Process. I know from our conversations how strong an impact the world cafe has made on you and would very much like you to elaborate on the difference of what happens in the world cafe to what happens in an OST meeting. I think you have done an analysis of all of this and it would be helpful to me to hear it.
One of my current explorations follows from the premise that it is the Sponsor who opens the space and the facilitator who then can proceed with facilitating the Open Space Technology meeting. I am convinced of the importance that the Sponsor should have the opportunity prior to the Open Space Technology meeting to make "informed consent" about saying "yes" to having an Open Space Technology meeting in the organization. I work with a planning group for the event that preferably includes the CEO and managers. If the CEO is not part of the group, I make arrangements to see him/her separately. In the meetings, I do my best to create enough information for "informed consent" by discussing both the form and the essence of OST. This has gone well over the years, and this practice has often resulted in a change of theme, clarification of the givens, change of amount of time for the Open Space Technology meeting, or cancellation of the contract when it is clear that the Sponsor is not wanting the outcomes from OST. My current explorations concern my interest in looking at "informed consent" from the Sponsor if we think of the Sponsor as the whole organization rather than just the CEO or department head. This would require some type of conversation about the OST meeting prior to the OST meeting through which the participants have enough information to give informed consent to participating in the OST meeting (different than just showing up in response to an invitation). I am looking for best current ways to do this and am interested in the world cafe, or Dialogue, or Appreciative Inquiry.
I am well aware that an OST meeting can be successful without all of this preparatory work if we measure success by the activity in the OST meeting and by the comments in the closing circle. My personal passion for years has been with the ongoing organization and the success of the OST meeting months or longer after the meeting (and of course extending to the interesting dynamics of many OST meetings in the same organization and the Open Space Organization). This interest in "what happens Monday morning?" in the aftermath of the OST meeting takes me to my current exploration.
Thank you so much,
Birgitt
-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]On Behalf Of Alan Stewart
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2000 12:29 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Opening space in the big end of town
Hi there
Here is an item about taking Open Space/Cafe conversational processes into the boardroom of an international company in the context of a KM (Knowledge Management - a lovely oxymoron?) Leaders Forum.
See http://www.bl.com.au/km/kmlf.htm
(There is an exquisite freudian typo in the notice - which may have been corrected by the time you see this. If you _can_ see the fun of it, well and good. If you can not, no worries! Whatever happens .... contributes to the story line).
You may find this item of interest from diverse perspectives. Among these are that:
. Here is an opportunity to take OST/Cafe conversational processes into a domain that has probably not had much exposure to them, yet.
. A boardroom of a major consultancy company is to be transformed for a few hours into a cafe. When I requested a Cafe layout for the event the convenor
noted 'You do appreciate that small tables are difficult to find in a corporate setting.' I responded 'Maybe this is part of the problem!'
. I find a Cafe (Open Space a la carte) format appropriate in some circumstances. For sitting at small tables - maximum of 6 people, eyeball to eyeball - and with attractive decor to contribute to the ambience quickly leads to an intimacy and an inclusiveness among total strangers. And having paper table cloths on which to record gives people plenty of scope to be creative.
One person (a senior manager) recently spent almost the whole of a 3 hour Passion Cafe drawing; she did not seem able to stop! Birgitt has recently contributed wonderfully imaginative ideas for setting up the conditions for this kind of recording to happen and to capture the outcomes with digitat camera.
A feature of Cafe processes is that they are designed specifically to address, and stay with, _questions_.(www.theworldcafe.com). Seemingly physical arrangement, such as small tables, as well as OST principles and L2F, can contribute to the deep structure underpinning such a gathering.
I will add that, when facilitating a Cafe in a venue in which it is logistically feasible, we start in a circle. I _always_ invite people to put the tables aside and come into a closing circle.
Good to converse, warmly
Alan
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