Opening Space "in house"

[Birgitt Bolton]

Hello Kerry,
and thank you for your story. I am eager to hear a bit more and wonder if
the action follow up was actually followed up with. And how did the
multi-language situation work out with the follow up.

I have not had successful multi-language open space event. The multi
language events I have done  have appeared successful at the time because
people of all languages understood the process (with the help of
translators), posted topics and had discussions. However, deep
disappointment was happening underneath. I live in Canada where the
predominate language is English, a second official language of French, and
then many, many other language contributions with clusters depending on
geographic area. The problem which came clear in every multi language Open
Space I have done as reported at the end or after the fact is that the
people of languages other than English (English was the majority) attended
sessions in any language including English and found ways to make it work.
English speaking persons, almost always attended only sessions conducted in
English and made no effort to participate in sessions conducted in other
languages. The non-English speaking persons left the experience with
resentments and felt that they had been talking to each other the whole time
about the issues for which they had passion (posted). Follow up was affected
by this resentment.

I am eager for success stories, because I believe it can work.
Birgitt

Birgitt Bolton
www.openspacetechnology.com
Striving for Success?
Make Genuine Contact!


-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]On Behalf Of kerry
napuk
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2000 5:27 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: Opening Space "in house"


Dear Murli

Following Harrison's story about using OST in any language, I did a day and
half event in Brasov, Romania last September with 72 people from 5 cities.
I kept the English down to 35 minutes in total over the event, letting my
translator explain what was happening.  Interestingly, my translator who
was the sponsor became a co-facilitator about one third into the event.

I also trained 9 other facilitators by explaining the process the day
before, letting them participate and de-briefing everyone for an hour after
the event was over.  This "action learning" seemed to work well.

Of the 72 paerticipants, 95% signed up to work on implementing the action
priorities voted for at the end of our time together.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Kerry Napuk
Open Futures Ltd.
10 West Savile Road
Edinburgh EH16 5NG
United Kingdom

website: <www.openfutures.com>