Diversity and disability in Open Space

[Michelle Cooper]

<<<How have folks done the ID process (voting, etc)and what would work with
60plus people?>>>

Linda;
The event that I facilitated with a colleague last weekend had a format
similar to what you describe- 1 1/2 days for open space discussions and
priority setting.  The first full day was creating the agenda and the
discussions.  We ended the first day with evening news.  We chose not to do
a "closing" the first day, as we wanted the principles and law to carry over
to the priority setting.  The reports were printed overnight and distributed
the following morning.  About 75 people (from the original 100)
participated. We gave the group about 1/2 hour to review the reports and
gave them 5 "hot dots" to use to identify the priorities.  Participants were
asked to put their dots (could be distributed in any way they wanted) on the
topics that they thought were most important to move forward and for which
they had had energy to help move forward.  Six priority issues emerged and
other topics were identified as subsets of those top issues. This took about
40 minutes (even when we had the reports being interpreted in ASL).
Individuals volunteered to lead discussion for one hour about next steps or
action planning for the top priorities. The principles and law were still in
place for these discussions. They came back and reported (briefly) to the
group at the end of one hour.  There was some pretty detailed next steps
established by some groups We  did closing after the report back.

It was simple and worked pretty effectively for the number of people that we
had. I agree with Harrison that you would need some technology help for a
very large group.  I have not tried the technology myself yet (as I have not
had to deal with the very large numbers myself).  There is also a technology
that I have seen used called Resolver technology.  The company is based in
Toronto.  It was quite effective, but adds a fair bit of expense for the
organizers as one must pay for the consultant and equipment (hand held
voters like remote controls for each person).