AW: AW: an open space for around 1500 people ?

Visuelle Protokolle mail at visuelle-protokolle.de
Fri Nov 16 02:46:26 PST 2001


Harrison Owen wrote:
The use of visuals is great -- for it does add a whole new level to the
communication. But every time I have used (or seen used) "facilitators" for
the process, I have been less than impressed. If you have 30 concurrent
groups, you will need 30 trained facilitators -- and good ones are very hard
to come by. More to the point, the addition of facilitators for any purpose
takes the process out of the hands of the participants -- and once again
puts them in the role of recipients -- having things done to or for them. So
not only does the addition of facilitators complicate the process (or at
least your headaches in "managing" the process) it also, in my experience,
impedes the process.
  beautiful to have this discussion forum!
  Dear Harrison, you don't need 30 visual facilitators for 30 groups! We
made the experience, that within 10 to 15 minutes you can pick up the
essentials of a group discussion, no matter wether you come in rather in the
beginning or the end. We would not have dared to claim that - it is really a
matter of experience! For example, we visualized a conference of 800 postmen
in Berlin, and went to 36 concurrent groups one after the other, 10 minutes
each (my god, that was really hard work!) - and we were only two persons! We
showed the resulting pictures to the postmen afterwards asking if something
was missing, and see, everybody was satisfied!

  We too love people drawing themselves, and often help them doing so. But
as it is in Open Space, they are concentrated on the item they choose, and
too much drawing sometimes takes the concentration away from the discussion,
and you can't expect pictures from all the groups. So we love to have both
possibilities.

  You mention David Sibbet and his beautiful work. He and all of his
partners, friends, followers in the US use the method of drawing on big wall
papers, not especially appropriate for fast group discussions. We instead
use small cards we carry with us, very easy to use in flexible situations.
And we put these cards together afterwards, show them to the people and ask,
whether we really understood them, and if someone wishes a change we do that
immediately (the drawing of one card takes about 1 to 2 minutes!).

  So we hope to contribute to a growing cooperation of OpenSpace people and
visual facilitators, without disturbing the participants, but serving them,
with minimal organisational effort and maximal effectivity.

  Reinhard
  VISUELLE PROTOKOLLE
  Kuchenmueller & Dr. Stifel

  Munich Germany

  Tel: +49-89-202 447 48

  http://www.visuelle-protokolle.de




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