550 plus!

kenoli Oleari kenoli at igc.org
Wed Oct 24 17:02:57 PDT 2001


In the work I do, which is often Future Search but sometimes OS (many
of the same principles apply to both) we place great importance on
the sponsor.  If you are the  sponsor, are you standing for the
organization or community of people you are calling together?  If
not, you might need to find the right sponsor.  You want a sponsor
that has the credibility to put out an invitation and have it taken
seriously. Then the sponsor has to invite a circle of stakeholders to
act as a planning team.  By getting broad enough representation on
the planning team, you have a broad enough representation of voices
to reach out to the larger group you want to bring in as
participants.  You can still open the event up to whoever wants to
come, but by having the planning team get commitments from a core
group, you make sure enough voices and the right voices are present.
The criteria we us is anyone who is affected by or could affect the
outcome of the conference and any voice that is necessary to address
the question posed to the conference.

Kenoli


>In a message dated 10/22/01 6:39:50 AM, kenoli at igc.org writes:
>
><<
>One of the things that I have found is that the way to get people to
>attend is to invite them.  And the people who can most effectively do
>that inviting are people that the people being invited know.  For
>this reason, I usually work with a planning team from a sponsoring
>organization.  The team can be a smaller group (less than 15) who
>represent the organization or community involved.  These people will
>know who needs to come to the OS and will know how to approach them
>so they will come. >>
>
>This is excellent advice.  I would like to generalize it.  It is not very
>possible to advocate for yourself.  Or your meeting.  Or your idea, directly.
>  You will be seen as having a self-interest, which creates blocks in the
>minds of those who would attend or who need to hear the idea, meaning accept
>and act on it.  You must get others to advocate for you and the meeting or
>the idea.  This is called "third party advocacy", to give it a name.  Used
>properly, tpa is very powerful.
>
>One way that you can use it is to go to people who have experienced an event
>led by you that was successful.  Ask them who they know, especially who they
>know in power, that might benefit from attending.  Then, ask them if they
>would write a letter or make a telephone call to that person on behalf of you
>and your event.  Most will do so.  Have a draft letter you can hand them for
>their editing.  That relieves them of having to construct it from scratch.
>Follow up with them if they are going to call and ask if this is the time to
>contact Mr. or Ms.------, assuming the call has been made.  If it hasn't,
>it's a gentle nudge to do as agreed.  If it has, you can move forward.
>
>One can also use this process to gain clients.  All my work comes from
>referrals.  I've never "marketed", as such.  I give an occasional speech.
>Nothing else.  It works well enough.
>
>Paul Everett
>
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--
Kenoli Oleari, Horizons of Change, http://www.horizonsofchange.com
1801 Fairview Street, Berkeley, CA  94703   Voice Phone: 510-601-8217,
Fax: 510-595-8369, Email: kenoli at igc.org (or click on: mailto://kenoli@igc.org)

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