Open Space (sort of) at the 13th International AIDS Conference

[Lisa Heft]

Dear wise, thoughtful, playful, kind and courageous colleagues -

I am now back from facilitating in and for the International AIDS
Conference, which was held in Barcelona, Spain in July.  An amazing
experience.  For one, the people who work against this horrific
epidemic.  Scientists, activists, parents, survivors, policy makers, sex
workers, and people with HIV disease - sometimes all in the same person.
You walk across to world to meet each other (people come from every
country and culture, from all over the globe, from the poorest village
to the biggest cities) and though you are each unique, you share a
common sense of sharing in life and death experiences - you share an
intimacy before you've even met.  It was also a magical experience of
standing next to someone on the steps, turning to meet them and
discovering that you both do the same thing and that person is exactly
the right person for you to have met right then - Whoever Comes Is the
Right Person and Be Prepared to Be Surprised, indeed.  Plus, we were
blessed at Closing Ceremony to hear the eloquent words of two former
Presidents, Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela.  Both passionate fighters
for health, access and dignity for all.

As for the facilitations: I'd come to facilitate skillsbuilding
workshops in 1) how to take in and process all the information overload
of a conference and 2) strategic planning for vulnerable communities.
We repeated the workshops in English, Spanish and French for both topics
(I don't speak French, but I helped with logistics and waved my hands a
lot). For the Community Forum session before the official conference
opened, the conference also asked me to take on the role of being the
lead facilitator of a team of 30 international facilitators, in a
process which I inherited from someone who'd designed it - a process
that I didn't wholly agree with.  How would you help 1500 people from
all places and languages network with each other in two hours?  I'm sure
you have some OST-style ideas.  Their (the planners of this community
forum) idea was to have everybody stand under a banner of their
continent, with a contact sheet in hand (their goal was to make 5
contacts).  They also wanted people to break into interest areas of:
Prevention, Treatment and Care, Youth and Young People, Gender and
Sexuality, Vulnerable and Marginalized Populations, Mobility and
Migration.  Great topics, and they reflect the different issues
identified by conference organizers. Originally 60 facilitators were
supposed to circulate to make sure that people made contacts one-to-one
or in groups of no more than three people and to encourage them to move
on to another group periodically to make their total of 5 contacts.
Mimes would also circulate throughout the gathering to help people find
their way.

So you can see how I put this through an Open Space filter.  Not that OS
is the only way; it's just that their process seemed so similar yet
there was so much control that it might limit greater possibilities.
Well, to make a long story short (hmmm.all my stories are long
stories.), we merged our thoughts to create an adapted method, with a
handout in three languages and simple graphics indicating the 4 steps
participants could take (Make a sign with your question/issue/topic of
passion/interest, wear it or wave it, people of similar interest will
find you, feel free to bumblebee around).  We 30 or so facilitators wore
signs that said "May I help you?" in all the languages we spoke, and
circulated about in the manner of a host introducing people of similar
interests at one's own cocktail party.  Some of us facilitators added
other topics to their signs, such as 'Ask me where the restrooms are'
and 'Kisses, 50 cents). Some participants made many marvelous
connections; others felt they never really knew what was happening and
took care of themselves by going home to rest (many had just arrived and
were totally jet-lagged, and the morning had been a series of speeches).
A great success.  Although I think it would have been better with a
ritual / formal opening and closing, as in Open Space Technology.  So I
experienced a little ego-bruising when some of the great facilitators
looked back at the experience as perhaps needing a bit more opening and
closure.  Because in our compromise with the original design, the
organizers did not want Open Space.  I just snuck in what I could of the
OS elements.  So it looked like I was the lead in a process I designed
which was not entirely transcendent.  Heh.  Lisa lived.


L i s a   H e f t
Consultant, facilitator, educator
O p e n i n g  S p a c e
2325 Oregon
Berkeley, California
94705-1106   USA
(+01) 510 548-8449
lisaheft at pacbell.net
www.openspaceworld.com

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