OST as a conference track

[Michelle Cooper]

Hello to everyone on the list serve. I have taken a leave of absence for a
period of time and ventured into the list to scan what is happening. I have
had messages flowing to a special folder that I could peruse when ready.
BTW...about 2000 since the first week of October.

I have had a few experiences with integrating an Open Space Technology
stream as a "concurrent" session in a conference - twice as a facilitator
and once as a conference chair. Each had its unique learning opportunities.

The first was a half day at a large provincial conference for the Ontario
Hospitals Association. This fell on day three of a four day conference.
Sub-organizations had designated time to organize sessions specifically for
their members. The Health Care Educators engaged myself and a colleague to
facilitate an open space as both an opportunity to give direction for the
organization and a chance to experience Open Space Technology. About 70
members attended and it was very positively received by the participants. A
number of them subsequently learned how to facilitate open space technology.
Some of the factors that made it flow well included
-it was like a "conference within a conference" for the whole group - no
competing priorities.
-the theme was meaningful
-and all of the other things that make OST great.

A few people left at the opening when they realized they did not want to
participate...which is just as it should be. The struggles with this one
were purely logistical. There were somewhere in the range of 1500
participants at the conference as a whole. When we arrived in the room one
hour ahead of time it was to find 300 chairs in rows....and the hotel staff
refused to move them. After some negotiation, we worked together to get the
room in shape...but talk about some negative energy. The funny part was when
the afternoon speaker arrived in the room to check it out about mid morinin.
There were all of these people gathered in little groups, his slide
projector was gone from the middle of the room and he asked what on earth
was happening. He ended up joining a discussion group that was relevant to
his topic. As we left an hour before his session, the room was still in a
circle. I always wondered what the impact was on the next session!!

The next experience was as conference chair. We had a two day conference.
The committee was not ready to totally let go of their standard format that
has been very successful(although I have faciltated three full day
networking conferences on leadership for the organization over the past two
years with great success). So, we decided on day two after the opening
panel, there would be two streams...one open space and one traditional
concurrent sessions. We asked people to pre-register. The room that we had
available (getting conference space in Toronto is a nightmare for a
conferece of 300- not enough "beds" sold)held 60 with push and squeeze
parking with a funny little pillar in it to one side. 80 people registered.
We registered th first 60 and put the rest on a waiting list. Then came the
big decision Friday morning. When I saw the room in person, I realized that
getting 80 people in their would be a nightmare...so (even though I should
have known better) I let my head rule and we announced that we could not fit
the wait list people into the room. In the end, only 40 showed up, the
people who really wanted to be there on the waiting list were angry that
they were not allowed to be there. The lesson to me: follow those
principles - and trust that it will work itself out. With this and my next
story, I learned you can count on people using the law of two feet in open
space and in the conference as a whole if there are other "competing"
sessions. The people who attended still marvelled at it and we got some very
good reports. The other interesting thing was that a number of people who
were in the open space technology component said the felt conflicted and
like they were "betraying" their colleagues if they missed the closing
plenary that was happening. We set the schedule up so that people either
finished OST in that stream or went to the concurrents and closing plenary.
They used their law of two feet, so that about 20 remained in the closing
circle. What is the learning there? Well, you might want to consider the
schedule that allows participants to join the closing plenary if that is so.

The third event was a three hour session over the middle of the day. The
time slot was different than the other sessions because of the length of
time that I requested for this session. It extended over lunch (with a boxed
lunch provided). 25 people pre-registered. 8 showed up. There were 5 other
competing workshops (and I think a gourmet lunch for the large crowd)So, we
went ahead and had the open space session anyway. They had a wonderful
experience - generated 12 topics. High energy, powerful feedback at the end.
Combined them under three common themes, stayed together as a group and
addressed each theme and created three reports. We had these available for
participants at the end of the conference as handouts. Most of the
participants were part of the sponsor organization and have since looked at
ways to use open space in future conferences. In this case, I was prepared
for the "law of two feet". It also could have worked in reverse. I worked
with the sponsor to book a room for the session that would accommodate about
twice the number of registered participants in case of that eventuality
(based on the experiences in lesson #2)I would recommend this to you if you
have OST as a "stream". You might also want to make sure you are not
competing with a gourmet lunch!!

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