concurrent OSTs

Gerard Muller gm at openspace.dk
Sat Oct 26 14:11:32 PDT 2002


Dear Ted,

I feel your decision to have everyone in the same OS is right. After all, it is
just one kind of diversity, and diversity tends to enrich.

I have two comments. I have occasionally experienced that the sponsor wanted a
number of specific people in with specific topics, for example because they
felt that:

- in the absence of five lectures, at least there would be the possibility for
“consumers” to get some
  input;
- it would allow them to put some “names” on the invitation, thereby - they
felt - increasing the
  chances that those who they wanted to come would come;
- in one case the sponsor organisation was worried that their own staff would
not post enough topics,
  thereby wasting an opportunity to market the organisation
- a conference I partiicipated in scheduled all presentations which could not
be scheduled anywhere
  else in the program in the OS.

I usually take the position that OS is about conversations, not presentations.
But if anyone wants to bring a Powerpoint presentation with twohundred slides
of course they can.

In case a client wants to plan for ten topics to be posted by specific
participants and I sense that
the underlying reason is a worry about outcome, or a need to control, I try to
take that issue up.

Some ways I have found sometimes help to create some space are to
- agree that preparing and focusing for an event is great, but that no-one is
obliged to post a topic
  if (a) another participant already posted it, (b) if the participant strongly
feels another topic posted
  is more important
- ask the ones who are prepared to allow some time for others before rushing
off.

The worst OS I have experienced was one in which there was a long queue of
presenters who had been told they could present during the OS. When these had
posted their topics, there was a tiny
little hole in time where three others managed to post something, and that was
it. If there had been some space for others first, but then I suppose it was
the only thing that could happen.

Greetings from across the Great Pond,




Gerard Muller
Open Space Institute Denmark





Ted Ernst wrote:

> How do I access the archives for this list?  I know there's been plenty of
> discussion about doing OST concurrent to a traditional sort of conference,
> but I'm afraid I didn't read those posts very closely and can't remember any
> of the details.
>
> Anyway, I've been sharing my experiences in Open Space (Michael Herman's
> Illinois Food Security Summit last fall, Michael's practice workshop in
> Peoria in the spring, Midwest (USA) OSonOS in June, and my "How Can I
> Practice Peace?" event in June) with my supervisor at work.  He is now
> convinced that the Child Welfare League of America needs to use OST at their
> January conference on the Family Unification Program (specifics of this
> program not so important to this discussion, but suffice it to say that
> Congress hasn't re-funded the program so it will only continue with money
> from previous allocations, and thus be a dying program over time).
> Unfortunately, he's not the one making the decisions for CWLA, so he and I
> are working with 2 people from there to see if we can develop a model that
> we're all comfortable with.  Oh, did I mention that he wants me to
> facilitate the OST?
>
> Anyway, they've suggested tracks where the more experienced people are
> invited into OST and the newer people have a traditional conference.  I've
> suggested to them that they allow me to open the space for everyone and then
> the "invited" speakers also post their topics on the wall.  What do you
> think of this?  What about the idea of having "invited" speakers post their
> topics on a seperate part of the wall so it's clear which track is which?
> What about having the "invited" speakers wall-postings pre-printed?  Of
> course I think the whole thing would go swimmingly if it were simply all in
> open space, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> peace,
> ted
> ___
> Humanize the Earth! http://www.chicagohumanist.org http://www.tedernst.com
>
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