How explain/demonstrate OS to Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions, etc.?

[Lisa Heft]

Doug --

Your situation:
>I will have 15-20 minutes to make my presentation.<

I do short presentations along the lines of Ms. Carla our Dutch
colleague, keeping in mind (and agreeing with) Harrison, Dianne, Ralph
and others' concerns.

While I wouldn't try to do an Open Space in the sense that I'd try to
compress the parts of an Open Space into a teaspoon of time, I do feel
that it is like any other presentation or public speaking engagement I
do.  I also work with people on how to give effective presentations and
on designing more interactive curriculum, so I just approach this
presentation in the same manner.

The idea in any presentation, I feel, is to evoke the feeling or
understanding *within* each participant / audience member, rather than
to deliver information to them.

Storytelling and visualization do indeed evoke this.  My thought is that
showing the video and telling some good and relevant-to-this-audience
Open Space stories would indeed do this.

As there are more learning modalities than listening, I feel it is great
to give people a full-body sense of what they're learning about, too.
Seating them in a circle, posting the OS signage around the room, a
basket, markers and paper in the center -- all give a more dimensional
understanding and also bring depth to the listening.

And I take it one step more, even if I just have 10 minutes (and I
rarely have the ability to show a video since many of my clients do not
have that capability, but I agree the the USWest video is great) -- I
indicate the theme posted on the wall -- for presentations I use:

Strategies for Moving Our Work Forward --

Opportunities / Challenges
Creating / Sharing Resources

and I pass around (or ask them to come to the center and get) paper and
markers, and write their topics on the paper.  If I have time I have
them post those along an agenda wall and return to their seats in the
circle.  In a very short presentation I just either have them hold their
topics up to each other silently and look around the room, or I walk
around to ask a few volunteers to read their topics (bringing in other
voices teaches diversity and brings depth to the differences in the
topics).  Then I ask them, "Now are there topics here that you would be
excited about discussing in our retreat/conference?" (the answer yes
indeed) "Could we have imagined those topics if we'd, even in our best
intentions, developed the agenda / workshops for this event?" (the
answer is certainly not).  "This is the kind of thinking that an Open
Space event can bring into the room..." (or whatever).

Then I open it up for questions.

All of these ways depend, of course, on your personal style.  And as you
have the amazing ability to just jump into new experiences and fly, dear
Doug, I know you'll enjoy the experience however you approach it.

Cheers from rainy Berkeley, California

Lisa

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
(coming soon: www.openingspace.net)

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