Happy at work conference

Fri Jun 4 04:09:18 PDT 2004

Hi Brendan

Here's a really late answer to your question about our "Happy at work
conference".

We had a really interesting program for the conference. Initially I
wanted to do it as an OS meeting, but I was pretty sure, that I wouldn't
be able to convince enough people to pay to participate in an OS-based
conference. Don't get me wrong, I'm a great fan of OST and I'm convinced
that the day would've been even better in open space.

The program looked something like this:
9:00 - 12:00 Speakers
12:00 - 1:00 First workshop session
1:00 - 2:00 Lunch
2:00 - 3:00 Second workshop session
3:00 - 4:00 Third workshop session
4:00 - 5:00 Make a plan for your work-happiness
5:00 - 5:45 Final conclusion and stories

We had the CEO of Denmarks best workplace, Mads Kjaer, who spoke
toegether with Malene Nilsson of Kjaer Group (their people manager) on
what they've done to create their success story. We had a doctor, Claus
Hyldahl, who spoke of the significance and practice of health in the
workplace. We had Jesper Bove-Nielsen, the author of Corporate
Kindergarten, who talked about play and innovation at work. John Bern
talked about a simple model for happiness at work, and finally the well
known danish actor Jens Arentzen talked about his take on happiness, in
his very own style. All of this - and it wasn't even noon yet.

One of the things I'm most proud of, is our decision to make the whole
day a PowerPoint free zone. Not a single slide in existence the whole
day. And you know what: Even the speakers thanked us for it!!

Then we had workshops. Lots of workshops. Coaching, appreciative
inquiry, conversation circles, juggling, meditation, massage, health
checkups and much, much more. And the participants seemed to throw
themselves into it with abandon - especially the impro theater workshop
seemed to generat a lot of fun and initiative.

We had three sessions of workshops, and 8 workshops to choose from in
each session. The workshops were facilitated by professionals in each
field, who did this for free to promote themselves.

One very nice thing we did was to invite some professional storytellers
to tell stories. One right after lunch, and one at the end of the
conference. This was a great touch, which added a lot of fun to the
proceedings.

We also had lots of other small surprises like group callisthenics after
lunch and an impro theater group that did a short performance.

After the workshops, we gave each participant a chance to formulate a
plan for their own happiness at work, and to discuss it with the other
participants. Then it was almost 6PM, and we closed the day.

You can see photos from the conference here: http://pa.umbraco.dk/billeder

And Ole Qvist from Bigger Picture <http://biggerpicture.dk> did a visual
facilitation of the whole day, which you can see here:
http://pa.umbraco.dk/media/241/BiggerPicture_opsamling.pdf

We now know how to do such a conference, and we're doing it again next
year - or maybe sooner.

If anybody would like more info, just ask - as with everything else we
do, our thinking on making conferences is "Open Source" and we love to
share :o)

Cheers

Alex

Alexander Kjerulf
alexander at kjerulf.com
http://www.positivesharing.com

+45 2688 2373
Tagensvej 126, lejl. 613
2200 København N

Brendan McKeague wrote:

> Thanks Alex for your perseverence with this - it is difficult to
> juggle all
> the wee bits of such a project - even though we are all into
> 'self-organisation' - its great to have you 'anchoring our efforts'...
> AND - what a great day of happiness you guys had in Denmark -  I WANT ONE
> AND I WANT IT NOW! (to quote a well-used cliche)...it sounds like a
> really
> great gathering and I'd love to see a copy of the program...?
> With peace from a beautiful West Ozzie Autumn day of clear blue
> sunshine, a
> bevy of birdsong and crispy-chilled night
> Brendan
>
>
> At 01:59 AM 1/06/04, you wrote:
>
>> Hi Harrison
>>
>> Thanks for the wake-up call on the audio book.
>>
>> The reason it's been quiet lately is that I've been busy arranging a
>> conference on happiness at work, which took place last thursday. The
>> conference was a huge success - imagine 130 people gathered for one day
>> to focus on being happy at work. I wrote a little about it here:
>> http://www.positivesharing.com/journal/00000420.htm
>>
>> And now I have time to finalize the audio book project :o)
>>
>> The status is as follows:
>> Chapter 1: Tova Averbuch - Finished reading
>> Chapter 1: Thomas Herrmann - Finished reading
>> Chapter 1: Genevieve Treille - Finished reading
>> Chapter 2: BJ Peters - Finished reading
>> Chapter 2: Joelle Lyons Everett - Finished reading
>> Chapter 3: Marei Kiele
>> Chapter 4: Christy Lee-Engel - Finished reading
>> Chapter 4: Lucas Gonzalez - Finished reading
>> Chapter 5: Karen Gorrin
>> Chapter 5: Avner Haramati
>> Chapter 6: Chris Corrigan
>> Chapter 6: Michael Herman
>> Chapter 7: Judith Richardson
>> Chapter 7: Audrey Coward - Finished reading
>> Chapter 8: Mikk Sarv - Finished reading
>> Chapter 8: Brendan MacKeague - Finished reading
>>
>> I've been in touch with all the remaining people on the list, and
>> they're working on their chapters.
>>
>> What we need now is to upload the files to the HSD server, and I'm still
>> waiting for instructions from Glenda Eoyang on how to do that.
>>
>> Also, if some people have split their reading into multiple mp3 files,
>> we may need to combine those files. I'll be happy to do that, but let's
>> start by uploading all of it to a central location - that'll make things
>> much easier.
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Alex
>>
>> www.arbejdsglaede.nu - 27. maj 2004
>> Danmarks første konference om arbejdsglæde
>>
>> Alexander Kjerulf
>> alexander at kjerulf.com
>> http://www.positivesharing.com
>>
>> +45 2688 2373
>> Arena, Norrebrogade 14B, 1. sal
>> 2200 Copenhagen N.
>>
>>
>>
>> Harrison Owen wrote:
>>
>>> Seems like our talking book is strangely silent. Personally, I think
>>> this is
>>> such a great project that it would be a real tragedy were it to die
>>> stillborn. So if anybody knows what is happening (or not), let's
>>> hear it.
>>> And if there is something that I can do, let me know. Should that
>>> "something" be better handled offline, send me an email.
>>>
>>> Harrison
>>>
>>> Harrison Owen
>>> 7808 River Falls Drive
>>> Potomac, Maryland   20845
>>> Phone 301-365-2093
>>>
>>> Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
>>> <http://www.openspaceworld.com/>
>>>
>>> Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
>>> Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm
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