Fw: The World Cafe meets Open Space

[Artur Silva]

Peggy:



Please see below what I am commenting.



I wonder if the "freedom shock" was created by OST or by the fact that OST was preceded by TWC. Interestingly, I made a misreading of your words “had a felt sense of community very quickly" that I first red "had a false sense of community very quickly" ;-(



I would agree with you that maybe there are conditions that are suitable for TWC (for instance, the client is not prepared to OST, or the problem doesn't need a solution for yesterday). But if those conditions don't exist, I would say that to have TWC before OST has no added value and may help create (or maximize) the freedom shock; and the intimacy created by the "intimate groups" can be good, as you have explained, but it can also be bad in some cases, where the previous small groups (with a fixed number of 4 and a square table) will made more difficult the process of creating the feeling of belonging to a circle of the "large overall community" (all the people assembled) needed for OST to work properly.



But I agree with you that beginning in small groups the evening session may be something worth trying in some situations.



My two cents



Artur



Peggy Holman <peggy at opencirclecompany.com> wrote:

Here's a bit more on World Cafe and OS from Tom Atlee, who just returned
from a conference "downunder". (...):

> A couple of points on the OS/WC experiment:
>
> It was explicitly noted that the groups could become more or less than 4
> (the ideal WC size); this is not significant to OSers, but is definitely
> significant to WCers.

Perviously Peggy wrote:

(...)

>>A reflection on how TWC affected the dynamic.
>>It was clear that people had a felt sense of community very quickly
>>through TWC. I think that the move into OS created that condition that
>>Harrison calls "freedom shock". It's possible that the contrast
>>heightened the shock. That said, I believe the sense of connection
>>created during TWC enabled those who were distressed to seek out the
>>friends they had made rather than completely check out (of course, being
>>in a remote location would have made it difficult to leave!). I wonder if
>>that is a benefit of a cafe prior to OS --
>>to create relationships that might support people to stay engaged if they
>>have a tendency towards freedom shock? (...)

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