Open Space & Bulgaria

Harrison Owen hhowen at comcast.net
Fri May 13 04:05:57 PDT 2005


Welcome from the shadows! And I thought you might enjoy this OS tale from
Bulgaria. It seems that one Elwin Guild (who shows up here from time to
time) was working in that part of the world, and somebody in the US
government had a large (250) and important (as in lots of politicos,
including the Ambassador) meeting. Apparently she had known Elwin for some
time, and asked him to facilitate the gathering. Elwin agreed on the
condition that they use Open Space, which the "somebody" had never heard of
before. It seemed very risky, but Elwin made it clear that the choice was
Elwin with OS -- or no Elwin. So with great trepidation on the part of the
sponsor they proceeded.

Things started as you might suspect -- 250 Bulgarians sitting in a circle --
but when they got to the point where Elwin said, "OK now is the time and you
are the people. Announce your issues . ." All 250 rose en mass and walked
out of the room, leaving Elwin holding space and the sponsor in conniptions.


It seems that there had been a few speeches before opening the Space, and
most of the participants had not had any coffee recently. Even worse,
Smoking had not been permitted. From what I understand, Bulgarians smoke
more than just about anybody -- so when they saw a little break, or so they
thought -- off they went.

When they had had their coffee and a cigarette or two, they all returned and
things proceeded just like usual. I guess the moral of the story is
"Speeches before Open Space can lead to unanticipated consequences.

Harrison

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20845
Phone 301-365-2093

Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm
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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Emilia
Ilieva
Sent: Friday, May 13, 2005 4:33 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Open Space & Bulgaria

Dear All,

My name is Emilia Ilieva and I am on this list for about a month already.
Today I thought it is high time to come out of the shadows and share my
inspiration with Open Space.

I am living in Bulgaria and working on a regional project for South East
Europe named positively SMILE = SEEding for Multiethnic and Intercultural
Learning Experiences. For those of you who are interested please have a look
at: www.smile.iizdvv-bg.org

I have participated in an Open Space event few years ago in Slovenia and it
was only in March this year that through an Open Space Conference
facilitated by Holger Nauheimer that I regained the inspiration for the
method. (Thank you, Holger!) After some hesitance I decided to use it on two
meetings in Bulgaria that went more than well and I am planning using the
method on one more event in the end of the month in Bulgaria...

Meanwhile I believe we will have chances of using the method in our regional
activities in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Republic of
Macedonia and possibly other countries in SEE and spreading the word and
experience of OS.

We have been using the World Café method at various activities of the SMILE
project last year as well. Therefore I have been following the discussion on
it very closely. However I need some more experience with Open Space before
I can say anything to compare the two.

Anyway, thank you wholeheartedly for all of your shared wisdom.

And let's keep the spaces opening :)

Best wishes to all from Sofia,

Emilia Ilieva
SMILE Project manager
Regional Office SEE
IIZ/DVV
www.smile.iizdvv-bg.org
www.iizdvv-bg.org

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