SV: OS-meeting with Nordic politicians

[Thomas Herrmann]

Dear Lise
I think using OST was very brave from having had traditional conferences for
years (this conference is organized every second year in one of the
countries). So using OST was a good fit to the overall theme of the
conference! They figured either they find new forms to organize the
conference or it might be better to let it die. I think it survived!
Regards
Thomas


> -----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
> Från: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]För Lise Damkjær
> Skickat: den 22 maj 2006 10:22
> Till: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> Ämne: SV: OS-meeting with Nordic politicians
>
>
> Dear Thomas,
>
> GREAT WORK!
> It's very positive to read your story. I also expected that politicians
> would enjoy the dialogue in open space, but it is nice to have it
> confirmed.
> And I love the question about the braveness!
>
> Thanks!
>
> Lise, Copenhagen
>
> -----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
> Fra: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] På vegne af Thomas
> Herrmann
> Sendt: 21. maj 2006 23:19
> Til: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> Emne: OS-meeting with Nordic politicians
>
> Dear friends in Open Space
> I promised to share some about last weeks OS-meeting where 160 local and
> regional leading politicians from the Nordic countries
> participated(Sweden,
> Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland). The OS-meeting lasted from lunch to
> lunch at the end of 2,5 days conference. The first day was
> excursions in the
> region and then there were some welcome speeches and seminars.
>
> OST was new ground to most of them and they seemed to enjoy it a lot -
> adapting the law of two feet like a very advanced group - the group size
> shifter between 160-40-80-120 (opening, evening news, morning news,
> closing). The sponsors were pretty cool understanding that whatever the
> participants wished to do had been done during the OS-meeting.
> Evening news
> day one was very intimate, I invited those who were there to form
> a smaller
> circle in the center - which was very nice.
>
> The theme was: Issues and opportunities for brave (political)leadership
> which was in line with the theme for the whole conference. 28 issues were
> raised and 27 were reported upon. The main purpose of the meeting was to
> exchange experiences and learn from each other, but at the end we
> organized
> a simpel voting procedure to see which topics were most important to the
> group/for political leadership. I had written all topics on my computer,
> printed so each had a copy and could use five votes to show his/her
> preferences. The top issue was: How can we get good and constructive
> dialogue with citizens about difficult decisions that have to be made?
> Number 2-3 were about how to improve the internal work/collaboration.
>
> There was also an opportunity to write up initiatives for topics that
> someone wanted to move forward. Five issues were raised and some signed up
> to join. Everything was photographed since reports were written on
> flip-charts.
>
> One thing I think is good in situations like this is to integrate/keep
> everything in Open Space, so the sponsors used the talking stick to tell
> practicalities at morning/evening news and the closing of the
> OS-meeting was
> the closing of the conference which worked fine - apart from that the
> "speech" at the end got a bit squeezed - as the group used some of this
> time. At morning news we had suziki-kids playing violin and singing in the
> circle - beautiful.
>
> Some comments I heard about OST were that it was great to be able to have
> dialogue instead of discussions/debates which they usually have. And then
> the regulair ones about raising your own issues and so on. Several talked
> about using OST in their region in the future.
>
> We had a challenge as some participants didn´t understand each other - the
> Finnish language is very different from Swedish, Norwegian and Danish (who
> understand each other) - so there were possibilities to use headphones for
> those who did not understand "Scandinavian". Also we had one person with a
> microphone in the circle who translated whatever was said in
> Finnish - that
> worked well. The main tactic was that the group was to handle
> this situation
> together in the work groups but we also had 5 persons who had
> volunteered to
> help translating if help was wanted.
>
> One funny story: The sponsors had been doing some thinking about
> how to get
> media-coverage. When I arrived there were some TV-teams outside
> the hotel -
> wow, I thought they managed well! But the teams were after another story -
> at around midnight a beaver had checked into the hotel - he/she sneeked
> though the entrance and finally ended up in one of the guest-rooms, from
> which the police fetched him - big news all over Sweden. Knocked out by a
> beaver!!
> Warmest regards
> Thomas Herrmann         Phone +46 (0)709-98 97 81
> Open Space Consulting   Fax   +46 (0)300-713 89
> Pensévägen 4
> 434 46 Kungsbacka, Sweden
> Email: thomas at openspaceconsulting.com
> www.openspaceconsulting.com
>
> *
> *
> ==========================================================
> OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> ------------------------------
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
> view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
> http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
>
> To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
> http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
>
> *
> *
> ==========================================================
> OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> ------------------------------
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
> view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
> http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
>
> To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
> http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
>

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist