Camps. Gatherings & Un-conferences

[Ted Ernst]

This WikiSym story that Gerard wrote about started with last year's
WikiVan story.  Remember that one?  Two solid days of rolling open
space going to WikiSym last October and then two more days on the way
back?  The conference itself was a bit of a letdown, to be sure.
Instead of trying to convince the organizers that adding an open space
componant was a good idea (truthfully, we did try that), we decided to
have RecentChangesCamp, a 2.5 day, by-the-book open space in February,
hoping the WikiSym organizers would come and then be able to make a
more informed decision.  That didn't happen, but they heard enough
good reports, I suppose, that they decided to try it anyway.

So the conference schedule grid simply had a column for each day that
said "open space" in each time-slot.  As Gerard tells us below, we
even had to carve out a time for an opening with everyone, which we
did.  After Gerard opened, topics went onto the wall like mad.
Fantastic stuff!  The one complaint I heard was about the lack of
available timeslots on day 2 (we only put day 1 schedule grid on the
wall given all of the uncertainty Gerard describes).  Of course when I
looked back on the wall later, indeed there were topics posted for day
2, no grid needed!

That first day's energy was really fantastic, as usual.  Lots of
topics being discussed all over the place.  Some of the paper
presentations also interested me, but I never managed to get over to
them, given all that was happening in open space.  At the end of the
day, however, my assessment was that the energy wasn't so much about
"doing" anything as it was about theorizing and talking about
interesting topics.  So given the lack of a plenary room for day 3 and
this seeming lack of movement toward action that needed further
planning, I recommended to stop after day 2 and Gerard agreed.  We did
a closing instead of an evening news, with very good attendance, as
there was no evening keynote or anything else distracting.

The two of us then met with the same group from the night before to
talk it over and one of them was very strong in his opinion that we
must not stop after day 2.  He felt that the 3rd day was really
necessary for some of the magic of open space to happen.  Our
conclusion was to defer the decision once more, with the provision of
a plenary room one of the requirements.

For morning news (new opening) of day 2, I was on my own, as Gerard
had a family event.  We didn't have a dedicated time so I carved out
some time from the coffee break after the morning keynote.  I invited
people to bring their coffees into the open space room.  We had very
low attendance, and very few topics posted (5, maybe?).  I had to
exercise my facilitation by breathing technique for that time!

Interestingly, even with few topcis, there was action in the open
space room and the hallways all day long.  People played (and taught)
Go, others had all kinds of butterfly conversations and sessions not
posted, others used their two feet to enjoy the town.  At the end of
the day, a plenary room for the following day was still not available,
and given the apparent lack of energy, we decided to close there at
the end of day 2.  Again, we had no dedicated time, but had to carve
out from a coffee break, this time with a very popular keynote speech
immediately following, where some people wanted to get good seats!
Again, very low attendence, as was fitting for the day.  Still, people
shared very nice experiences.  We gave them the news about no formal
open space on day 3, but assured them that they wouild create the
conversations and future work that needed to be done without us just
as well as with us, and bid the formal process goodbye.

I may have more to tell on this, but I'll set it aside for now.
Gerard?  More from you?

peace,
ted

On 9/3/06, Gerard Muller <gm at openspace.dk> wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> As Ted wrote last week, we have a story to be told.
> In the more than 250 Open Space events I have facilitated,
> this one definitely was, well ...... different.
>
> So it's kind of hard to decide where to start.
> This is chapter one, and I'm sure Ted will help........
>
> Why was this one different ? Well, among other things
> because:
> - before the event, there was no central question to ask
>    to the group;
> - nor someone to make the opening statement;
> - I had not met with the sponsor; let alone with a preparation group;
> - it was to be part of a conference with an academic track;
> - it was unclear when the Open Space was taking place;
> - but very clear it would be partly paralel, partly interrupted
>    by other (plenary) sessions.
>
> All in all, a situation where I normally would have thanked
> for the honor.
>
> But as this seemed to be an interesting community (WikiSym)
> and Ted knew them, I decided to go ahead anyway and see what
> would happen.
>
> What happened is we had one Skype conference with a couple of
> people, which was an interesting discussion but did not produce
> a central question .......... I facilitated another meeting in the same
> place the event was to be held, and found out the space was a
> large hexagon divided by the middle, each big enough to hold
> the group; so it was obvious the one room would be the Open Space
> room, the other the "Academic" one.
>
> Just prior to the event I called the chair of the conference and agreed
> on the best possible time schedule given the givens:
>
> 1.      Plenary opening
> 2.      Key note speech
> 3.      Coffee (this was first planned later)
>         Move to Open Space room
> 4.      Open Space opening
>         First Discussion round
> 5.      Lunch
> 6.      Plenary discussion panel in "Academic" room
> 7.      Second and Third Discussion Round
> 8.      Closing
> 9.      Demo sessions (of software).
>
> I also discussed with him to decide whether to have Open Space
> sesssions on Day 2 and Day 3
> by the end of Day 1 (he had no experience with OS).
>
> On the evening before we started, Ted & I with some trouble sort of
> kidnapped the chair and another
> key participant for dinner, and managed to come up with a central
> question "What is the future of Wiki's and how can we create it ?". The
> person who seemed to be the right one to make the opening statement,
> Ward Cunningham. Quote from his opening statement "What Wiki is to
> Cyberspace,
> Open Space is for real space".
>
> After that, Day one was sort of a "normal" Open Space process, except
> that it was undecided whether
> it would end that day or not, and that part of the group had mostly or
> only been in the academic space.
> Ted & I decided to have a closing session instead of evening news, to
> be certain of closure in case
> we'd stop, but also because most participants were likely to be there
> (including those who had not been in the Open Space room), and a
> closing circle gives a clearer picture of where you are than
> evening news. Which turned out to be the case.
>
> So far for today,
>
> Your move, Ted !
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Gerard Muller
> Open Space Institute Denmark
> Phone: (+45) 21269621                           Skype:openspace1
> Mail: gm at openspace.dk
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 28, 2006, at 8:33 PM, Ted Ernst wrote:
>
> > I think Michael's got the history mostly right.  I don't know details.
> > Some of these "camps" are being run on extremely low budgets, people
> > sleeping on office floors and such, as a reaction to the $1000+ per
> > person exclusive conferences.  And yes, they're using OST.
> >
> > Gerard and I each have writing to do about our experience last week at
> > WikiSym, running open space in parallel with papers and such.  I'm
> > just home today so it'll take a bit of time, but rest assured, we have
> > some things to talk about. :-)
> >
> > peace,
> > ted
> >
> > On 8/26/06, Michael Herman <michael at michaelherman.com> wrote:
> >> i can add that i facilitated here in chicago, 2002 i think, what i
> >> think was the first agile/xp open space, which ran concurrently with
> >> other sessions. the way we storied it was that 'birds of a feather'
> >> groups would run at lunches and be convened on issues that by
> >> definition were old enough that many felt expert enough and involved
> >> enough with to get together on their own and talk about.  the main
> >> conference topics were for leaders to bring new stuff, they'd done
> >> extensive work on, and were juried in.  then the open space was for
> >> the 'future of software' ...the stuff that nobody'd been able to study
> >> yet.
> >>
> >> the opening was concurrent, on first afternoon of main conference.
> >> the morning of that day was 3-4 keynoters... for whole group...
> >> followed by 10 minutes of me giving brief opening notes... law of two
> >> feet and other things, in addition to theme as mentioned above.  it
> >> was concurrent and not what it would have been had we had all 300 at
> >> once in open space, but we got about 1/3 of the folks in for the
> >> openign and others drifted through.  seemed to work for people.  i
> >> know some people went out of there and tried open space in other
> >> places.
> >>
> >> can't recall, diana, you were there, yes?  and i know somebody went
> >> back to germany and started running a java users group with os, after
> >> the whole board resigned.  and i learned a lot about wiki from that
> >> group and went on to use that software in trainings around the world,
> >> and also at my site and openspaceworld.org.  so it definitely worked
> >> for me.
> >>
> >> the thing i remember, too, about taht one is that because of the
> >> concurrent thing, not as many people were coming to session as some
> >> people wished.  one guy came up to tell me that nobody had come to his
> >> session.  i reassured him that something might still happen on it...
> >> that it was important to make the invitaiton and see what came...
> >> whenever it came... that somebody might yet find him at lunch or
> >> dinner that day or the next... and at just taht moment another guy
> >> walked up and said "hey, how did your session go... i wanted to come
> >> but got stuck elsewhere... do you want to have lunch?"  classic open
> >> space moment!  perfect timing!  (now you've got me using the
> >> exclamation points, justin <grin>)
> >>
> >> michael
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 8/25/06, Justin T. Sampson <justin at krasama.com> wrote:
> >> > On 8/25/06, Diana Larsen <dlarsen at futureworksconsulting.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> > > As the person who opened and held the Space at Agile 2006.
> >> >
> >> > Oh! I didn't know that; but perhaps if I did, I would have been
> >> > more delicate, and as a result would have learned less. :) Thank
> >> > you for holding the Open Space, and thank you for being frank in
> >> > your response!
> >> >
> >> > > Everything you heard was true. (Lots of reasons I won't go into
> >> > > here.) With all its challenges, it still managed to be the most
> >> > > valuable part of the conference for a number of conference goers
> >> > > -- they told me so. However, it was largely invisible to many
> >> > > others, especially those who had never experienced it before and
> >> > > didn't think to seek it out.
> >> >
> >> > Yes. We just had our monthly BayXP meeting here in San Francisco
> >> > on Wednesday of this week (for non-techies, "XP" is a subculture
> >> > in the "Agile" movement in the software industry, hence the
> >> > connection with the Agile 2006 conference where Diana opened and
> >> > held an Open Space session) -- the topic was Agile 2006, with four
> >> > people having attended the conference.
> >> >
> >> > One who hadn't attended mentioned that he had heard something
> >> > about the Open Space being less satisfying, so we took up that
> >> > topic briefly toward the end of the evening. One who had attended
> >> > the conference both this year and in previous years was able to
> >> > offer some comparisons, such as the "second class" comment; he
> >> > said that previously the Open Space sessions had also run
> >> > concurrently with the rest of the conference, but the opening
> >> > circle in particular had been a distinct "stop the conference"
> >> > kind of event, whereas this year it was concurrent with other
> >> > planned sessions.
> >> >
> >> > But along the lines of your observation, one of the other
> >> > attendees mentioned that the most meaningful session for him at
> >> > this year's conference was in fact one of those held in Open
> >> > Space. He described further that the convener of that session, the
> >> > author of the book that was the topic of the session, was actually
> >> > 30 minutes "late", but someone else who had read the book and had
> >> > brought detailed notes stepped right up and started a lively
> >> > conversation that led very naturally into more advanced topics
> >> > when the author did arrive.
> >> >
> >> > > Some of us had already planned to hold an all Open Space event
> >> > > on Agile topics in the NW (there's already one in Europe), and
> >> > > that experience solidified our determination.
> >> >
> >> > Wonderful! Let me know how I can help. :)
> >> >
> >> > > That's partly why I'm asking the question. The term "Open Space"
> >> > > in some circles is becoming associated with mildly satisfying
> >> > > group discussions that don't go through the program review
> >> > > process and, therefore, are of dubious value. I'd like to sneak
> >> > > up on those folks with the real power of self-organization. So,
> >> > > I'm seeking some sheep's clothing in which to hide my wolf. :-)
> >> >
> >> > I think "Open Space on Agile Topics" would be a terrific name!
> >> > Maybe it's time to reclaim the name, as Harrison tried to do with
> >> > his letter to Nature?
> >> >
> >> > Cheers,
> >> > Justin
> >> >
> >> > P.S. I seem to be using exclamation points more than usual lately;
> >> > I'm on a bit of a learning high, here and elsewhere. :)
> >> >
> >> > *
> >> > *
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> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >> Michael Herman
> >> Michael Herman Associates
> >> 300 West North Ave #1105
> >> Chicago IL 60610 USA
> >> Phone: 312-280-7838
> >> michael at michaelherman.com
> >>
> >> skype: globalchicago
> >>
> >> http://www.michaelherman.com
> >> http://www.openspaceworld.org
> >>
> >> Inviting Leadership ...getting
> >> the most important things done in
> >> the easiest possible ways.
> >>
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> >
> >
> > --
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-- 
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Open more space!  http://www.openspaceworld.org
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jabber: tedernst at gmail.com

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