FW: The challenge of "luminaries"

Sun Aug 19 08:08:49 PDT 2007

Deborah - I think your idea of a "facebook" sent out in advance is a great
one. And it would avoid doing a "round the circle" at the beginning, which I
personally find less than useful for two reasons. First it delays the actual
start when people go to work - and this is the most important consideration
for me. Secondly, all those names and needs/wants/desires badly confuses
this old mind. After the first two or three I just hit "overload."  For our
up coming OSONOS by the Sea I sent out a full participant list and invited
people to add whatever information/requests they might want. Some people
chose to remain a mystery (great!) and others wrote a whole bunch. How much
of this actually gets read I don't know, but a number of folks said it was
useful and fun. Since email addresses were also included, the party started
early, which was wonderful.

I am a little less enthusiastic about special guided tours done by the
facilitator - though it is certainly a nice idea. I find one of the great
things about an Open Space is the speed with which new comers are included -
some of this just happens on its own, and in other cases participants will
notice a stranger looking a little lost and take them under their wing. I
really like that as it serves to build and bond the community. If the lost
guest is "important" having some "just plain folk" do the job can be
wonderful. And who knows a useful connection could be made. At most I (as
the facilitator) might suggest to one of the "older" participants that "so
and so" looks a little lost - maybe you could take them on a tour - sort of
thing. That way I can hold the space and members of the community take
active responsibility for the inclusion. Win/Win - I think.

Harrison

  _____  

From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Deborah
Hartmann
Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2007 10:34 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: The challenge of "luminaries"

Hello Kerry:

> address their presence during the introduction

I hesitate to address the presence of particular people during the
introduction. I see it as a "democratizing circle" and as such, I strive to
communicate the message that we are all equals, and so we are equally
responsible for our experience of the event. No matter whether we specify
that "luminaries" are equal to everyone else, we's negate this by simply
naming them and not everyone else!

Here's an idea: Something that emerged at RoCoCo was a round of "needs and
offers", though it happened too late, in the opinion of many. We went around
the circle stating what we needed (ideas, collaborators, hardware, software)
and our offers (some offered skills, resources, collaborative sites, and
others answered just-stated needs, ex: "I have an old computer like that,
let's talk"). This would allow luminaries to introduce themselves, equally
with others, allow them (if they choose) to align themselves as members of
this OST event's "people". I think attendance at this activity would need to
be voluntary, as it takes some time and perhaps people would rather network
informally. This would have been useful to us, as we had decided not to call
out any particular participants in the opening.

I'm not sure where this fits... we thought that if we'd done this at the
start, people would have had an idea of who was there and how they could
help them. Ex: If I'd know people from the citizen journalism movement were
present, I would have posted a session: how is Citizen Journalism changing
the face of news? But as it was, I only discovered their presence
afterwards. 

Ideas: Perhaps, do it as part of a social the prior evening, before we open
the space? Another idea was a "needs and offers" wiki page or wall - the
problem being that using the wall for this removes the human face from the
transaction. We could encourage people to do this at registration, so we
could browse the list of who's coming and their needs/offers (sometimes this
happens with BarCamps). Hey, could a facebook group be used for this?!! This
activity would have been particularly useful for our type of OST - it was
not so much a "themed" event as a "community gathering" event - a particular
flavour of OST I'm seeing a lot in the Tech community now. "The right
people" are the ones who want to be part of the community, in general - and
it's often a big surprise what interests and skills they bring! It's as if a
"community gathering" OST is simply a coalescence at a particular time/place
of a continual OST event which is the community itself.

deb

kerry napuk wrote: 

Hi Peggy 

When faced with "luminaries," experts, speakers et al, maybe it would help
to address their presence during the introduction.  A facilitator could note
their valued participation and opportunity to be on equal terms with an
audience, experiencing the need to discuss and exchange views rather than be
lectured at. 

It might even be fun! 

Cheers 

Kerry 
Edinburgh 
www.openfutures.com 

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-- 

Deborah Hartmann
Agile Process Coach
deborah.hartmann.net
mobile: 416 996 4337

"Learn the principle, 
abide by the principle, and 
dissolve the principle." 
-- Bruce Lee
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