The challenge of "luminaries"

[Deborah Hartmann]

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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