Advice on running Open Space with 250-300 people

kerry napuk k at napuk.demon.co.uk
Fri Jan 4 10:13:00 PST 2008


Hi

One way to bridge the urge of mixing talking heads and Open Space is to 
ask the sponsor to open by painting the landscape for the event,  
highlighting the need to gather and address the theme by raising issues 
involving passion and responsibility.  Of course, as facilitators we 
only ask that the sponsor limit their "painting" to a maximum of five 
(5) minutes, because people have come to discuss their issues not hear 
another "message from the top."

Linking several lightning talks together, no matter how brief, fails to 
overcome the inevitable alienation of conventional lectures by 
"experts,"  leading to people tuning out because they have limited 
attention spans and would be challenged to find each subject of equal 
interest.    It would be far better if each "lightning talker" became a 
convenor and raised their issue for a group of interested people to 
discuss.

A fundamental dynamic of Open Space is to allow people to chose where 
they want to work,  attracted by the issue and invitation for direct 
participation.  This self selection process to find common interest, 
regardless of viewpoint, gives the focus and possibility of co-creation 
woefully missing if you are lucky enough to accidently bump into 
someone during a coffee break and wished the conversation could have 
gone deeper and included more people.

Cheers

Kerry Napuk
Edinburgh
www.openfutures.com

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