Advice on running Open Space with 250-300 people

[aslak hellesoy]

On Jan 4, 2008 7:13 PM, kerry napuk <k at napuk.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> 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."
>

You make it sound like hearing "messages from the top" is inherently a
bad thing.
How do you know what reasons people had to come?

> 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.
>

That's dogmatic. Open Space is a good way to communicate and learn,
but by no means the "best".

> 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.
>

Uhm, we had Open Space too. I hope that's good enough.

Cheers,
Aslak

> Cheers
>
> Kerry Napuk
> Edinburgh
> www.openfutures.com
>
>
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