Thoughts on a Town Crier

Mon Jan 14 13:36:41 PST 2008

Hi Michael,
thank you for the letter and especially for the reminding me about adhesive 
tape rolled together .... which I saw, when Marina used it, but ususlly did 
not use myself. My thoughts went only to magnets as a possible way out (need 
to work more on my brains - to train them  :)

and thank you for the picture, I like it. and arrow ... and especially I 
like a new item in the agenda - pause, which is from 8:30 to 9:00. I will 
never dream of such an item in an agenda! Do you mean coffee-break by that?

it is also interesting, how different people organize their 'seeing 
materials'
I really enjoyed that!

thank you very much
warm hugs from cold Siberia
Elena

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael M Pannwitz" <mmpanne at boscop.org>
To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 12:51 PM
Subject: Re: Thoughts on a Town Crier

> Dear Elena,
> oh, this arrow is very hightech, of course.
> It is made of 160g red heavy paper, cut with a scissor.
> It is attached to the schedule either with a pin in case the surface 
> permits that or with a short piece of adhesive tape rolled together and 
> stuck to the backside (a chewing gum might do the trick, too)...the point 
> is, it needs to be movable.
> Constructing this time arrow is one of the tasks in setting up an open 
> space as described in the set of task cards...usually team members get 
> into a fight over who gets to do that task. The word "now" (in German 
> "jetzt", which by the way is a wonderful old word containing both the 
> roots for "now" and "eternity", a real open space word)is written on both 
> sides of the arrow so that the arrow can point either to the right or to 
> the left. As I said, hi tech.
> In the following link you see the time arrow being used in a 
> German/Russian open space with both languages shown on the time arrow
>> http://www.boscop.org/page/show/100
>
> Have fun
> mmp
>
> Elena Marchuk wrote:
>> Hi Michael, thank you for the idea,
>> I love it and will think, how to do it on my  time/place schedule
>> and wonder, what do you mean by cardboard arrow?
>> is it magnetic?
>> as usually I have just space near the blackboard, which I use to be free 
>> for posters, and it is just for one flip-chart paper and no space for a 
>> sort of one-arrow watch, which I thought first of... so it could be an 
>> arrow just over the words : session1, session 2 - which would need a big 
>> arrow....sorry, and happy, I have fun with thinking about this
>> take care
>> and best wishes in a Happy New Year, today in Russia is an OLD (ortodox) 
>> Happy New Year, so we have 2 of them and very happy to celibrate 
>> everything twice (our Christas was on January, 7:)
>> elena marchuk
>> novosibirsk
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael M Pannwitz" 
>> <mmpanne at boscop.org>
>> To: <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
>> Sent: Monday, January 14, 2008 1:14 AM
>> Subject: Re: Thoughts on a Town Crier
>>
>>
>>> Dear Peggy,
>>> I have never seen anybody in these parts do what Jon does.
>>> That might have different reasons such as the many training events and 
>>> local OSonOS people have participated in...
>>> What is done here a lot and I always do it, is to have a detailed 
>>> schedule posted on a large flipchart complete with a time arrow (a 
>>> little red cardboard arrow with the word "now" written on it). When 
>>> introducing the schedule to the group I also point out the function of 
>>> the arrow...me or another team member and often participants themselves 
>>> move the arrow as the event progresses. My line is: In case you lose 
>>> track of time or wonder what is next just walk up to the schedule and 
>>> have a look at the arrow.
>>> Of course, sometimes people come up to me and ask about beginning times, 
>>> my response is to just point to the schedule...I would hate to add a 
>>> town crier to my repertoire seems it would be one more thing to do and 
>>> one chance for selforganisation and selfmanagement taken away.
>>> Here is a few links to show examples of schedules with the time arrow
>>>> http://www.boscop.org/page/show/102
>>>> http://www.boscop.org/page/show/99
>>>> http://www.boscop.org/page/show/100
>>>> http://www.boscop.org/page/show/101
>>>
>>>
>>> Have a great day in Seattle!
>>> Greetings from Berlin
>>> mmp
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Peggy Holman wrote:
>>>> Has anyone noticed more milling about before people move into
>>>> sessions over the last few years?  I'd been noticing enough of a
>>>> trend this way that I always intend to explicitly tell people that
>>>> there won't be anyone telling them when to move, that it is up to
>>>> them to follow their own rhythms and interests.  I haven't quite
>>>> internalized this yet, so I usually forget.  Anyway, I think I may
>>>> have figured out what is going on.
>>>>
>>>> I just did an OS for a friend for a group of about 50.  He uses OS a
>>>> lot but wanted to be able to really participate in this one.   He
>>>> told me that he was a little surprised when the first round of
>>>> breakout sessions was starting that I didn't tell people it was time
>>>> to get started.  He came to me when the first round after lunch were
>>>> scheduled to start and asked me wasn't I going to ring a bell and let
>>>> people know?  I basically told him that I never did that.  The
>>>> participants were adults and could figure it out for themselves.  He
>>>> was floored and a little upset.  He said he always lets people know.
>>>> And then it dawned on me:  there are more and more people who have
>>>> experienced OS.  Perhaps there are many practitioners doing what Jon
>>>> does - telling people when it is time to start the next session.  I
>>>> realized that since most of these folks came at Jon's invitation,
>>>> they were probably enculturated to responding to a bell.
>>>>
>>>> So I took what seemed a middle ground to me and rang a bell, saying,
>>>> "It's 1:30 and all's well."  I figured a town crier was a minimalist
>>>> thing to do -- providing information without attachment to how people
>>>> used it.
>>>>
>>>> I then spoke more with Jon because I wanted to understand his
>>>> perspective.  He said that to him, what is posted, like the session
>>>> start times, are part of the commons and when he is holding the
>>>> space, that is part of his contract with the group, to give them the
>>>> information.  He doesn't care what they do once they hear it.  So, it
>>>> strikes me that Town Crier is a good description of what he does.
>>>>
>>>> Given the trend I mentioned, I suspect Jon isn't the only one doing
>>>> something like this.  I'd love to hear other thoughts on providing
>>>> information that marks the passage of time.
>>>>
>>>> from sunny (for a change) Seattle, Peggy
>>>>
>>>> ________________________________ Peggy Holman The Open Circle Company
>>>>  15347 SE 49th Place Bellevue, WA  98006 (425) 746-6274
>>>>
>>>> www.opencirclecompany.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> For the new edition of The Change Handbook, go to: 
>>>> www.bkconnection.com/ChangeHandbook
>>>>
>>>> "An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get
>>>> burnt, is to become the fire". -- Drew Dellinger
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
>>> Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
>>> ++49-30-772 8000
>>> www.boscop.org   www.michaelmpannwitz.de
>>>
>>>
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