Why is a grid sometimes useful?

Chris Corrigan chris.corrigan at gmail.com
Tue Aug 11 09:25:40 PDT 2009


Late to the grid talk...
By default I don't use a grid.  What I like about the gridless setup is that
it gives the control freaks something to do.  It's hard enough being in the
chaos of space opening - many type A personalities feel helpless.  When the
come to the wall, it has often been my experience that they take charge and
organize things by time, sometimes lining up the posters very nicely.  As a
ritual it seems to calm them down and ground them and it gives the message
that this is truly a day owned by the group.

And more often than not, folks just get along fine with the collage.

But there is another way I have done things, especially when the start and
finish times are likely to shift (in indigenous communities things can start
a lot later than is scheduled.)  Instead of writing times and spaces on
dozens of post it notes, I just write the spaces and I place them on a big
poster that says the times.  If the times change, it's easy to just make a
new poster and cluster the little post-it notes around it.  If you colour
code the writing on the poster with the colour of the post it notes, it
makes it kinesthetically easier to see the pattern.

(I almost always use coloured post-it notes by the way, one colour for each
time slot).

Cheers,

Chris

On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 8:54 PM, Peggy Holman <peggy at opencirclecompany.com>wrote:

> To grid or not to grid...
> For me, it depends.  Two circumstances lead me to offer more order.
>
> Size.  As the size of the group increases, there are more sessions to
> track.  With a larger group, I post times along the top of the agenda wall.
>  Like Lisa, I often use different colors for different times.  When I did
> the OS for 2,100 street kids in Bogota, we set up a grid; each time had its
> own wall and we put the room numbers across the rows:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/78084501@N00/79452637/in/set-1700469/
>
> It just seemed the best way to support the crowd in finding sessions of
> interest.
>
> Culture.  The other circumstance in which I've used a grid is when the
> culture of the group seems to call for it.  As Kaliya noted, engineers seem
> more productive with a grid.  I think it is for them, one less thing.
>
> Speaking of culture, one of the most telling images for me is the OS of
> 2108 that Harrison and Michael did in Wurtzberg and the 2,100 street kids.
>  As people waited to announce their sessions in Germany, they were in a neat
> line.  The street kids looked like a mob around Andres, who held the mic.
>  In both cases, it was orderly but the image was sure different!
>
> Wurzberg:  http://www.transformation.at//?art_id=46
> (pages 39-41)
>
>
> Colombia:
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/78084501@N00/79454421/in/set-1700469/
>
> Peggy
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________
> Peggy Holman
> The Open Circle Company
> 15347 SE 49th Place
> Bellevue, WA  98006
> 425-746-6274
> www.opencirclecompany.com
> www.journalismthatmatters.org
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 7, 2009, at 6:00 AM, Harrison Owen wrote:
>
> Artur – we will be looking forward to your return! And an odd thought
> passed through my muddled mind. It occurred to me, I think because you
> mentioned being an engineer that it might somehow appear that “getting
> organized”  and “being organized” are somehow anathema to Open Space. It
> might even seem that I have implied as much – if so that would be a massive
> mistake on my part. The issue is not “organization” – but who does it and
> when does it happen? The truth of the matter is that every Open Space is
> highly organized, usually more so than any facilitator or planning committee
> could ever imagine.
>
> Consider 2108 German psychiatrists X 236 concurrent sessions in an 8 hour
> period. That would take a planning committee years! And they would never get
> it right -- things would always be late, and great frustration would be a
> predictable outcome. In the instance, the people did it all themselves in
> something less than an hour and it all worked out perfectly including
> written reports for all or most of the sessions. Now Mr Engineer, Can you
> beat that? Just kidding J
>
> For me the real issue is efficiency and effectiveness – which are
> presumably positive values that all engineers will ascribe to. In that case
> the only question is how do you get there fastest and bestest? The curious
> answer would seem to be Do Less!
>
> Harrison
>
> Harrison Owen
> 189 Beaucaire Ave
> Camden, ME 04843
> 207-763-3261 (Summer)
> 301-365-2093 (Winter)
> Website www.openspaceworld.com
> Personal Website www.ho-image.com
> OSLIST To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options
> http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] *On Behalf Of *Artur
> Silva
> *Sent:* Friday, August 07, 2009 6:57 AM
> *To:* OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> *Subject:* Re: Why is a grid sometimes useful?
>
> Being out of my office with bad internet contact and short of time, I only
> red some of this rich exchange.
>
> I must say, like Bernd, that, probably because of my education as an
> engineer, I never thought about doing it without a grid. And living in a
> Chatolic country, even with a grid, most managers think that OST is too much
> for them...
>
> But then some coments from Harrison and Lisa make me think...
>
> I will continue to think, and after the 18th, with better conexion, I will
> coment something.
>
> But don´t ask me what ;-)
>
> Regards from the countryside somewhere in the north of Portugal
>
> Artur
>
> -----------
>
> --- On *Thu, 8/6/09, Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net>* wrote:
>
>
> From: Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: [OSLIST] Why is a grid sometimes useful?
> To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> Date: Thursday, August 6, 2009, 5:17 AM
> Lesley, I think you got it! (“It is my sense of things that the more we
> order….the more we take away from the process……..however this can be very
> uncomfortable for us(facilitator”). It is all about organizing a self
> organizing system. Not only is that an oxymoron, but also of questionable
> intelligence – regardless of the alleged increase of comfort.
>
> Harrison
>
>
>
>
>
> * * ==========================================================
> OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU ------------------------------ To
> subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of
> oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
> http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about
> OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
> * * ==========================================================
> OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU ------------------------------ To
> subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of
> oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
> http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about
> OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
>
>
> * * ==========================================================
> OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU ------------------------------ To
> subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of
> oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
> http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about
> OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
>



-- 
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Facilitation - Training - Process Design
Open Space Technology

Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com

Principal, Harvest Moon Consultants, Ltd.
http://www.harvestmoonconsultants.com

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20090811/cf4e4d76/attachment-0007.htm>


More information about the OSList mailing list