Statistics, was: Open Space Tech article on Wikipedia

[Lisa Heft]

Hi, all -

I am stepping in and out of the email stream as I have been balancing  
work and parental care and self care - a lovely dance that is going  
well, but one that does not always include keeping up with emails...

So you will see me 'dipping back in' now and then to a few of these  
emails I saw going by earlier...

Thomas wrote:
> I actually think that Lisa Heft followed through with a smaller OS- 
> meeting – a record hard to break.


Yes, I did facilitate an OS meeting with one participant. It was a  
post-conference OS on a holiday weekend - all the people they  
expected...went home for the rest of the holiday, and the only person  
attending was..the volunteer who was to help for this OS day.  So I  
asked, 'do you want to do an experiment? see if an OS can work with 1  
person?' and he was very excited to do so.

Our OS was from 8:30 in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon, covered  
16 topics, and included 5 international guests (we were in a room next  
to the conference center's restrooms and as these individuals came out  
of the other workshops on their breaks at different times in the day,  
they would wander by our room, see it all set up for OS, ask what was  
going on. We invited them in and (as you can guess) that one person  
would be *the* exact person to answer a question or share an  
experience for the topic of the moment. They would enjoy the  
conversation and then move onward (to the bathroom).

Very great experience...
If I knew my group was very small I would choose a different approach,  
but having had this experience we got an opportunity to do some action  
research about our field, which was very exciting...

And then, Chris Corrigan may have done either the *smallest* OS or the  
*largest* one ever, depending on how you look at it...when he worked  
with the Inuit community (yes, Chris?) and nobody showed up...and  
Chris held space, and held space...and at the end of the day, was it?  
the elder said 'we got so much done today - may we hire you back again  
for next month?'

Very great indeed...

And yes, I am also one of the people who has done very large OSs, over  
2,000 people, several times now.
I find that the method scales up (same level of intimacy, same  
process) but the thing to really work on is logistics: visible  
signage, good sound, good site lines, lots of agenda wall space, chair  
set-up that aligns with safety and / or fire code needs, and so on...

Thanks to all for co-editing and keeping an eye on the wikipedia page.  
I did this for some years and got a bit tired about it so I'm glad  
others are helping this source of information be accurate and this OS  
stuff not be seen by wiki edit folks as 'advertisement' ;o)

Lisa

Lisa Heft
Consultant, Facilitator, Educator
Opening Space
lisaheft at openingspace.net
www.openingspace.net



OSLIST - the World Open Space community in conversation (English) http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
Open Space World Community space (all languages) http://openspaceworld.ning.com



  
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