Tips for presenting Open Space to a Peace & Justice center?

[Chris Corrigan]

Done a lot of work in this area, most notably with the Dalai Lama Centre
here in the Vancouver area.  We used Open Space to open up the Centre to
connection and collaborations with the community at large to see how
everyone could get work together.  I've worked in a huge variety of social
justice setting around indigenous rights, human rights, youth, workers
rights, fairness in the food system, diversity work, you name it, all using
Open Space to bring people together to collaborate on issues for which they
sahre passion and are willing to take responsibility.
My standard take on things is to riff on the mantra of "when we don't know
what to do, and we need to involve lots of people and to trust their
intelligence, passion and responsibility, Open Space is the fastest way to
get to work."  World peace and social justice remain, to the best of my
knowledge, elusive states which makes me think that the more hands and
hearts we have in the mix the better.  An Open Space conference will quickly
access this collective intelligence and passion and build a field of
relationships that will put ideas to work.  And it will do it faster and
deeper than almost anything else.

I'm sure many others on the list will give you other examples and stories
and maybe even a powerpoint or two, but my advice is have the conversation
with your sponsors starting with what they are trying to do, and what they
think will make that work sustainable after the gathering.  Open Space gets
to the issues in 45 minutes and after a day or two you have a set of
relationships that will sustain the work long after the conference ends.

Good luck to you!

Chris


On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Harold Shinsato <harold at shinsato.com>wrote:

> I'm presenting at the board meeting on Monday of the Jeanette Rankin Peace
> Center to propose they use Open Space to initiate a Peace Conference in our
> region. Jeanette Rankin was the first woman in the US Congress, and she
> also
> voted against our entry into both World Wars (pretty much alone from what I
> recall).
>
> Will the kind readers of this list provide any tips and pointers about
> making such a presentation? If anyone one has a slide deck they'd be
> willing
> to share, even better!
>
>     Thanks in advance!
>     Harold Shinsato
>
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-- 
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

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