Balloons as an Ice Breaker

[Steve Cochran]

Howdy Back -

I've done probably 25 or so OS with feds over the last dozen years. In each
case just getting on with it was the magic. With feds (or anybody) It's
often so different from what they expect that as soon as the bulb goes on
about what's happening they can't wait to get on with it.

Don't get me wrong - I love games and ice breakers, but just never found it
necessary for opening space - feds or no feds.

Best to All - Steve
-------

Steve Cochran

Sustainability Strategies LLC <http://www.sustainabilitystrategies.com/>
National Center for
Sustainability<http://www.nationalcenterforsustainability.com/>
Blue Ridge Sustainability Institute <http://blueridgesustainability.org/>
Community Energy *Action*
Council<http://www.progress-energy.com/aboutenergy/wnc_meetings.asp>
Sustainable Cross-Laminated Technologies LLC <http://www.klhuk.com/site/>
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828-545-1467


On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 1:36 PM, Lucas Cioffi <lucas at athenabridge.org>wrote:

> Howdy All,
>
> Bottom line up front: How do you break the ice with participants unfamiliar
> to OS?
>
> Here's one way I found helpful:
>  I recently facilitated an open space workshop for sixty participants from
> roughly two dozen federal agencies.  The topic was how to make government
> more transparent, participatory, and collaborative as part of the
> Administration's Open Government Directive<http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/documents/open-government-directive>
> .
> I'm a novice at OS, but I've learned a bunch from this list and I'm happy
> to offer an idea which may be helpful to others.  OS can be intimidating,
> especially for government employees, so I opened with a collaborative
> exercise using balloons.  The inspiration came from a landscape architect's
> presentation where he accented a landscape with huge balloon sculptures to
> give it a playful feel for adults.
>
> *Rules of the Game:*
>
>    - Everyone gets 2 colored balloons in a sealed envelope.
>    - There is a point system posted on the wall (Red = 5, Orange = 4,
>    Yellow = 3, Green = 2, Blue = 1).
>    - Collaboration through trading is heavily incentivized-- if someone
>    ends up with a pair of balloons which are the same color, then their score
>    is multiplied times three.  This encourages people to mingle and create
>    win-win scenarios.  There are no restrictions on how balloons can be traded
>    (for example trading 1 for 1, 2 for 1, or even 0 for 1).
>    - Participants are given three minutes to inflate and trade their
>    balloons.  The goal is to have the most points.  (An alternate goal could be
>    to maximize the number of points for the entire group rather than
>    individuals.)
>
> *Reasons why we opened with a game:*
>
>    - Make it clear that this was a place where it's OK to be creative,
>    unlike their standard government workplace
>    - Prime the audience for the subject matter of collaboration (learn by
>    doing)
>    - Have some fun
>    - Build a bit of community among the participants who were mostly
>    strangers (incentivize mingling).
>    - Create a shared experience.
>    - Create a little chaos.
>    - Jazz up the place visually with a few balloons (it needed some color)
>
> *Reasons why we opened with this game for this workshop*
> Thomas Jefferson had a saying that “He who receives ideas from me, receives
> instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at
> mine receives light without darkening me.”  After the exercise I asked the
> participants what the difference was between trading a physical object (like
> a balloon) and sharing an idea; this exercise was lively and helped them
> understand that their purpose during the workshop was to share knowledge and
> benefit from others doing the same.
>
> Each month a different agency hosts this workshop for all the other
> agencies, and to keep the workshops fresh, our next opener will consist of
> small collaborative teams competing to build the tallest
> marshmallow-spaghetti tower (here's a fascinating TED video<http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_wujec_build_a_tower.html> which
> describes some stats behind this game).
>
> Any thoughts?  Do you open with games or collaborative exercises that you
> would recommend?  As always, thanks for the discussion!
> Lucas
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