Balloons as an Ice Breaker

Anne A Hiha anne_a_hiha at hotmail.com
Wed May 12 15:22:35 PDT 2010


Greetings Michael and Lisa
What a gnarly couple of words 'trust' and 'know'. I know when I am teaching my mantra is 'trust the process' but I don't know that I know much at all really. But I know I do have to trust that it will all work out in the end or I will just become a bundle of 'worry'.I also like that smidgeon of doubt that keeps the nerve jangling a bit that is a part of 'trust' but to my mind not a part of 'know'.
Thinking of you all at WOSonOS.
Regards
Anne in Napier, New Zealand. The sun has just come out after a few hours of beautiful desperately needed autumn rain. 

> Date: Thu, 13 May 2010 00:04:35 +0200
> From: mmpanne at boscop.org
> Subject: Re: [OSLIST] Balloons as an Ice Breaker
> To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
> 
> Dear Lisa,
> I wonder about the "trust". If I am good and wise and reflected I might 
> be able to trust myself.
> What kind of relationship do I establish between me and something or 
> between me and someone when I "trust" something or someone?
> What about "know", in the sense of "I know that selforganisation exists" 
> or "I know that I and others do come alive, act and are productive under 
> the condition of expanded time and space for selforganisation"?
> In the end, I might arrive at the same juncture regardless of whether I 
> "trust" or I "know": open space itself is the most luscious icebreaker 
> on earth (having seen this in the 170 events I facilitated for teachers, 
> social workers, mediators, grade school students, doctors, politicians, 
> government workers, architects, city planners, highschoolstudents, 
> chemical plant workers, IT specialists, alcoholics, communications 
> experts, ministers, volunteers, university professors, sanitation 
> workers...I KNOW it).
> Seems to me that "knowing" is much less work for me than "trusting".
> Isn't knowing also more robust and reliabel than trusting?
> 
> Good thing we can munch on this some more at the WOSonOS beginning tomorrow.
> You wont believe this but there were three more folks that signed in 
> today, 2 from Berlin and one from London.
> Sleep tight
> mmp
> 
> 
> Lisa Heft schrieb:
> > Hi, Lucas - if you trust the process, and you trust the people, no need 
> > to add any additional icebreakers - it is using precious minutes of 
> > their time.  Many of us have worked with government folks. My 
> > recommendation is use every moment / don't waste any time / get to the 
> > Open Space.  Don't do something directive, or creative, or 'helpy', or 
> > helping them feel something, or weaving them together or anything.  Jump 
> > into Open Space. Trust it. Trust them.
> > This ain't like other designed facilitated meetings. Open Space 
> > delivers. Delivers creativity, discovery, interchange, emergent thinking.
> > As long as you are not morphing it or squishing it into too short a time 
> > or rushing them or doing OS when it's really a situation best done with 
> > a different (dialogue) tool.
> > 
> > My two Euros, anyway (I'm WOSonOS-ing in Berlin at the moment)
> > 
> > Lisa
> > PS: Brightly colored principles and laws signs jazz the place up. People 
> > jazz the place up. Animated conversations jazz the place up....
> > 
> >>
> >> On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 12:36 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.
> >> 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 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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> 
> -- 
> Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
> Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
> ++49-30-772 8000
> mmpanne at boscop.org
> www.boscop.org
> 
> 
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