[OSList] Fwd: Your advice please!

Fri Nov 18 15:58:57 PST 2011

Dear Suzanne, Annette, and others interested in this stream,

Suzanne and Annette..I cheer you on as you have these big events, invite
people to engagement and emergence and being open to possibilities. I am
relieved that your events will not be called Open Space or Open Space
Technology. You are both onto something else. I also, as a purist of sorts,
believe that the Universe as created by our Creator was created as what this
community calls Open Space
it is not the creation of Harrison or any of us.
It is there for the remembering and for our creativity. There is a lot of
space open in the world, what I think of as very full of possibilities,
ready to be formed into probabilities by our approach to it. If our approach
is too complicated, we do not have the maximum freedom for the possibilities
for creativity. If our approach is simple, such as Open Space Technology, we
carve out a container in the great open space of the universe in which our
finite minds can grasp something from the infinite sea of possibilities. As
humans, we need the orientation points provided by some type of
container/framework. The container that seems to give us the most freedom is
a circle, and in the virtual world, the imagination of a circle. I do not
think we create Open Space. I think we create containers so that the Open
Space of infinite possibilities can be formed and shaped by the humans that
engage with it. Imagine, if you would, that our work is to figure out the
right container for the humans involved to work with the Open Space that our
Creator created. If words like Creator are difficult, then think of the
Universe as a big open space of infinite conscious energy. Our job is to
learn to work with this energy, as individuals and as collectives.

World Café would have been a good option, Suzanne. It too is brilliant, and
works with this conscious energy. 

Open Space Technology would have been a good option. In this instance, as I
wrote in my reply to Julie, I recommend Gabriella Ender’s OpenSpace-Online
Software. The team has replicated, after huge investment and testing, the
Open Space Technology meeting to the extent that it is possible in a virtual
environment. I don’t think any other developers could do such a good job.
One reason is that Gabriella first embraced and came to deeply understand
Open Space Technology. 

Yet, when the limitations of time and technology, or perceived limitations
suggest that something different would be needed than either of these two
methods, it is time to create and innovate as you have done Suzanne. You are
not using an existing method, and you are giving a good go to an
experiment
I look forward to the report back.

Warmly and with good wishes to you both with your events,

Birgitt

tingshaBirgitt Williams

Author Genuine Contact Way

Co-owner of the Genuine Contact program

President and Senior Consultant, 

Dalar International Consultancy, Inc.

www.dalarinternational.com

Note: picture of the bells that have journeyed to numerous countries with me
for twenty-two years as an international consultant. During the closing
circle of every meeting, everyone in the meeting has held these bells. They
have now been held by thousands of people, all doing their part to create
life nurturing conditions for humanity. The bells have also been held in
blessing and in prayer by countless people, who bless all who ever hold
them, with the journey of the bells uniting all of their energies to make a
difference for humanity, one person at a time, one organization at a time,
one business at a time, one community at a time.

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Suzanne Daigle
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2011 8:15 AM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: [OSList] Fwd: Your advice please!

Dear Annette, 

( a very long post giving background and detail -- my apologies)
I was one of the individuals who posted a reply to Julie Smith's question.
On Sunday, Elaine Hansen and I with a team of 15 to 20 people will be
hosting a Virtual Conversation that is in the "spirit" of Open Space. The
Conversation is around the theme of Brené Brown's Tedx talk The Power of
Vulnerability  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o> and her book The
Gifts of Imperfection
<http://www.brenebrown.com/books/2010/8/8/the-gifts-of-imperfection.html> .
A total of 500 people registered from the US, and Canada with about 60 to 75
others from 27-28 countries. This is all we think we can handle. We had to
shut down registrations about 10 days ago. We have a wait list. It is a free
event. We are not calling it Open Space nor do I even want to intimate it is
Open Space Technology to you or others in this community. In my heart of
heart though, we are "opening space" and it is out of my love and passion
for Open Space that I wanted to do this event. To our guests from all over
the world, we have been saying that it is a "virtual experiment" that we are
"co-creating together"  for me, it is an experiment in the direction of Open
Space in cyber space. I have been longing for a way where people could have
live conversations, hear each others' voices, post topics, create a
marketplace, choose where they want to go, be bumble bees and butterflies,
document what get's said and connect deeply as we do in Open Space. This is
only a beginning.  

The main technology we are using at the event is Maestro Conference.  Their
conference call service (with a visual computer participant dashboard - not
quite enough yet for what we need) allows us to breakout into small groups
and also be in large groups. It happens primarily over the phone or using a
computer "paid" phone service like Skype where individuals call an assigned
US based telephone numbers with an access code unique to each participant. I
have a very affordable paid subscription with Maestro  which allows me to
invite others (my account was for a max of 200 people). 

On November 2nd, I wrote the OS list inviting people to our event. To my
surprise, Brian Curt, Founder and CEO of Maestro wrote to me that same day
and said: "I'm on this list - we def have a goal to eventually have full
inherently-OS-capable platform (where people can declare breakout topics,
and move by topic to other "rooms"), but in the meantime there are some
creative ways to use our platform to keep things "open".  I was ecstatic and
responded immediately saying that I knew a large community would love this
to happen and that many OS folks would be glad to help. This morning,
without being presumptuous towards Gabriela as I have not had the
opportunity to experience what she and others have created, I am wondering
if perhaps all of this could lead to an investor/shared vision/shared
knowledge type of conversation with Maestro and/or others in this fast
evolving collaborative technology world. 

In my case, I wanted to offer something free to participants and where my
financial investment would not be too much.   

Until November 8th, I thought we would be good with my 200 level
subscription. That's until Brené Brown blogged about us and accepted our
invitation to join. Within 24 hours or so, we went from 175 to 500. I have
no doubt we could have hit 1000, 2000 or more. I can admit to you here that
as the emails started flying in, Elaine and I almost panicked. I was even
brash enough to call the Maestro founder on his cell phone and he generously
offered to support us at the 500-person level as well as offering one of
their experienced people to help. (they have been amazing!).  

With my limited experience and the help of some wonderful people on our team
who know this technology, it felt like 500 is as much as we can manage for
now. 

Now for some of the nuts and bolts:

1.	We used multiple technologies working as a team preparing this
event: Skype, Tungle, Doodle, Youtube, freescreensharing, googledoc, etc. We
are from Canada, US, and Juliane Neumann from Berlin. 
2.	We used Eventbrite to invite people because we could show who was
coming from which country plus connect with them later with emails and
gather their comments. Click here to see Invitation
<http://globalconversation.eventbrite.com/> 
3.	It is a 2-hour event; we have sent notes to participants asking them
to arrive 15 minutes early-- enough time for people to greet each other as
they would at any OS event or sit down in a circle by themselves waiting for
things to start.  Our guests will be offered the opportunity as they arrive
to be in small groups to say hi, share their name, why they came (as they
would over a cup of coffee or getting their name tag). Cyber space on the
phone can feel a bit dark and lonely cause you don't see each other. We are
trying to create an invitational feel.
4.	Two minutes before start time, we will bring everyone in a large
main virtual space.  Again because people do not have the physical feel, I
will be welcoming everyone (3 minutes) and creating somehow the feel of
sitting in a giant circle mentioning a few of our OS principles without
referring directly to Open Space.  
5.	Elaine, who will be acting as the official host in the same way of
an Open Space event, will briefly set the context of the meeting reaffirming
to all why we are here.  People came because of the topics and passion they
have for Brené Brown's work. We know from their comments which they
submitted to us that they are excited and inspired to have these
conversations. Main ingredients of passion and responsibility are there!
6.	I will then invite questions from the virtual floor (so to speak).
By pressing 1 on their telephone key pad, people will signal that they have
a topic/question. Individual by individual, we will give them the virtual
mike and they will state topic/name/where they are from. Participants will
have been advised to have a paper handy to write the topics they feel they
have a passion to join.  We will take 10 topics in the first round. And then
people will be sent into small groups of 4, 5 and 6. Not perfect I know but
this is as much as we can do with time and current technology. We will
invite people to submit their questions/topics not spoken on our website
(more on that later)
7.	We will have two rounds of conversation of 25 minutes each.  We will
be asking for the second round of 10 topics after the first session is
complete. 
8.	We will ask everyone to record notes and highlights and post them as
soon as possible (can be typed notes, doodles, video comments, etc). Not the
same as having an initiator and asking that someone in the group do this.
Here we are asking everyone.  We have set up a website for this. Lots of
stuff on this site already. Have a look!  Global Conversation
<http://global-conversation.posterous.com/> 
9.	Three graphic recorders will be listening, silently going from group
to group, creating in images and words illustrated gifts of what is being
shared. 
10.	We will have a closing circle though on line, it will not be
possible to hear the 500 voices in the time we have, but we will try to hear
as many as we can.
11.	We will leave the lines open afterwards (15-30 minutes after) for
people to continue talking and sharing as we do in physical space when we
hang out after an event. 

Initially we were planning on a World Cafe type event. I had not had the
courage until I saw Harrison in Chile to go beyond that. He challenged me,
nudged me and inspired me to go farther. I did and Elaine agreed as did the
rest of our team. 

Navigating the technology world to introduce something like this with the
essence and spirit of self-organizing is a journey itself. I have loved
every magical minute of this work with the most wonderful team of people.
Generosity, joy, support, fun, persistence are words that come to mind. 

Then I add love because as I read emails from our future guests, the
excerpts of one which I share with you in closing, I know that Whatever
happens on Sunday is the only thing that could have. Yes we will be a bit
nervous as will our guests similar to what it feels like sitting in a circle
for the first time. It's what creates the magic, the relationship, the
bonding and the opening of space. In the end, that's all that matters.  

Excerpts from a participant note received this morning
"So excited (and a bit nervous!) about this Sunday's event.  I have never
done anything like this before, but, in an effort to really put Brené's
authentic living into practice, I felt I had to stretch my comfort zone!"
When I signed up for this event, I didn't realize that "Conversation" in the
title meant LITERALLY conversation!  I thought it would be like a webinar  -
which I have never done either, but my husband has and they seemed to be
pretty much a one-sided event.  This sounds like it is going to be very
different - in a good way!
And then at the end of her note
Thank you so much for all the effort and time and courage to do this.  I
read something this week from someone I follow on Twitter that said there is
one word that can change the world - TRY.  You and Elaine did just that -
you TRIED something new.  I can't wait to be a part of it and see how far it
takes all of us! 

Somehow this note made everything we've done so far worthwhile. 

Thank you everyone for your patience reading with reviewing or editing.  We
still have a few more busy days ahead of us including setting up time for
those participant guests who said they wanted to test their phone
connections and get a feel for our event before the actual day.

Suzanne (with much appreciation to Elaine Hansen and a most wonderful team)

On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 5:24 AM, Michael M Pannwitz <mmpanne at boscop.org>
wrote:

Dear Annette,
check out the "deja vu" string that was started by Julie Smith with the same
question, she lives right around the corner from you in Alaska... a number
of responses pointed to various possibilities.
Greetings from Berlin
mmp

On 18.11.2011 08:01, Annette Zera wrote:

I've been asked if it is possible to run an *online *Open Space event

for 500 people.

I haven't a clue.  Can anyone help?

Thanks a lot.
Annette

--
Annette Zera
19 Highbury Terrace Mews
London N5 1UT

0207 690 1495
07951771466

www.gettingonbrilliantly.co.uk <http://www.gettingonbrilliantly.co.uk>

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-- 
Suzanne Daigle
NuFocus Strategic Group
7159 Victoria Circle
University Park, FL 34201
FL 941-359-8877;  
CT 203-722-2009
www.nufocusgroup.com
s.daigle at nufocusgroup.com
twitter @suzannedaigle

-- 
Suzanne Daigle
NuFocus Strategic Group
7159 Victoria Circle
University Park, FL 34201
FL 941-359-8877;  
CT 203-722-2009
www.nufocusgroup.com
s.daigle at nufocusgroup.com
twitter @suzannedaigle

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