[OSList] The role of session transcribers, this is my oslist session invite.

Koos de Heer koos at auryn.nl
Wed Oct 24 06:40:57 PDT 2012


Hi Kari,

I usually don't worry a lot about note taking. In 
the beginning I did, but I discovered that for 
most people, the conversations themselves were 
much more important than the notes. I do make 
clear that if some future action is to be taken, 
notes are important and in that case they have to 
make sure there are notes. But that is for them to decide.

I have experience with an Open Space where we had 
an army of mind mappers taking notes an creating 
a mind map of all the sessions in real time. 
There were some interesting reactions and input 
from people elsewhere over the internet, but the 
mind maps even though published online, never 
played a big role in the follow up. I had the 
feeling that most of the participants did not 
feel really connected with the mind mapping, it 
was something that happened outside of the real 
conversations, not as part of it.

It is true that notes taken by the participants 
are never 100% complete. And if you want to find 
out what happened afterward (if you were not 
there), the notes only give a very small 
impression. I have the idea, however, that no 
matter how good the notes are, it will never be 
more than a very superficial impression of the 
conversation. If only because a conversation is 
so much more than just the words.

I like the model used in WOSonOS, where people 
can contribute to the notes afterward. I do not 
understand people who complain that their 
contribution is not there, because it is still 
possible to go to the site an add it.

So my take on it would be: don't worry about the 
notes, if there has to be a plan, people will 
make a plan. Recording history for the sake of history is not really useful.

Another experience I have: the shorter the Open 
Space meeting, the less people are interested in 
taking notes and making reports.

Koos

At 00:37 23-10-2012, Kári Gunnarsson wrote:
>Hello dear oslist community
>
>I think about introducing distributed not-taking 
>for sessions so that the responsibility of notes 
>is in the hands of every participant and not the 
>participant appointed session transcriber as is 
>the general structured meeting practice. I long 
>for an opening in the passion and responsibility 
>for the written notes as well as the spoken word.
>
>As I read about some participation content begin 
>lost by transcribers and experiencing it for my 
>self, I think about the documentation design 
>style and the call by some to have scribes at 
>each group. Having scribes at groups makes my 
>face expression wrinkle a little and I think of 
>an alternative solution based on the 
>responsibility and passion of every member.
>
>What if everyone could dot down there own 
>contributions or ask a fellow in the discussion 
>to dot down there contributions if that is there 
>need. This way the responsibility of not-taking 
>is distributed, and half, if not all present take notes to there contributions.
>
>But then we have a problem when all the 
>different notes enter the computers, the 
>complexity of adding several documents as one 
>discussion will be like a discussion in the lists or some different beast.
>
>I imagen that this idea has especially had some 
>fieald time in the hads of multi-language gathering facilitators.
>
>My vision is a shared and individual 
>responsibility for session note-taking without 
>the use of session selected representative for the role.
>
>I ask about your experiences with this idea of 
>distributed documentation for each session and 
>the solutions you have identified.
>
>with love from Iceland
>Kári
>
>
>
>--
>Kári Gunnarsson
><mailto:kari.gunnarsson at simnet.is>kari.gunnarsson at simnet.is
>gsm: +354 8645189
>
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