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

Wed Oct 24 14:50:19 PDT 2012

Chris - Lovely story! Seems to me that the importance of the "Document" has
always been around the process and not the product. When the News Room is
buzzing that is not the sound of incidental (co-incidental) work to my ears.
It is just part of the whole thing. The discussion, growth, change,
relationships, cross-pollination - all are going full steam. One of my
earliest Open Spaces was with the Presbyterian Church (1990), which at that
point was in deep doo-doo. 500 very concerned (and conflicted) people
labored/talked/laughed/cried for 2 days. And The Document (I still have one)
was 350 pages! And 500 copies were delivered on forklift truck by departure.
To Cheers!

ho

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Dr.

Potomac, MD 20854

USA

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)

Camden, Maine 20854

Phone 301-365-2093

(summer)  207-763-3261

www.openspaceworld.com 

www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)

To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST
Go to:
<http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org>
http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Chris Corrigan
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2012 4:53 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] The role of session transcribers, this is my oslist
session invite.

Last year in a large open space where we paid deep attention to the
documentation (http://addressingstigma.ning.com) one of the conveners said
"I see what you're doing.this is just a massive document collaboration
process."  

Even though the remark was said as a kind of tender complaint at how much
work the conveners and note takers did, it was an affirmation to me that we
got it right with the level of documentation we required.  I can't count how
many hands and voices were a part of the final product, which included
documents, video and a graphic harvest.  Close to every one of the 150
people in attendance I would guess.  And that made us very very happy,
because many of those voices are traditionally marginalized by the system we
were working with.

Chris

On 2012-10-24, at 1:29 PM, Lisa Heft wrote:

i know that so many people have never had the experience of receiving notes
after discussions - and that some people use the notes for deeper reflection
post-event.

Some organizations turn them into work-sheets for projects, some return six
months later to re-convene a group of people who cared about something.

Some groups give everyone their Book of Proceedings and then a smaller
sub-group has fun going over it to look for patterns and new ideas inspired
by the notes.

Some individuals do not look at the notes at all - but I have found that
many people do - especially if it is in the form of a Book of Proceedings
rather than individual posted notes on wiki for example.

And yes, some people do not feel they need to take notes at all, and that is
fine.

When I see multiple people taking notes I invite them to add their notes
together, or I take a photo of their mind-maps and put that into the Book -
and even if someone creates poetry or a drawing during the meeting I feel
that is 'the work' as well so I put that into the Book as well. 

I am always seeking (with Open Space and with other processes) easy ways for
participants to self-document so that the wisdom shared in one little group
is shared across all the groups - so that if one little discussion group has
a discovery that knowledge is not limited to that small group who went to
that particular discussion, but instead informs the whole.

That is why I appreciate people having written up notes as much as they have
from the WOSonOS and other events where I have been a participant. I want to
learn from more than the little groups I was able to get to.

And I want to see who attended each group - because possibly I may want to
invite people interested in a topic to explore further post-event (when I am
a participant) or when I consult with an organization sometimes the client
sees topics in the Book that had high interest and wishes to re-convene
people interested in it. And so on. 

I have found that it is useful to put a live Newsroom in the Open Space
meeting room (as happened at the WOSonOS - gracefully coordinated by Kirsty
& Company) - and wonderful Kas has improved my understanding of how to show
in the room what notes are outstanding and which are completed - so
participants can see that as they go throughout their discussions. I find
that giving participants back a Book of Proceedings - with some photos to
remind them of a body-sense of their passion and engagement - is something
many participants really like. I am not always the one who does the
documentation with a client and of course documentation design always
depends on how much overall meeting time there is, as well as ways of
inviting non-burdensome / collective co-responsibility documentation.
Sometimes documentation - especially for a short meeting - is as simple as a
list of what topics were posted and who attended each discussion plus a list
of participant contact / networking information.

Yes - the notes are as detailed as whomever takes the notes. But I like the
co-responsibility of participants actively sharing what they are learning
and as Harrison says - most notes give the general thrust and content of
that session. 

And for example a science conference I facilitated was a great opportunity
for people to share knowledge across disciplines and they are very
interested in reading each others' notes - and surprised that so much
information comes into an informal writing as they are so used to academic
papers. And at another conference I facilitated, participants really
appreciate a Book of Proceedings because they can show their funders about
their retreat or conference and can use the Book to generate conversations
back at the office. It also can give people in organizations some leverage
in showing what convening groups in dialogue can be and how productive such
a convening can be - so they get a bit more support for doing more of that
in their organization.

Just some things I have observed about session notes...

Lisa

On Oct 24, 2012, at 8:11 AM, Harrison Owen wrote:

Kari - It has always seemed to me that the real value of the notes from
various sessions was/is just to alert anybody-interested in the general
thrust and content of that session. Any similarity between OS Reports and
formal, edited, officially sanctioned minutes is purely co-incidental. I
always tried to label the "Proceedings" DRAFT, back in the days when we had
hard copy - just to make the point that it is all a work in progress. But
the good news is that -- should you be interested, but not quite understand
- you have the name (and usually email) of the author. Talk to themJ

Harrison

_______________________________________________
OSList mailing list
To post send emails to OSList at lists.openspacetech.org
To unsubscribe send an email to OSList-leave at lists.openspacetech.org
To subscribe or manage your subscription click below:
http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20121024/f076d111/attachment-0008.htm>