[OSList] entrepreneurs in open space

[Michael M Pannwitz]

Dear Doug,
I love your report.
Actually its reports like yours that make my day, or night.
And bringing good food seems a perfect sign of great management, 
supportive community, shared leadership and, of course, Vision. The 
eagle, bear, mouse and deer all in place.
While they had a productive time and observed "when its over, its over",
I suspect that things would even get better if "faculty and advisors" 
would not stay out but get in... and some more of the "community people 
bankers and business leaders" joined (were invited?).
I have experienced groups that seemed not to need the time available in 
the groups but spent the time not in the groups in amazing ways (started 
a new venture)... afterwards I was glad I did not intervene and thinking 
on this I decided not to interpret all this stuff, much too complex and 
maybe none of my business, and instead let selforganisation do its 
stuff... and stick to the announced schedule.
I wonder why you say its "another one for the books".
To me it appears to be unprecedented, unique, probably not exactly 
reproducable, a wonder.
Lets have more of them.
Greetings from Berlin
mmp

On 27.04.2013 23:59, doug wrote:
> Friends--
>
> Report on a half-day OST in Northern Indiana, held today:
>
> A local women's college has a program to help low-income women become
> entrepreneurs. It runs 6 weeks and has as faculty many community people,
> bankers and business leaders. I convinced them from the start that OST
> should be an integral part of the curriculum. This spring was the 4th
> class. This spring we had two classes running concurrently, one meets in
> the evening, one during the day. Today was the first time both classes
> had met each other.
>
> We gathered at 8:30, scheduled the opening for 9:00 and actually started
> at about 9:10. Village marketplace was done by 9:40. There was so much
> good food they brought to share that it was 8:57 before they gathered
> for their first groups! We scheduled to run to 1:00. So we did 3
> sessions of 1 hour each, with the closing circle at 12:40.
>
> There were 21 of the 23 students there, and there were 4 faculty and
> advisor folks too, a total of 25. The faculty and advisor people stayed
> out of the sessions for the most part.
>
> There was a healthy amount of bumble-beeing and butterflying, lots of
> banter and laughter.
>
> 14 topics were posted, and they elected to combine 3 into one session.
> Theme: "Issues and Opportunities in Our Businesses, Our Lives." Topics
> included:
> Managing business risk
> How do we sell our products?
> A name for my business
> Juggling home, family & business
> How do I connect with people
> Finding a business location
> The three that were combined: Funding for the future; How do we invest
> in our business?; Connecting with business/financial partners
> Ideas? Marketing...outside the box!
> Stepping out
> Having a business at home, or opening a store?
>
> What I have learned from these folks is the shorter sessions (1 hour)
> work better for them. Perhaps their needs and questions are more
> discrete at this stage in their entrepreneurial adventure (many have not
> actually started their businesses, they are just learning about business
> plans and payroll taxes and the like). Maybe they are still unsure about
> themselves and not sure even what questions to ask—maybe the questions
> (or the answers) get deeper and have more permutations after they have
> actually been doing their businesses for awhile (I have also been doing
> retreats for graduates of this course with longer sessions and a
> day-long format, and they sustain the conversations for longer times).
> Not sure why shorter sessions would serve them better, but I saw groups
> breaking up before the 60 minutes was up at least twice, maybe three
> times, and at the end, the conversations seemed to be running down so I
> went up to them after about 50 minutes and asked if they were done and
> wanted to move into closing early, and they said yes.
>
> A lot of emotion in the closing circle--even passing of tissues!
>
> Another one for the books. Of course it worked.
>
>              :- Doug. Germann
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-- 
Michael M Pannwitz
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49 - 30-772 8000



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