[OSList] How to present OST?

Christoph Berendes berendes at netalyst.com
Thu Dec 5 08:52:19 PST 2013


On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 4:40 PM, Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net> wrote:

> I find that most people really don’t care about the “process.” As Eiwor
> says – they just want results.


As someone coming in to this community and civic engagement from a
background with more business development, let me underline this.

Also:
1. Ask, ask, and ask again: find out whether they are undertaking
initiatives where (you know) open space may help, e.g. planning, community
relations, etc. Imagine that you're already their full-time, paid, in-house
process consultant, with the mandate to bring in the right processes as
needed and when they can be cost-effective. How would you suss out where
open space was needed? When would you direct them to other processes, or
leave well enough alone?

2. Bring open space into the sales process - don't explain "and now I'm
doing open space with you", just do it (perhaps in modified or abbreviated
form). As it's successful, it may make sense to point out what you just did.

3. If you already have some happy clients, interview them to find out how
open space worked for them. The intriguing thing is that, often, clients
(happy or otherwise) have a very different sense of why they bought and
what they got than you would expect. Useful info for approaching prospects.


Chris Berendes
@citizentools
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20131205/915f3420/attachment-0008.htm>


More information about the OSList mailing list