[OSList] Foo Bar OST Re: What's the difference between BarCamp and OST?

Mon Aug 22 10:17:33 PDT 2016

I did a podcast conversation with Johnnie Moore and Rob Paterson on July 4 2005 where in we talked about unconferencing and Open Space.

http://johnniemoore.com/podcast-unconferencing/ <http://johnniemoore.com/podcast-unconferencing/>

There is some history in that discussion, notably that we were trying to respond to people who wanted to “unconference” the traditional conference formats.  Unconferencing was not a method, it was a verb.  (There is also a bit where Rob speculates on the actual origins or podcasting itself)

I still think of it that way: you want to unconference your gathering? Use Open Space Technology.

Chris  

> On Aug 21, 2016, at 7:11 PM, Jeff Aitken via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
> 
> Thanks. John Abbe and I hosted one in Palo Alto. It was Open Space but i heard people also considered it to be an unconference.
> 
> To some degree this is all like a game of Telephone in which the message changes with each new person telling it!
> 
> Jeff
> 
> 
> On Aug 21, 2016 6:45 PM, "Michael Herman" <michael at michaelherman.com <mailto:michael at michaelherman.com>> wrote:
> Recent Changes Camp actually was Open Space, not unconference.  We did the first one Portland in 2006, I think, and it ran around to a number of other places for some years.  Maybe still is going.  Not sure the form anymore, but the first ones were definitely OS.
> 
>  
> --
> 
> Michael Herman
> Michael Herman Associates
> 312-280-7838 <tel:312-280-7838> (mobile)
> 
> http://MichaelHerman.com <http://michaelherman.com/>
> http://OpenSpaceWorld.org <http://openspaceworld.org/>
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 3:55 PM, Jeff Aitken via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org <mailto:oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>> wrote:
> Kaliya Hamlin and others can surely chime in. She and friends have worked hard to persuade folks that OST is a best way to design an Unconference such as Barcamp or Recent Changes Camp or etc.
> 
> See their work at unconference.net <http://unconference.net/>
> Some unconferences use other participatory designs that are not OST and they do well, or crash and burn, or what have you.
> 
> Ps Dirk - I heard that naming the event Bar was indeed a play on the often used term Fubar - after the Foo was found inadequate for the restless masses...
> 
> Onward with thanks
> 
> Jeff
> San Francisco
> 
> 
> On Aug 21, 2016 1:26 PM, "Harrison Owen via OSList" <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org <mailto:oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>> wrote:
> Dick -- I'm sure you are correct. And Wikipedia does tend to be a little bit wiki... Howsomever -- by whatever name. However any time somebody starts talking about 4 principles and the law of two feet -- sounds a little spacey to me. Kinda of like "The Four Principles of Indian Spirituality." You can look that up on the Web! But at the end of the day-- Who cares? I didn't invent it. They didn't either. It's been around for a bit. Somewhat longer than Wiki... or whatever.
> 
> ho
> 
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> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: OSList [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org <mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org>] On Behalf Of Dirk Riehle via OSList
> Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2016 3:39 PM
> To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org <mailto:oslist at lists.openspacetech.org>
> Subject: [OSList] Foo Bar OST Re: What's the difference between BarCamp and OST?
> 
> If my memory serves me right (and Wikipedia seems to bear this out), the history is the following:
> 
> There used to be Foocamp, a conference initiated and led by Tim O'Reilly. The Foo in Foocamp supposedly stands for Friends of O'Reilly. O'Reilly is quite influential among what you call "the geeks". There is an alternative explanation of "foo" in that it refers to, well, "foo", which among geeks is a placeholder term for nothing in particular. You use it like "thingy" if you dont really have a term at hand. A random variable name that is.
> 
> Attendance at Foocamp was invitation-only and so eventually, some people frustrated over not having been invited, created Barcamp as a free and open alternative to Foocamp. Bar, like foo, is also just an empty placeholder for nothing in particular, and in geek lingo, foo and bar always occur together, hence foobar (no relationship to fubar as far as I know).
> 
> I don't think there is a particular defined structure to barcamps; they are much more loosely organized than open-space-organized events. They tend to have an agenda wall but none or not much of the ceremony that open space provides. So any one event may be quite different from another. Well, that's at least how it was when I last attended such events 10 years ago.
> 
> Talking semantics then:
> 
> 1. Foocamp was a particular conference series.
> 
> 2. Barcamp refers to a widely-copied conference format and is a synonym for unconference.
> 
> 3. Open space technology is a meeting/event facilitation technique.
> 
> My understanding is that OST is not a conference format but rather helps structure a meeting/event/conference in a particular way.
> 
> You can probably tell me whether it is a good idea to embed OST in a conference as one track, with other tracks using more traditional formats (i.e. planned agendas). I used to structure a conference series (WikiSym, now OpenSym, http://opensym.org <http://opensym.org/>) using OST, but later general chairs didn't do that; they didn't like OST and probably didn't understand it either.
> 
> Cheers,
> Dirk
> 
> 
> On 21.08.2016 21 <tel:21.08.2016%2021>:15, Harrison Owen via OSList wrote:
> > Eva -- you are, as usual, correct. Bar Camp has been around for some years, and it is a copy of OS. I think it had something to do with the geeks wanting to maintain something more like control. So they did the same thing (mostly), and called it something different. Is this called innovation?
> >
> > Harrison
> >
> > Winter Address
> > 7808 River Falls Dr.
> > Potomac, MD 20854
> > 301-365-2093 <tel:301-365-2093>
> >
> > Summer Address
> > 189 Beaucauire Ave
> > Camden, ME 04843
> > 207 763-3261 <tel:207%20763-3261>
> >
> > Websites
> > www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/>
> > www.ho-image.com <http://www.ho-image.com/>
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: OSList [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org <mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org>] On Behalf
> > Of Eva P Svensson via OSList
> > Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2016 2:01 PM
> > To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
> > Subject: [OSList] What's the difference between BarCamp and OST?
> >
> > Dear friends,
> > Today I heard a woman talking about setting up a meeting using BarCamp as a method. I asked her to explain to me what it was and when she did that I had a hard time finding the differences between that and Open Space. One thing was that, as she explained it, the time slots were 45 minutes then 15 minutes pause then new 45 minutes and so on. Otherwise it seemed more or less like copy and paste from Open Space. Anyone who knows more about it?
> > :o)
> > Eva
> >
> > Skickat från min iPhone
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