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At 06:42 PM 9/28/2002 -0400, glory wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Here's the strange part - only
about 30 people attended (the sponsor<br>
expected more, not less, people) and they generated only 3 topics.
Many<br>
were busily going over the Book of Proceedings from Meeting 1. As
they<br>
broke for their discussion, I invited them to post other topics<br>
throughout the course of the meeting. The Heritage slide
'presentation'<br>
took over - with the sponsor pushing for open discussion, which did<br>
eventually take place. It was everything I could do not to get in<br>
there... The report generated was quite specific with regard to<br>
community plans. The closing circle comments were of the same sort
along<br>
with some 'we didn't need another OS meeting' and some 'I'm glad we
had<br>
another OS meeting'. The energy was very muted.<br><br>
Here's my question - what are your thoughts on my 'allowing' the<br>
'presentation' and the presence of my students? I have been
pondering<br>
whether these factors somehow inhibited the space... What might you
have<br>
done differently?</blockquote><br>
I would agree with Michael P. Presentations, while not my favorite mode,
don't seem to make much difference provided they are offered as a session
with The Law of Two Feet fully operative. It may well have been your
students. with a small group (30) they constituted just about 25%.
And if they were in an "Observer" mode -- that could be a
downer. Last winter i was involved in what I can only call The Open Space
from Hell. Everybody was yelling at the facilitator (not me) about why
nothing was happening. Actually a lot was, but not quite what we had
hoped for. This OS had been convened to figure out what to do with a $6
billion Federal program. Lot of money / high stakes, etc Turned out that
in the group of 60 people, better than 50% were feds who had been
instructed by their leadership "just to observe." All the rest
of the people were participants in the program, and of course, the Feds
paid the bills and made the rules. Well it didn't take a rocket scientist
to figure out that when the dominant group (numbers wise also is the
major power player) just sit there and LOOK -- things could become a
little quiet. Actually the amazing thing was that even though all this
was true, many of the non-feds really loved OS, and wanted more -- which
they got. <br><br>
This of course is an extreme case, but it might be suggestive. Or more
likely, folks did just what they needed to, and that just didn't match
your expectations. (smile)<br><br>
ho<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Harrison Owen</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<div align="center">7808 River Falls Drive<br>
Potomac, MD 20854 USA<br>
phone 301-365-2093<br>
Open Space Training
<a href="http://www.openspaceworld.com/" eudora="autourl">www.openspaceworld.com</a>
<br>
Open Space Institute <a href="http://www.openspaceworld.org/" eudora="autourl">www.openspaceworld.org</a><br>
Personal website <a href="http://www.mindspring.com/~owenhh" eudora="autourl">www.mindspring.com\~owenhh</a><br><br>
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