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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman">Hi Birgitt, Harrison und
Michael,</FONT></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>I want to share some reflections I wrote these
days, which are very close to your questions and add maybe 2 Eurocents more.
</FONT></SPAN></P>
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face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN><SPAN
style="COLOR: black"></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>The Würzburg OS day proved what he had to: OS
works with 2100 people. At least if you reduce the carriage of your march.
It proved that it is of value to use OS at congresses and may enrich them a lot:
Congresses have a tendency to play to much music from the frontside
anyway.</FONT></SPAN></P>
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face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>But if you use OS as a congress application you do
not need to use some of the core elements of an OST meeting. Therefore and
though the experience in Würzburg was succsessful, new questions are uprising.
</FONT></SPAN><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT size=3><FONT
face="Times New Roman">How can in a meeting of that size</FONT> <FONT
face="Times New Roman">the core competence of OS be achieved -to work
together on important topics or burning questions towards an
implementation?</FONT></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>I want to apologize before I start: I am a very
practical orientated man and want to bring in some additions to the enthusiasm I
read about the 2108 of Würzburg </FONT></SPAN></P>
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face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>Selfcomplexity and
selforganization</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>It seems to me that 500, 1000 or 2000 people are
simple different social aggregats (seen under the view of a participative
approach). There are many experiences working with 500 or so, but not too many
with 1000 (I can only remember one in Germany) and no experiences with 2000 so
far. Open Space roots in selforganization of praticipants in in a minimal
structur. The key question is How large is the ability of people to come
along with the complexitiy that emerges in a crowd of 2000? To handle the sheer
mass of people, space and choices. (Remember: 150 meter walk to see all the
topics). My observation: many people found (their) workshops, but I also
observed many lost persons. To keep clear whats going on under these
circumstances can be a psychological and physical challenge. But I know chaos is
part of OS and however many people had good time, like the pictures showed. And
those, who felt uncomfortable found a way or simple left. Did selforganization
therfore work? We do not know, because there were no exitpolls and there
was no need to deliever any outcomes. 150 written report sheets only
proof: if people find a meet a theme of very large broad and no givens and
they are stimulated in the right way, they are able to have a good time.
But if you think about work with the need of shared
outcomes? There might be limititations of complexity that raises
up with the number of people, where the work starts to be insufficient.
Ecological systems usually have a limit of growth where they break down
immediately, if it is too much of anything. Where is that limit and what kind of
nutrient enviroment could be helpful to support a really large group under this
conditions? </FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="COLOR: black"></SPAN><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>Delivery and logistics</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>An OST.meeting in many cases is headed to
delivery. This needs elements that were missing in Würzhurg (there was no need
for that). A really working marketplace, the book, convergence and action
planning. The practical carry through of these procedures is in direct
connection to the size of a meeting.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>1. Working sessions. I suppose the surprising huge
number of workshops emerged for two reasons: People where up on their own
private passions. They did not notice other ones with close contents and
there was no need to. Just walked in with their sheets. In a real working
meeting people probably attentive observe what's going on, to join in already
convened workshops or not to get into a competition of topics. This reduces the
number of workshops. And - if you work on a shared topic, there is probably
a limited number of topics that make sense - beyond the number of people
there.What does it mean? Let's say a meeting with 2000 people, 7 working
sessions, 150 topics, (Harrisons bet). It's 21 workshops each session
and nearly 100 people in every single session in the average. Hmm, I
know that 100 people can work together very well, but every group, at every
time?</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>2. Marketplace: It is possible to concentrate 230
topics at a linge that is smaller than 150 meter, for sure. I can hardly believe
that it is possible to overview the stuff, if there are thousands around you,
but imagine the crowd dealing! I believe more to individual arbitrariness
than to negotiations. This does not matter if your only interest is to find
any workshops where you can probably have a good time. But if you have high
interest because you have passion for the whole thing? Any ideas to handle
that? </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>3 Writing reports: Handwritten reports work
beautiful at many occassions, as I know. But my experience is, that the
quality of typed reports is much higher. People spend more time to think it over
and to bring in a form that is understandable for people, who did not share the
workshop. And this makes it easier to work on with it. To type in 230
reports made in, lets say 7 working sessions, makes something like 30 - 50 PCs,
right? A technical challenge, you need probably a technical tent too, but you
can make it. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN
style="COLOR: black"></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>4. The book: To copy 150 reports, even of one
page each, is 300.000 copies, right? May be you need a print office, but can
make it. But how much time does the crowd need to read the book before
convergence? 2 hours minimum? Maybe a little dizzy
after?</FONT> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>5. Convergence: There is no need for convergence
in a congress. In an OSTmeeting: The voting software is very helpful.
May be the easiest part, if you have a lot of terminals to enter the votes. But
it will take some time and you need to have some clever ideas to make the
result visualized. It would be very helpful to merge topics to reduce the
number. I can only hardly imagine how it works with 2000. Selforganization?
Maybe.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>6 Action planning: There is no use for the "Top
10" formula. It creates groups of an average number of 200. "Top 30"? Still 65
each. Any experiences of action planning groups of this size? Would an "action
space", like the Berlin guys do it, help (another little OS for
building planning groups)? Maybe no difference for the numbers. At last the
same question as at the first bullet: Is there a limit of working ability of
groups by numbers and if, where?</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>I can imagine that OS is a beautiful ingredient to
a congress, by using some strong elements of OS and dropping some others (being
aware of this). But a succesful application in a congress does not answer all
questions we have, doing an OS-meeting with 2000. </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>And there is one very hard disadvantage: In
Würzburg 2000 people believed to have learned to know what OS is really
like, but they experienced only pieces of all the huge possibilities, we know
that OS can have. Good marketing? Bad marketing? Who knows...</FONT></SPAN></P>
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face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"><SPAN style="COLOR: black"><FONT
face="Times New Roman"
size=3>Erich</FONT></SPAN></P></FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>
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