Dear Ted, I feel your decision to have everyone in the same OS is right. After all, it is just one kind of diversity, and diversity tends to enrich.
I have two comments. I have occasionally experienced that the sponsor wanted a number of specific people in with specific topics, for example because they felt that: - in the absence of five lectures, at least there would be the possibility for consumers to get some input; - it would allow them to put some names on the invitation, thereby - they felt - increasing the chances that those who they wanted to come would come; - in one case the sponsor organisation was worried that their own staff would not post enough topics, thereby wasting an opportunity to market the organisation - a conference I partiicipated in scheduled all presentations which could not be scheduled anywhere else in the program in the OS. I usually take the position that OS is about conversations, not presentations. But if anyone wants to bring a Powerpoint presentation with twohundred slides of course they can. In case a client wants to plan for ten topics to be posted by specific participants and I sense that the underlying reason is a worry about outcome, or a need to control, I try to take that issue up. Some ways I have found sometimes help to create some space are to - agree that preparing and focusing for an event is great, but that no-one is obliged to post a topic if (a) another participant already posted it, (b) if the participant strongly feels another topic posted is more important - ask the ones who are prepared to allow some time for others before rushing off. The worst OS I have experienced was one in which there was a long queue of presenters who had been told they could present during the OS. When these had posted their topics, there was a tiny little hole in time where three others managed to post something, and that was it. If there had been some space for others first, but then I suppose it was the only thing that could happen. Greetings from across the Great Pond, Gerard Muller Open Space Institute Denmark Ted Ernst wrote: > How do I access the archives for this list? I know there's been plenty of > discussion about doing OST concurrent to a traditional sort of conference, > but I'm afraid I didn't read those posts very closely and can't remember any > of the details. > > Anyway, I've been sharing my experiences in Open Space (Michael Herman's > Illinois Food Security Summit last fall, Michael's practice workshop in > Peoria in the spring, Midwest (USA) OSonOS in June, and my "How Can I > Practice Peace?" event in June) with my supervisor at work. He is now > convinced that the Child Welfare League of America needs to use OST at their > January conference on the Family Unification Program (specifics of this > program not so important to this discussion, but suffice it to say that > Congress hasn't re-funded the program so it will only continue with money > from previous allocations, and thus be a dying program over time). > Unfortunately, he's not the one making the decisions for CWLA, so he and I > are working with 2 people from there to see if we can develop a model that > we're all comfortable with. Oh, did I mention that he wants me to > facilitate the OST? > > Anyway, they've suggested tracks where the more experienced people are > invited into OST and the newer people have a traditional conference. I've > suggested to them that they allow me to open the space for everyone and then > the "invited" speakers also post their topics on the wall. What do you > think of this? What about the idea of having "invited" speakers post their > topics on a seperate part of the wall so it's clear which track is which? > What about having the "invited" speakers wall-postings pre-printed? Of > course I think the whole thing would go swimmingly if it were simply all in > open space, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. > > Thoughts? > > peace, > ted > ___ > Humanize the Earth! http://www.chicagohumanist.org http://www.tedernst.com > > * > * > ========================================================== > osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu > ------------------------------ > To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, > view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, > Visit: > > http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html