I want to strongly echo Doug and Joelle's comment here. Whether I am working in an organizational or community setting, I have wholeheartedly adopted this practice. I call it "Inivitation Support" and it makes a huge difference to ensuring that the invitation is right, that there is investment in the process and it kick starts the whole "passion and responsibility" thing.
In fact, I think I first started thinking really seriously about this when I was talking to Doug Germann about another OST he did in his community on giving and making good. If I'm not mistaken Doug, you took a number of people out for coffee or lunch and talked about what the event could be, and whether they would come if they were invited. Since then I have been a part of some tremendous examples of invitation support, which I credit with dynamic and powerful OST events whose legacies have lingered long after the meeting. Doug...thanks for sharing this story. Chris On 5/15/06, Joelle Lyons Everett <[email protected]> wrote:
In a message dated 5/15/06 7:46:04 PM, [email protected] writes: C. Another learning is this: It takes I think more than a group of 4 or 5 inviters to make instant Open Space happen in larger scales. One person was active, inviting groups, inviting individuals. Another was less active, but still invited many. A third was in the midst of personal difficulties and probably invited only a few. And the last, I, invited several people, but did not have many contacts with people who were really invested in this issue. It is possible that these conversations produced our inviters for larger conversations to follow. Doug-- In my experience, having more inviters is a good thing, and it helps if the inviters are from different segments of the community (different community systems such as government, education, business, social services; different neighborhoods; different socioeconomic levels; different interest groups). In planning a community forum in Shelton many years ago, one of the smartest things we did was to send letters to community organizations, inviting them to send a representative to a planning meeting. This gave us an "inviter" inside a number of different groups--they were very helpful in encouraging participation, finding volunteers, ensuring a number of different points of view were represented at the forum. You will likely find this true when planning for your next meeting. Sounds like a wonderful project--we're hearing a lot about this issue, but most often polarized, not from people coming together for thoughtful conversation. Joelle * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
-- CHRIS CORRIGAN Consultation - Facilitation Open Space Technology Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com Open Space Resources: http://tinyurl.com/r94tj * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
