Hi Diana. In November, 2003, a group of open spacers in Seattle convened a "Practice of Peace". We seeded the field with what we termed 'invited guests'. Each of the invited guests was someone using OST in a conflict resolution setting. Since we had invited them, we paid for their travel expenses and all of them agreed to come without further compensation. In our invitation, we listed the invited guests with brief bios for them.
It was clear to the organizers (including me) that seeding the field with invited guests had a tremendous, very positive and very powerful impact on the field we created at the event. Having those invited guests conveyed to all who read out invitation that our intention, which was 'to embrace chaos, conflict and confusion', was serious. It is clear to me that the power we unleashed by seeding the field with experts was very, very important to the success of the event. The event itself was stunningly powerful. I realized, after doing this event, that it is perfectly easy to have 'traditional' conferences using open space. Imagine an annual convention for an industry. It is traditional to seed the field with keynotes, who have to set their topics a year or more in advance of the event. Oftentimes, the invited speakers have moved on in their work but they still have to show up and talk about the topic as printed in the agenda for the conference. Instead of creating keynotes and breakouts, with pre-determined topics, it is so simple to invite a bunch of leading thinkers related to the theme of your event and simply unleash them into open space with everyone else. Now some folks still need to be listed as a speaker, as a workshop leader. Some folks like the traditional approach and some leaders don't like the unfamiliar energy of being an equal among peers. These people will not agree to be your invited guests, I predict. But there are some folks who are leaders in their field who yearn to go to gatherings with colleagues, with like-minds, as peers. These people will accept your invitation to be an invited guest. Some people are famous and they get used to being cushioned from the masses at a conference. If someone has written a well-known book, they might like being treated as special, they might crave the keynote slot. But I think that even some of these people will enjoy being a peer among peers. Keep in mind that all of your invited guests, Diana, will be fully free to hold sessions, make speeches, lead workshops within the open space. They will also be free to be a butterfly and hang out. Or do whatever they want. This can be very attractive to the invited guests. If you google 'practice of peace', Diana, and look at the website, I think you can find the invitation we used. I have referenced it on this list in the past but I mention it again for you since you asked about invited guests today. -- Love rays, Tree Fitzpatrick * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
