Hi Dirk,
Interesting question. I did facilitate a 4-hour citizen's OS this
summer during the Quebec Social Forum. Exactly what you mention
happened: lots of competing talks. So a lot of people left after 2
hours, and a lot of new people came in. My advice would be to have a
lot of helpers around, that can explain to newcomers the OS process
(how people created the agenda from what they care about and wanted
to discuss, invite them to add topics - keep a separate part of the
wall for that and maybe different shape and colour post-it - the
principles and law). Thank God I had two wonderful OS experienced
people with me to do that! We repeated our "story" quite a few times.
And it worked. Some newcomers turned around and left, and others
added new topics to the wall and held discussions. But it took a lot
of energy to explain the process and communicate the spirit and value
of staying to discuss in OS what mattered to them. So... lots of
helpers are good. And a belief in the Law and holding space. One
interesting thing is that one group from the first bunch had a
proposal and report to make, but wanted to leave for a very
well-knowned speaker. So they said they would send their
report/proposal later. And they did. Over two months later, but they
did, nevertheless. So here's to OS and responsibility!
As for the conferences, I had to go along with an "expert talk"
before opening the space for a small group last fall. I could
literaly feel the energy drain. Opening the space, I felt peole in
the circle needed a lot of my energy to get to work. However, once I
gave the go ahead to put up topics, everyone forgot about the very
passive informative speaker, and OS did it's magic!
So if I were you, I would try to concentrate the speakers during the
first part of the conference, and finish with OS, if possible. I've
seen a lot on this list that if speakers have to speak, then it is
best to have OS as a conclusion to the event. That being said, I
don't have that much experience. And certainly none in a research
conference. As for people not knowing about OS, the invitation (or
summary in the program) will intrigue them. And once there, they will
"get it" as Harrison always says :-)
Just my two cents here. Hope this helps. I'm sure others, more
experienced, will have more to say.
Cheers everyone!
Esther
At 23:00 2007-12-01, you wrote:
Hello everyone,
I'm involved with a variety of research conferences and would like
to better understand how you can fit open space into a research
conference with a set time-grid and competing events. I searched the
OSList archives and the web but didn't find anything so I hope it is
ok to ask here. (And a pointer to a previous discussion would be a
perfect and much appreciated answer.)
The research conferences I'm involved in typically have a fixed time
grid with two morning slots of 90min (30min coffee break in
between), lunch, and two afternoon slots of 90min (also 30min coffee
break in between). We have had open space at two such conferences
now, and in both cases it worked, but open space remained in
competition with "the regular program" i.e. set talks. We tried to
schedule the open space opening and ending to be without competing
event but that made them very early (late) i.e. at 8am and at 5pm.
The reason open space worked was certainly the excellent
facilitators we got, but also the enthusiasm of folks at these about
100 people conferences.
I'm trying to bring this now to a much larger research conference,
which has > 1000 people attending. I only have control over "my
track" but that track has considerable influence. Open space is
viewed as an experiment as it has never been done before at this
conference. I get one day with no competing events (Monday) and then
three days of the main conference (Tue-Thu) with lots of competing
events. On Monday we can structure the day the way we want it, on
Tue-Thu we have the aforementioned 90min sessions with coffee breaks
and lunch in between. Typical problems I expect and wonder how to
deal with them:
- plenty of folks who attend don't know much about open space
- many folks will show up in the middle of the day or just 30min
late not knowing how it works expecting to participate
- the competing events will make people come and go in a disruptive
way (but maybe that's just the law of the two feet :-)
This year (2008), we have two specific additional challenges
- we have no idea how many people will actually show up for the open
space part
- space is at a premium, we may have to share a large hall so I
wonder whether that's disruptive as well
Also, does it make sense to have open space afternoons (rather than
full days)? I'm thinking of reducing event competition by having
open space in the afternoon only on the three busy days Tuesday-Thursday.
The event will take place in Oct 2008 and we'll try to be smart
about it until then to take some of the guesswork out of the
equation. I.e. early engagement like inquiring about expected open
space participation at registration time.
Also, I'm a big fan of wikis, and intend to build up buzz and
pre-organization on a wiki leading up to the conference itself.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Dirk
PS: We will be looking for a facilitator. Obviously, this is a paid
job, though the research conference itself is not rich. Here a first blurp:
Open Space Facilitation Engagement Oct 2008 Nashville TN
For OOPSLA 2008, we are looking for an experienced open space
facilitator near Nashville, TN. Your engagement will be to
facilitate one full (and hopefully intense) day of open space +
several half days. Part of the job is explaining open space to those
who don't know it yet---which we expect to be many as this is the
first attempt of having open space at OOPSLA. OOPSLA is a >1000
people computer science (research) conference, but we expect a
significantly smaller number of people to participate in the open
space part only (current estimate is between 100 and 300). Location
is Nashville Convention Center, time and date is October 2008, with
initial and occasional consultations before then to prepare for the
meeting. For further questions, please contact Dirk Riehle, d...@riehle.org
--
Phone: + 1 (650) 215 3459
Web: http://www.riehle.org
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