Thanks Michael for one less thing to do :)
Wendy
On 11-Aug-09, at 10:27 AM, Michael Herman wrote:
on colors... it's easy to put a little stripe down the side of each
post-it note... so with a full set of markers, i never run out of
colors -- if i want to color code things at all.
and this notion of who organizes and when can apply to setting up
the chairs as well. do you set circles of 10 or 12 or 15 chairs in
breakout spaces? my very first open space i did it that way. and
in some groups of two and three, people ended up sitting seemed like
so very far away from each other. not knowing each other well
enough to move closer. ever since then i put only three chairs,
with front corners right together, so that anyone sitting here will
have to decide where it goes relative to others. even if only two
people show up. i put extras in stacks or lines along the wall and
more than three ppts can pull from there. or they pull from big
circle. so this gives ppts full responsibility for how close they
get to others and is a lot easier for setting up.
m
--
Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
http://www.michaelherman.com
http://www.ronanparktrail.com
http://www.chicagoconservationcorps.org
http://www.openspaceworld.org
312-280-7838 (mobile)
On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 11:25 AM, Chris Corrigan <chris.corri...@gmail.com
> wrote:
Late to the grid talk...
By default I don't use a grid. What I like about the gridless setup
is that it gives the control freaks something to do. It's hard
enough being in the chaos of space opening - many type A
personalities feel helpless. When the come to the wall, it has
often been my experience that they take charge and organize things
by time, sometimes lining up the posters very nicely. As a ritual
it seems to calm them down and ground them and it gives the message
that this is truly a day owned by the group.
And more often than not, folks just get along fine with the collage.
But there is another way I have done things, especially when the
start and finish times are likely to shift (in indigenous
communities things can start a lot later than is scheduled.)
Instead of writing times and spaces on dozens of post it notes, I
just write the spaces and I place them on a big poster that says the
times. If the times change, it's easy to just make a new poster and
cluster the little post-it notes around it. If you colour code the
writing on the poster with the colour of the post it notes, it makes
it kinesthetically easier to see the pattern.
(I almost always use coloured post-it notes by the way, one colour
for each time slot).
Cheers,
Chris
On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 8:54 PM, Peggy Holman <pe...@opencirclecompany.com
> wrote:
To grid or not to grid...
For me, it depends. Two circumstances lead me to offer more order.
Size. As the size of the group increases, there are more sessions
to track. With a larger group, I post times along the top of the
agenda wall. Like Lisa, I often use different colors for different
times. When I did the OS for 2,100 street kids in Bogota, we set up
a grid; each time had its own wall and we put the room numbers
across the rows:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/78084501@N00/79452637/in/set-1700469/
It just seemed the best way to support the crowd in finding sessions
of interest.
Culture. The other circumstance in which I've used a grid is when
the culture of the group seems to call for it. As Kaliya noted,
engineers seem more productive with a grid. I think it is for them,
one less thing.
Speaking of culture, one of the most telling images for me is the OS
of 2108 that Harrison and Michael did in Wurtzberg and the 2,100
street kids. As people waited to announce their sessions in
Germany, they were in a neat line. The street kids looked like a
mob around Andres, who held the mic. In both cases, it was orderly
but the image was sure different!
Wurzberg: http://www.transformation.at//?art_id=46
(pages 39-41)
Colombia:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/78084501@N00/79454421/in/set-1700469/
Peggy
______________________________
Peggy Holman
The Open Circle Company
15347 SE 49th Place
Bellevue, WA 98006
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www.opencirclecompany.com
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For the new edition of The Change Handbook, go to:
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get burnt, is to become
the fire".
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On Aug 7, 2009, at 6:00 AM, Harrison Owen wrote:
Artur – we will be looking forward to your return! And an odd
thought passed through my muddled mind. It occurred to me, I think
because you mentioned being an engineer that it might somehow
appear that “getting organized” and “being organized” are somehow
anathema to Open Space. It might even seem that I have implied as
much – if so that would be a massive mistake on my part. The issue
is not “organization” – but who does it and when does it happen?
The truth of the matter is that every Open Space is highly
organized, usually more so than any facilitator or planning
committee could ever imagine.
Consider 2108 German psychiatrists X 236 concurrent sessions in an
8 hour period. That would take a planning committee years! And they
would never get it right -- things would always be late, and great
frustration would be a predictable outcome. In the instance, the
people did it all themselves in something less than an hour and it
all worked out perfectly including written reports for all or most
of the sessions. Now Mr Engineer, Can you beat that? Just kidding J
For me the real issue is efficiency and effectiveness – which are
presumably positive values that all engineers will ascribe to. In
that case the only question is how do you get there fastest and
bestest? The curious answer would seem to be Do Less!
Harrison
Harrison Owen
189 Beaucaire Ave
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OSLIST To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options
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From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of
Artur Silva
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 6:57 AM
To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu
Subject: Re: Why is a grid sometimes useful?
Being out of my office with bad internet contact and short of time,
I only red some of this rich exchange.
I must say, like Bernd, that, probably because of my education as
an engineer, I never thought about doing it without a grid. And
living in a Chatolic country, even with a grid, most managers think
that OST is too much for them...
But then some coments from Harrison and Lisa make me think...
I will continue to think, and after the 18th, with better conexion,
I will coment something.
But don´t ask me what ;-)
Regards from the countryside somewhere in the north of Portugal
Artur
-----------
--- On Thu, 8/6/09, Harrison Owen <hho...@verizon.net> wrote:
From: Harrison Owen <hho...@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: [OSLIST] Why is a grid sometimes useful?
To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu
Date: Thursday, August 6, 2009, 5:17 AM
Lesley, I think you got it! (“It is my sense of things that the
more we order….the more we take away from the process……..however
this can be very uncomfortable for us(facilitator”). It is all
about organizing a self organizing system. Not only is that an
oxymoron, but also of questionable intelligence – regardless of the
alleged increase of comfort.
Harrison
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CHRIS CORRIGAN
Facilitation - Training - Process Design
Open Space Technology
Weblog: http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
Site: http://www.chriscorrigan.com
Principal, Harvest Moon Consultants, Ltd.
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The moment of change is the only poem. -- Adrienne Rich
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