Dear Jennifer, I cannot give you any advice as the largest OST I have ever facilitated was with 350 people. What I can say however is how inspired I was reading your post: your passion, conviction, patience and great wisdom to wait for the right time.
Baby steps indeed each one of them bold GIANT steps as far as I'm concerned. Lots of food for thought in what you wrote: Why do people favor the traditional over trying something new that could invite so much of what they want and are looking for? And then if they have experienced Open Space (felt energized and invigorated which happens most times), why the continued hesitancy and reluctance to more vocally promote places and spaces that will invite this same way of doing and being ? Seems the young folks are more open, walking with their feet choosing OS over the traditional conference style. Why? Open Space invites us to take responsibility for what we believe in; conferences don't; they inform. With this new sense of responsibility, I believe there is also the feeling of discomfort that comes with the realization that "I am the one I have been waiting for". Not often in life that we feel this as palpably as we often do in Open Space. And probably as I'm thinking out loud, people need time to sink into the reality of what was awakened in them. Guess I'll noodle this some more as I re-read your post again. In terms of you handling 800 versus a smaller number, I have no doubt that it will not only be successful but also magical. The soil has been tilled and I feel seeds sprouting everywhere. Enjoy holding this special space. Suzanne On Wednesday, January 12, 2011, Harrison Owen <hho...@verizon.net> wrote: > Well done! It always amazing to me how well intentioned, bright, involved > people can take so long to acknowledge a blinding flash of the obvious. As I > said in my post immediate, presentations give you yesterday’s news. When you > open space (by whatever name) now is the future, and the future is now. > Pretty juicy, and congratulations on your tenacity. Harrison Harrison > Owen7808 River Falls Dr.Potomac, MD 20854USAPhone > 301-365-2093www.openspaceworld.comwww.ho-image.com (Personal Website)To > subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of > osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu:http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html > From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Jennifer > Hurley > Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2011 2:48 PM > To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu > Subject: An OST Story History of Open Space Technology in the Congress for > the New Urbanism > > Caveat: This is my own personal take on this story, and I’m sure that other > people in the organization would have different perspectives. > > Since 2001, I’ve been involved with a national professional organization that > is promoting a reform movement to support walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods. > [For anyone interested in this topic, check out the Congress for the New > Urbanism at http://www.cnu.org.] One of the activities of the organization > is to put on an annual “Congress”. When the movement first began (CNU I was > held in 1993), the Congress involved about 100 people, with lively > discussions and jury critiques of projects that demonstrated cutting-edge > ideas in planning, development, and architecture. The organization has grown > dramatically—it now has over 3,000 members, and the annual Congress attracts > 1200 – 1500 participants. As the event has grown, it has become more of a > conventional conference, with many large plenaries and small panel > presentations, tours of projects and neighborhoods with urban design lessons, > and other typical conference events. > > From the very first time I attended a Congress in 2001, I thought it was an > enormously wasted opportunity to bring all of these passionate, talented > people together, and then just sit in a room listening to presentations from > a few. And I wasn’t alone – people who had been involved from the beginning > bemoaned losing the feeling of a “congress” as the size had grown. I had > experienced OST in a small way as portions of other conferences, loved it, > and read as much as I could find about it. I started talking about OST on > some of the listservs where new urbanists talked about the movement and the > organization – but there were no bites. > > NextGen Starts with OST > A few years later in 2004, a group of young folks engaged in the movement > decided to hold their own event one day before the annual Congress. They > started talking about it on the listservs and invited people to join in the > planning of the “NextGen Congress”. When they started asking about what > people wanted to do during the event, I suggested OST. The idea was > immediately picked up, in part because it sounded so easy. The first one-day > NextGen Congress was held entirely in OST. The 70 participants convened a > wide range of sessions, and more importantly, made strong connections with > each other. Each year since then, the NextGen Congress has programmed their > morning session with speakers, but held their afternoon sessions in OST. > > Transportation Summit Tries OST > That was a good start, but I still wanted to bring OST into the core of the > organization. In 2005, I was sitting at a table where some people were > discussing the format for the next Transportation Summit, a smaller event > (about 150 participants) organized by CNU and focused on transportation > reform. The group had met for several years and accomplished some of their > initial goals. For the next event, they wanted to figure out what issues to > tackle next as part of the reform agenda. I suggested OST. They thought it > was important to have presentations to the entire group about key > accomplishments and developments, so they held a typical > presentation-oriented event the first day, and held the second day in OST. > Participants were very engaged and developed many ideas for future work. I > believe many of the reform efforts they are engaged in now were first > germinated at that event. However, the group has not used OST for any of its > events since that time. > > OST Supports CNU Initiatives > In 2005, I was also asked to become co-chair of the Planners Task Force > within CNU, part of the committee structure for volunteers to engage in CNU > “initiatives”, largely reform efforts in the field. At my first Task Force > meeting, the topic of “Task Force Structure” was on the agenda, and I > proposed that CNU hold a one-day “Task Force Congress” in OST each year > associated with the annual full Congress in order for people to work together > on existing and new “initiatives”. The idea wasn’t immediately embraced, but > in 2006, they decided to hold a 3-hour “New Initiatives Forum” in OST so that > people could propose and discuss new initiatives. That event was held two > years in a row, and some initiative committees that are still working were > first put together at those events. Also in 2006, there was a need to have > an interactive discussion about affordable housing as part of the annual > congress, and so we held a 3-hour event just on affordable housing using OST. > > Changing the Name: the Birth of the Open Source Congress > At this point, now that OST was getting some wider (but still small) use in > the organization, the language became problematic. “Open space” means > something very particular to planners, architects, landscape architects, and > engineers, and it has nothing to do with OST. Every time we talked about > * > * > ========================================================== > 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 * * ========================================================== 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
