Hi Harold,
Even though it is my favorite thing of all the things that I do, I am
not sure I would want to be a full time Open Space facilitator. And I
think that to be successful busineswise, it is good to have focus
but it is not always good to be a one trick pony. I like it when
people come to me and say: I have heard you are good at creating
great meetings, would you like to do this meeting for us? I like it
even better when they say: we have this problem in our organization,
would you come look at it and help us out? I like it a lot less when
the request is something like: we have an Open Space meeting on June
20 in Amsterdam, can you facilitate it?
The last request is just for me to do my trick. I have the idea if I
would become Mr. Open Space, I would get a lot more of these requests
that I don't really like. I would much rather be Mr. Great Meetings,
or Mr. Problem Solver. What kind of Mr. or Ms would you all like to be?
Warm wishes from a rainy (finally!) Utrecht.
Koos
At 01:37 17-5-2011, Harold Shinsato wrote:
I just read this in Seth Godin's latest tract - "Poke the Box". I've
heard occasionally that some folks are having trouble making ends
meet as Open Space Technology facilitators. Yet others seem to be
doing ok. I've been wishing I could do this full time - go out - get
clients - and facilitatre OST conferences full time - but Seth's
quote kind of threw that back at me.
"My friend Jessica wants to be a conference organizer. You can hire
her and she'll sweat every single detail of your event. Give her the
attendee list, the venue, and the agenda, and the conference will go
off without a hitch.
"The problem with this plan is that it involves being picked by the
event promoter. If she gets picked often, it's a fine living. If she
can negotiate a fair payday, it's a fine living. But Jessica must
pitch the promoter, hat in hand.
"So... why not be the promoter, the initiator, the one in charge and
responsible?"
- Seth Godin, Poke the Box, p. 25
This sounds a lot more like the spirit of OST than going out looking
for clients who want to do OST events. This is very personal for me
as Missoula BarCamp's OST event happens on Saturday. I went out and
just got it started - but it's not exactly a money maker at this
point. But what Seth says, just initiating cool OST events, sounds a
lot more juicy than trying to pitch OST facilitation.
Any enlightenment anyone? What's the path to abundant full time Open
Space living?
--
Harold Shinsato
<mailto:har...@shinsato.com>har...@shinsato.com
http://shinsato.com
twitter: <http://twitter.com/hajush>@hajush
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