Creating an OS message
Nynke May 11th, 2007
I have some Google alerts set for open space material appearing on the web, so I got this and reading it I found:
Things to NOT Do
- Standard conference/convention agenda/schedule/breaks
- Talking heads
- Speaker ribbons
- Show bags
- Tracks
- Published proceedings
Output of Conference:
- Some container (presentation, wall/time line) of the knowledge created by the conference, distilled into a reusable form.
- Video tape edited from conference activities
- Continuation of conversations on the Web afterward leading toward another event. (Events are needed to trigger participation.)
Hmmmnn. I think that old-fashioned paper written notes from break-out sessions, make a fine Book of Proceedings as “Output of Conference”, and when copied for participants and then distributed can be considered “Published proceedings”.
Maybe I am just “nit-picking” on the word “Published proceedings”.
Whatever, I think we need to be careful with how we say things.
Then I also read:
Input to Conference:
- Assign people to their “learning groups” or subteams prior to the conference, giving each a “thought assignment.” This actually starts the conference before the event itself and provides the infrastructure that will enable the conversation to continue afterwards.
My thoughts on this, after my initial confusion:
Sure, when I intend to participate in an OS event, I can, for example, rumor my thoughts on what my personal intent is as butterfly, participating in, observing, and enjoying what’s going on in the event, and I can blog and speak about being flabbergasted by the beauty of what I see happening at OS events, each time, again and again.
Intending to participate as a facilitator I can rumor ahead of the event, about how I/we set intent to “hold the space” for creativity, being prepared to be surprised - which I *love* to be, so I am always looking forward to an OS event ;-), the four principles, and the law of two feet.
Just like after the event some agreed upon action items may still have to actually manifest themselves, so also was there enthousiasm before the event, or else no participants had appeared, … and that was exactly what was to happen.
For example, for the Open Space at the IAF conference, people are invited to already come up with issues, and are welcomed to share those. A word of warning that doing so does not pre-determine the schedule balanced with encouraging enthousiasm and such sharing, is given here. Could of course be made even more encouraging. Any creative suggestions?
By the way, for ye marketeers out there, the “be prepared to be surprised” and “law of two feet” seem two very powerful resonant attractors at the moment. We’re getting many returns when throwing those words in the soup.
That being a side-note, back to my confused consciousness stream: bringing in a “thought assignment” like described in the article, that’s something else. That’s like, “Don’t think of banana’s” - “Now what are you thinking about?” That is not really inviting creativity …
Actually, this may be worse than that. Perhaps the in the article mentioned “Input to conference” stance combined with a welcoming “Open Space” can cause double binds for some people …
I double checked if I wasn’t jumping to any conclusions, by trying rereading the sentence with “theme” replacing “thought assignment” to check if she hadn’t just meant to write something like “attractor”, and didn’t even get that far. I immediately tripped over the “Assign people to their …” at the beginning. Yukkkk. Does not smell good to me either.
Setting up a predetermined schedule like in the article I just read, kills both “artistic originality” and “making connections to everything”. This “set-up for Open Space” feels more like a “set-up for Space Invasion” to me. Welcome to this already invaded space! Please, come in and open your mind to us?!?
And from our experience, our “Input to OS events” is certainly not a single item. The participants cook the soup together, hence the menu appears on the spot, based on ingredients brought by participants. As facilitators all we do is choose and make the environment such that humans can easily make and maintain connections, we chop the wood, get a suitable kettle, a stone, water, send invitations, light the fire under the kettle, set up some stools around it, explain the basic recipe, throw in the stone, and then we get out of participant ways as quickly as our two feet can carry us.
