Dear Birgitt, Thanks for sharing your story of this wonderful OS success. On a Monday morning, this is good, inspiring news!
Metta _______________________________________________________________________________ >Date: Sun, 20 Apr 1997 15:04:54 -0400 >From: Birgitt Bolton <birg...@worldchat.com> >Subject: Re: open space event continued on-line > >Hi Lisa! It is exciting as this story of Open Space on the web unfolds. > >Just thought you might like to know of a small attempt at ongoing on-line >Open Space. On April 12th, Larry Peterson, Diane Blair and myself did three >simultaneous Open Spaces in three ballrooms at a large hotel. Topic was >partnerships between business and the school system. A very hot topic here. >We did the Open Space against a lot of odds. First there were keynote >speakers and so on for the group of over 400, then there was a four hour >only period for Open Space in which folks left the big group and met in >three smaller groups. Only time for two discussion time slots. Larry and I >certainly went into it worried about a mini-open space with a group of >folks who didn't know each other, with a hot issue in which there were >people stationed in each room to stop the process (possible hecklers), >sandwiched in between other agenda. The idea (Diane Blair is the champion >of the cyberspace piece) was that we would get the topics up, some >discussion, the reports would be posted on the web site, and discussions >would continue there. After four weeks, the discussion time would end with >a multi-vote. > >The Open Space was an amazing success. Even against the odds. The >"hecklers" left because they couldn't find a platform. The topics were >exactly what needed to happen with deep honesty including the CEO of a >large corporation putting up "Do the corporations really have another >agenda". I was amazed at getting this so quickly. Folks felt that they had >their first real chance to get to know each other, listen to each other >(even in this short time frame). Wow! > >So it is continuing on-line. I have no idea how it will go but I think it >has lots of potential. We are learning from it. I think better technology >would have worked better (in fact I think Diane called you but had no >budget to do what really should have been done here)--but it is still a >start. (We had strongly urged her to access the wisdom at Metanet.) I think >there is room for an ongoing discussion between you and her. She sees some >of the potential, but you could help her dream bigger. > >The site is for the Learning Partnership and found at http://www.tlp.on.ca
