Hi to all I am working with a group that wants to organize a open space event in a highly “political” context : Theme is very sensitive, has been discussed for years by all actors without any results except fights and division. But now context has changed and they feel that if they, actors of the system, don’t work together now and suggest something very quicly, the law will do it for them without them... Yet it took them some time to agree to go for OST. Their fear is great : they fear that some actors in the system will take advantage of the event for their own interest. They also fear that “wise men (and women)” who were pionners in their field but now do not act any more but talk talk talk , will take advantage of the event to … talk and bring the audience somewhere else. Interesting fears, aren’t they ? I'd love to have your opinion on those.;
Regarding the first fear : they choose not to invite one specific person as co-inviter with them. There was a strong veto from one of the co-inviter, saying that working with this person had been one of the worst experience in his life and that he won’t do that again. As this co-inviter is probably one of the most active in the group (he DOES the work), I think his request was accepted as a given. Yet now the group fears that this (not-invited-as-co-inviter) person, who has a strong influence base, might come with lots of his people at the event and influence the whole result.. The risk is that they limit the number of participants to X people per organization (or/and whatever criteria they choose). My question : did you experience a situation where a person, not invited as a co-inviter because too difficult to deal with, has “spoiled”an OS event ? I wonder if the risk is real (if so I’d challenge the group and have him included as a co-inviter) or if I just let them go with people they really want to work with... Their second fear concerns the wise persons (who are also “big egos” ;-)) They don’t want them as co-inviters, but they want them somewhere. These people are the “heroes” of this community, but they are not so young now , and are not so active anymore in doing things. They talk about offering them to join a “scientific committee” or something like this. I don’t like the idea of “scientific committee” in the context of an OS event, but don’t have any better idea. What do you suggest ? They also fear that they invide the space during the creation of the agenda. All of those wise persons, I was told, can, with the help of a mic, bring a group wherever they want and talk for hours. Especially if they are all in the same room (because none of them wants to speak less than the others...) Any suggestion to me, as facilitator , to avoid use of mic as a tribune without being rude to their heroes ? Christine Koehler * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
