Hello and welcome Richard, what a wonderful opportunity for Open Space and it sounds to me like you are in very good hands with Peg and Co. If there are major breakthroughs in learning about how to improve state government, I hope you will share the stories with us--we'd also like to know how to improve provincial goverment, city government, federal government...:-)
And any opportunity to showcase the potential of Open Space is wonderful. I wish for you that you had longer than a day, but alas, we often work with the less than ideal. So, my suggestions are as follows (I make them whenever anyone invites them :-)) Be really clear about what your objective is in using Open Space. Is it just for people to have a good dialogue, are outcomes expected, what is the expectation about what will happen to those outcomes?? ie: one day is great for surfacing the issues and opportunities and for some discussion, but the logistics of it mean that folks can't get into too many things--kind of just like whetting their appetites. One possibility if you want to take this further is to set up opportunity with a website to have post conference discussion in cyberspace, also done in Open Space say, for the month following the conference. Anyhow, you need to be clear about your objective and be clear with the attendees about it and any other "givens" or else people may just come away from this saying it was interesting but they didn't make any progress (if the expectation is tangible progress). When this happens, folks think that OS is a process that can't produce tangible results, and that always makes me sad. Larry Peterson, Diane Blair, and I participated in a mega-open space (as many as 800 were expected, only 400 came) inside of a conference. Diane, who masterminded this, felt that for OS to have the most impact, we should not attempt one big OS, but broke it into three simultaneous OS's each with its own theme within a bigger theme and each with its own facilitator, main room and breakout rooms (colour coded and so on). It was a terrific success. People really saw the possibilities of OS at its best, even though our time frame was not even a whole day and I for one was worried that people would come away thinking OS was not a good process. They gave it rave reviews and this was in the midst of a highly conflicted scenario. I think Diane's wisdom about breaking the large group down so that there could be more participation was good---and I wonder if that isn't a better option for a very large OS that is only one day. That's it from me for now. Good luck with this and keep us posted. It should be exciting. Birgitt Bolton ---------- > From: Richard C. Holloway <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Subject: Intro & asking for ideas > Date: March 23, 1998 4:24 PM > Greetings! I've just "subscribed" to this list today, at Peg Holman's suggestion. I understand that this is a wonderful community of OS practitioners. I've managed to convince the Washington State Quality Conference Committee to include one day of open space with their 2-day quality conference. They (we) are expecting about 800 people for each day of the conference, tentatively scheduled for early October. We're still refining the conference theme and framing question. It will focus on "improving state government." Peg has graciously offered her services (this is a volunteer gig), as has Lucinda Dustin (a fellow-traveler and an OS practitioner with California state government). Chris Schock has shared some of his experiences with a 950-person OS event he just facilitated recently in Caen, France. An 800-person meeting is quite a challenge--and there's a number of things to consider and prepare for. My hope is that there are members of this list who (as the ideas occur to you) will jot them down and e-mail them to me. Just so that you know, I'm not employed by the state, but am a private business person who saw a great opportunity to do something real exciting with open space and on behalf of our state government stakeholders. Thanks for the opportunity to ask! walk in peace, Doc Holloway -- "Love not what you are, but what you may become." - Miguel de Cervantes Thresholds--developing critical skills for living organizations Richard C. "Doc" Holloway Please visit our new website, still at <http://www.thresholds.com/> <mailto:[email protected]>
