Debbie: I've led OS events in multi-lingual situations, although never Opened it with three languages going, but two. After the Opening, I find that people will put up topics in all three languages or at least have conversations in them. However, others will be drawn into a conversation because they have an idea of the topic and most groups will work out the translation on their own. They will do it for each other. Having headsets and full simultaneous translation in the discussion groups would not work.
The nature of report writing might be a trick. You will need computers that speak 3 languages. I have had groups translate reports in two languages after the event was over so that all could read the others reports. It does cause some problem with convergence. If you want people to act on what has emerged then special attention will need to be paid to the reporting. Larry Larry Peterson Associates in Transformation 41 Appleton Ave., Toronto, ON, Canada, M6E 3A4 Tel:/Fax: 416-653-4829 [email protected] http://www.inforamp.net/~lpasoc
