Hi Christine, I've put some thoughts below.
Peggy ----- Original Message ----- From: Christine Whitney Sanchez To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 2:23 PM Subject: [OSLIST] Timing for really large groups Hi All, Apropos to the wonderful thread about the combination of OST with World Cafe or any other method, Claudia Haack and I, along with a dedicated design team and a multitude of volunteers, are preparing for the 2005 Girl Scout National Convention. On October 7, Claudia and I will open the space for up to 2,000 National Council Delegates around the topic of governance. And for the other 10,000 or so convention participants, "Strategy Cafes" will be open for business throughout the 3 day convention. In this case, it's not so much a blend of the methods, but rather using two different methods for two different purposes. Regarding the Open Space, we are at the stage where we need to finalize some of the physical/logistics plans that will involve the convention center and we have a few questions about what you would do (or have done for those of you who have facilitated really large events). ~ With a group this size, is there anything you would do to expedite the marketplace? There will be 3 session times available. We open the space at 8:30. The first breakout session begins at 10:15 or whenever it starts. Based on my experience in Bogota, people pace themselves. They know there are lots of people wanting to announce. We envisioned using about 4 aisles for people to wait in line to announce and four aisles to lead to the bulletin board. In practice, because there were no chairs, aisles weren't necessary. Might be for you. Also, making a wall for each time period made it easy to spread out the postings and made it clear what was happening at each time. ~ What is your guess for how long the marketplace will take? Harrison, you just said - From a standing start -- just sitting in a circle -- to active engagement in something like 15-20 minutes. People rushing to the center of the circle to announce their issues, and everybody else listening hard and figuring out what additional issues need to be raised in order to meet their own needs. That burst of activity might last 30-40 minutes, followed by another 20 minutes of total ordered chaos in the Market place -- and it is off to work -- usually with sufficient time for a cup of coffee, restroom break, or phone call. Did you, Michael Pannwitz and company find this timing to hold in the Germany 2,000 person event? In Bogota, it took about 40 minutes to announce about 320 sessions. That's about 7.5 seconds per session. Amazing but true. ~ We have the capability to hang one large screen on the same side of the room as the marketplace wall. Do you see any value in projecting the session topics & times on this screen (as was done in Phx, Harrison)? ~ Because the physical distances in this convention center are so vast, it isn't feasible for most people to travel from the breakouts, back to the plenary room to input their reports. So far, it looks like we have spotty wireless capabilities. Any suggestions about how and where to place the computers? One possibility is to create multiple small clusters of computers? Anothe possibility is to put them in the breakout rooms, but that's a lot of computers. Thanks in advance for your ideas! Christine Whitney Sanchez 480.759.0262 2717 E. Mountain Sky Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85048-8990 Claudia Haack 608.209.6768 606 Orchard Drive Madison, WI 53711 Triune Milagro, LTD VISIT OUR WEBSITE: www.triunemilagro.com Invoking the wisdom and capacity of the human spirit! * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
