Great conversation, everybody ! (and I love all the hugging - those of you who know me are probably not surprised about THAT) So it seems to me there are several things we are talking about here. One is if you are the facilitator - the person holding space for the group to do its work. The other is if you are a participant. If you are the facilitator, trust the process; trust the people. It's not, in my experience, useful (or some might say respectful) to recommend how folks might convene their groups, or what processes they might use. It's more appropriate to give the great juicy focusing question, let people know the guidelines (the 4 principles and the 1 law) and then just step back. To not recommend things in advance, to not recommend or post a topic. To indeed, *believe in* the ability of each individual to take very good care of themselves - Open Space facilitation is to me a practice of that belief (and the guidelines remind one how to take care of ones self). And a note - you are not allowing folks to do anything (allowing them to use a process-within-a-process during the discussion sessions for example) - you are getting out of their way to do whatever it is that they identify and decide upon. And that could indeed include someone wanting to use a process for a conversation - as I did myself when I was a participant at the international Open Space on Open Space in Halifax this August - I convened a group to puzzle about something, and as the convenor I told the group I'd like to explore the issue using the Inquiry Circle process. Simple as that. But that's the *participant* talking / choosing / deciding - the facilitator is not influencing this. Tree, you had a comment about people doing speeches and making presentations - what I had been talking to Jimmy about offline is his preparation for a conference, and his wondering about combining any of the traditional conference-y things (workshops, keynotes, panels) with the OS. And I'd recommended - if doing any non-OS things - to do them on Day 1 (for example) and the OS on Day 2 (and yes, as Wendy and others say, it usually results in conference participants reflecting in Closing Circle that they'd wished the entire conference had been convened in Open Space). As for anything else participants want to do during an Open Space, I say hurrah. It's just when some presenter-types approach the conference organizer with (or the organizer or co-hosts hear someone is interested in doing) a didactic (expert-to-audience) presentation (powerpoint, speech, whatever) that it's a great thing (when talking with that person before the conference) to inform them that this is a little different than another kind of conference - that people may be coming in and out of their presentation as they sample the marketplace of ideas, that you do (or do not) have technical capability or a room to show their powerpoint, whatever. To me, it's just a thoughtful part of invitation - letting folks who need to know about what tools are available and that it's all rather a flowy day of folks sampling allsorts of juicy conversations and teaching and learning together in this way throughout the day. Trust the process trust the people, say I, Lisa ___________________________ L i s a H e f t Consultant, Facilitator, Educator O p e n i n g S p a c e 2325 Oregon Berkeley, California 94705-1106 USA +01 510 548-8449 <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] <http://www.openingspace.net> www.openingspace.net
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