Bienvenue, Genevieve. I think having 'invited guests' for your conference is a possible way to attract even more prominent experts to your conference. Lisa has given you some good examples of how to word your invitation.
Having invited guests that carry some expertise related to your conference topic is a great way to seed energy for the event. It catalyzes people's attention. It gives them a better idea of what might take place at the event. The invited guests at the Practice of Peace conference I helped create weren't particularly famous, except for Harrison. . . they were prominent experts in the world but not famous. I don't think your invited guests have to be famous: having invited guests is more about seeding energy for your event. Imagine spending two days at an open space event where some of the people whose thinking you most admire are also floating through open space. You can bump up against your respected mentors in a sesssion or maybe have a butterfly conversation. Getting 'prominent' experts requires a little finesse. For example, some well known people have grown accustomed to having layers between themselves and their public. Prominent experts are, after all, human. I am guessing that prominent doctors are accustomed to having some filters between themselves and crowds of people they do not know. So, I think, your challenge Genevieve is more than the language of your invitation. Your challenge is to attract some great experts to put on your invitation as invited guests, which will, in turn, attract more participants. There is a paradigm for speakers at conferences: they publish a title for a speech and people show up and listen to them. Asking prominent experts to spend their time in open space might challenge their comfort zone. For some experts, it can be a relief to just show up and be themselves and do what feels right to them in open space. For others (and these are probably not the ones who might accept your invitation), they need the structure of being an invited expert and giving a speech. I mention these considerations to help you think, not to tell you how to do it. Now. The fun part. People love to be invited. People love to be featured speakers and/or invited guests featured on an invitation. I assume, Genevieve, that you have a team and you have a client or sponsor for your birth conference. You need to tap the networks of everyone that is helping you put this conference together and get your colelagues to invite people they have some personal connection with. I am not sure that your invited guests need to be 'famous'. . . they just need to have some expertise related to your conference theme. Having such experts featured in the invitation tells prospective participants that there are going to be meaningful opportunities to learn more about birthing because they can see that you have invited a couple of ob/gyn doctors and some midwives and, maybe, some doulas. Or whatever topics you and your team are hoping will be presented at your birth conference. That, of course, is for you and your team to decide. I sat in on an initial planning meeting recently for a major 'peace conference' sponsored by the State of New Mexico. It was their intention to have an event for many thousands of people. And the lead organizer was considering open space. (Yeah, I know that was pretty cool). Sitting right next to the lead organizer was a 'famous' spiritual leader, who sat and listened to a presentation on open space. Like open space often does, most in the room quickened with excitement. But it was a preliminary meeting and the agenda rambled. The famous spiritual leader listened until she had to leave the meeting early. She stood up and announced that open space would not work, that the people coming to this conference had to be educated, the world needs education about peace, not this open space. After she issuesd her edict, she swept out of the room and all of the energy for open space had shifted. Well, I don't live in New Mexico and I am not part of the planning team for this event but this one meeting taught me a good lesson so I can't tell you what happened next. But I can tell you this: this conference is planning to have some Nobel Peace Prize winners at the event. This spiritual leader said, in essence, that you can't have Nobel Peace Prize winners coming all the way to N. Mexico and not have keynote speeches and breakout speeches, etc. Plus, she said, you can't expect famous speakers to be accessible to the conference participants. I was glad she had spoken up because it got me imagining going to a conference where some of my lifelong heros were hanging out with little old me in open space. Wouldn't it be cool to be in open space for two or three days with the writers whose work has deeply influenced me but to be together as equals instead of listening to a keynote? This moment at that planning meeting gave me a glimpse into the idea that it might feel risky for some prominent experts to agree to come to an open space conference where, well, where they might be exposed to any butterfly that might approach them. Which brings me back to the power of invitation. Genevieve, if you tap your network and invite prominent experts (who agree to come without being compensated and who agree to come because they have passion for the conference subject) with whom you and your colleagues have living connections, the right people will accept. And then you can list their expertise on your invitation and boom! the energy will build for your event. Tree Fitz * * ========================================================== [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
