Hello, Melinda -
How exciting to hear of your April 1 Teaching Peace conference. Are you using both Open Space and World Café on one day? You asked: 1. How do we market the conference to a public who generally does not know who OS is and who might be looking for the big name/keynote speaker and workshop leaders? That is, a traditional conference would list speakers and workshops to draw participants. Last year, we offered 5 workshop tracks. Since we don't know who is coming yet this year, how can we advertise the conference? Should we plant some conveners in our participant group who have offered sessions at the previous conference? You can always invite some amazing people and list them as 'invited guests include...' Of course you'll want to inform them of the process and that they are invited to participate in any way they wish, hosting sessions or not as they feel they will best contribute and share learning. (what I am saying is dont ask them to host a session theyll know what theyll feel like doing as the process unfolds and they may on the other hand they may share and learn much more by attending other peoples sessions, as everyone will be the expert in Open Space). And you'll want to give them a very good sense that this is more a series of conversations, not a presentation, and that people will be coming in and out and sampling different conversations. If you need an article describing the process for them you can use mine if you like: "Opening Space for Collaboration and Communication" at http://www.openingspace.net/papers_facilitation_OSCollaborationCommunication .shtml And you can advertise the conference with enthusiasm, based on what sorts of people you know will be coming (peacemakers, educators, policy makers, thought leaders however you want to describe the mix of people who come to this conference already). Here are some invitations that may spark some ideas: http://www.openingspace.net/openSpaceTechnology_method_resources_invitations 5.shtml And you can mention the method or not; if you do, you can say experience a process used in peace conferences around the world because it is. The key is to craft something so exciting that people will feel like they dont want to miss it! And you may want to send out different approaches to reach different kinds of people different cultures (educators, young people, peace builders, business leaders, faith communities) may respond to different languaging, graphics, and so on. They key is to invite and invite and keep inviting all the way up until your event. To get creative, and outreach, and see who else is not yet coming, and who with a very different viewpoint needs to be there. 2. How do we get those "experts" to attend and to see themselves as participants who both have something to offer and gain from the experience? Youd be amazed at how excited experts are when they get to really engage, when they get to try a new approach, when they are invited, when they can talk about what they are really passionate about. The right ones will always come, and love it. And what an amazing conference it will be and such an experience of peace rather than talking about it, people will be *being* peace Lisa ___________________________ L i s a H e f t Consultant, Facilitator, Educator O p e n i n g S p a c e Berkeley, California, USA [email protected] www.openingspace.net * * ========================================================== [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
