Hi -
I had written: <the core/host team may need to send out differently-crafted messages / announcements to speak to different kind of groups.> Michael, you wrote - and I'm thinking you were responding to what I wrote?: < i do think that one event can have only one invitation. first because it's too much work to write more than one. more importantly, thought, it seems that all ppts should show up for the same thing. if, like in this case, there isn't common language for writing an single invitation, then that just becomes part of the task/purpose for the meeting itself. having various groups come for different invites/purposes seems like real trouble.> I'm guessing I should have provided some examples to be clearer as to what I was thinking. I am not saying the different forms of outreach to different groups you want to invite name different *purposes / tasks / reasons* for the meeting or conference. What I am saying is about culture, and cultural forms of expression, and about invitation - how different kinds of people or cultures respond to different ways of invitation and different vocabulary and such. So for an OS with diverse participants, for example one flyer or email announcement that has the graphics and energy and words that speak more to youth, one that speaks more to business leaders, going in-person to parent groups because maybe that is what speaks more to them, and so on. Not always necessary, given the event - sometimes very necessary, given the mix of people you want to have in the room and what their lives/cultures/codes/ways of communicating are like. Diverse outreach/invitation to invite diversity. Everyone's message includes the same reason / purpose for the gathering. But everyone does not have a common language, or common access to information streams/methods, unless you know you are inviting only a certain kind of people (which may indeed be the case for your event, Ted and Michael.but I can't tell - perhaps you are seeking to invite people who speak in a specific language, visit on-line and respond to - for example - wiki/mashup vocabulary, codes and culture?) I think it's worth the work (not to imply that you don't think it's worth the work, Michael - just to clarify the context of my response when you say 'it's too much work' ). One of the things I tell my clients is that the burden of work for them indeed *is* in the invitation - to craft it / them well, to invite and keep inviting, to figure out who is not there and - if one is welcoming diversity, to find ways and resources to make it just as easy for people in minority culture to learn about the event and get there as for the others, and so on. (again I think that I'm only reading a bit about your event as this conversation unfolds so your greater knowledge of your particular event and your particular constituency may result in you sending one clear message in one form to one sort of people) Lisa ___________________________ L i s a H e f t Consultant, Facilitator, Educator O p e n i n g S p a c e [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
