Hey Christine, I'm a week late on the draw in responding to your inquiry, but perhaps it's still relevant.
You wrote that the sponsor has the familiar concern that people who don't work together or are not part of an intact group can often come up with fabulous ideas that peter out quickly or never go anywhere at all. In my experience, the sponsor's concern is well-founded. I've participated in (and facilitated) a number of community OST events in which the participants don't have prior connections. In my observation it is often the case that most people go back to their lives & business as usual and don't follow up/follow through on many of the collaborative ideas that emerge in the OST event. I believe that the sponsor and planning team can take some steps to maximize the opportunity for ongoing impact from the event. These include: a.. Taking the time as a planning team to connect with their individual purpose in opening space for the event, and sharing this with one another so that a deeper group purpose emerges. b.. Including in the OST event a solid action-planning component, in which the space is re-opened for specific new initiatives, and participants are invited to step into leadership for these new initiatives (I use the title "champions" for these emergent leaders). c.. Posting the action planning "Initiative Reports" to the web asap, and providing options for initiative groups to collaborate online (this is especially important when the participants do not have regular established contact with one another). d.. Committing to opening space for a follow-up OST event a few weeks or months down the road (the same theme usually works great). When participants know at the first event that there's going to be another one, this generates a field of positive accountability. Participants feel a stronger motivation to move the work forward so that they can share it with the community at the next OST. A commmitted ongoing sponsoring team can also take other steps, such as sending out simple email "newsletters" to the participant list (this works great when any participant is invited to submit a story about their ongoing work to be included in the newsletter). All of these steps are frequently part of the supporting infrastructure for highly successful OST work within a single organization, because the communication networks are already in place. With a community event, the extra time and effort to create this infrastructure makes a big difference in the outcomes. Working with a planning or sponsoring team in this way is an act of inviting them into deeper more conscious leadership. Chris Chris Weaver Springbranch, Inc. Asheville, North Carolina USA ch...@springbranch.us http://springbranch.us -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu]On Behalf Of Christine Whitney Sanchez Sent: Saturday, May 20, 2006 6:49 PM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: juicy convening questions Hi Dear OS Friends, I'm in conversation with a potential sponsor for a large 1.5 day OS event next October, the purpose of which is to connect people for self-organized community action (non-specific at this point). The crowd is expected to be folks who live and work in a metro area and who may have a tenuous connection through one of several sponsoring organizations - but who have not had such a large scale experience with other members of their community. The planning team is meeting in a week or so where the sponsor will pitch the idea. She's pretty convinced that OST is the way to go but has the familiar concern that people who don't work together or are not part of an intact group can often come up with fabulous ideas that peter out quickly or never go anywhere at all. Among other things, I would like to offer the planning team a collection of especially generative convening questions from similar events that resulted in new action groups forming and concrete contributions to a community. Any links to similar OS events would also be very helpful. I'll compile the responses and feed them back by the end of next week. Thanks in advance for your help. Warmly from sunny, sweaty Phoenix, Christine Christine Whitney Sanchez KAIROS Alliance Inc. 2717 E. Mountain Sky Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85048 480.759.0262 www.kairosalliance.com * * ========================================================== 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
