Larry, You said: We closed the session with a half-hour fishbowl conversation of initiators and reporters that did transcend reporting back and got into good conversation (not presentation) with new insights.
I'm intrigued with this approach as a very creative way of handling the desire that often exists to hear what happened in the room. Would you say more about this - what sparked the idea, how many were in the fishbowl (half hour isn't a lot of time and with 200 people, I'm imagining there were a fair number of sessions), what question did you use to launch the fishbowl? appreciatively, Peggy ----- Original Message ----- From: Larry Peterson To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 11:49 AM Subject: [OSLIST] What to do with 1.5 to 2 hours This week, I worked with a client, as many before, who wanted an event that began with substantial sharing of new ideas and information about telemedicine. Few of the close to 200 participants really knew what the possibilities were and so telling that story was key and it took a couple of hours in the morning. There was not sufficient time nor was there willingness on the part of the sponsor and his board to use OST for the afternoon - the board members believed it was too open. There was willingness to have an hour or more of "self-organizing discussion". I have encountered this before with Canadians frightened of the openness of OST. So, I do not call it open space and we are not sitting in a circle. However, I asked emergent leadership with regard to the theme question to identify a topic of interest (passion) and to ensure a report is written up. I didn't invoke the principles and law but encouraged people to go where they had some interest. Flip charts with letters were around the room. It took 20 minutes to get the leadership and topics out (on flip chart and projection on the screen) and then folks went to discussion for a bit less than an hour. Good discussions, good energy. We closed the session with a half-hour fishbowl conversation of initiators and reporters that did transcend reporting back and got into good conversation (not presentation) with new insights. I do not call that OST, even thought I learned if from OST practice. For me, two rounds and more "space" are important for the synergy and depth of OST to emerge - its much better in a day. However, it worked really well for this kind of discussion in a short time frame. Thought I'd share the story. Larry Peterson Associates in Transformation Toronto, ON, Canada 416.653.4829 [email protected] www.spiritedorg.com * * ========================================================== [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 * * ========================================================== [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
