Hi Esther I completely agree with you - people often spend days just taking in information and not being able to process. The diversity of people makes it perfect for OST. Donna Clark, Rachel Assuncao and I are facilitating a full post conference OST session following the National Health WOrk and Wellness Conference in October in Toronto (www.healthworkandwellness.com) as an opportunity for delegates to make meaning of the many sessions they attend in the two main conference days. the theme is Navigating the Chaos: Creating Strategies for Leading a Mentally Healthy Workplace. We process facilitated a half day workshop last October in Vancouver, and participants in our session were extremely appreciative of the opportunity to actually interact since even the lunch hours were filled with somebody talking at you. We proposed the OST to the organizers last year and they accepted our abstract. The only time it has not worked well for me is having the OST inserted in the midst of a conference as a concurrent session...in competition with the Minister of Health making an announcement...so the law of two feet was in play and the delegates all went to hear about what was next in health care. So, I suggest a post conference format. Typically participants say the OST is the best part of the conference. Go for it and good luck. Michelle
_____ From: OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Communications Esther Matte Sent: June 29, 2007 02:09 PM To: [email protected] Subject: OS as post-conference session Hi everyone, At the end of August, there will be, in Montreal, a "Forum social québécois" - like the Social Forums that happened in Bresil and around the world in the last few years, but with a focus on Quebec society. They did their programming in a very open manner, people registering sessions they wanted to hold. Too bad I didn't find out about this thing earlier, as I would have proposed an OST format for the whole thing! So, I'm playing with the idea of proposing an OST session for the end of the event. My goal is to have some of these people experience OST because I think it could be a very useful tool for the participating organizations. What would be great is that if any of them are then interested in exploring OST further, they could participate to our OSONOS in French, in September. I'm thinking of a 4-hour session, with a theme like "What have we learned at this Forum and how will we use it?" These events can be very stimulating and inspiring, leaving people full of energy, ideas and good intentions. However, once back to the "real life", the day-to-day stuff tends to overtake calendars and it's ofen very difficult to follow-up on the original good intentions. So an OST post-conference session could give people space, a time and a place, to focus on which learnings are most important to them, discuss how they can use it, network and start planning what they will do next. However, I see a potential problem: there will be lots of people coming from all kinds of sectors and backgrounds, some quite formal, like unions, some quite informal, like citizens groups. And there are many "tracks" to the Forum, like Human Rights, Environment, Public Services, Work, Social Economy, etc. So there will really be no common basis, no unique focus. Maybe a theme like "what more do we want to learn and share and teach and discover with each other before we all go our separate ways could work better. Or "what next", so that the people in one "track" might decide, in their sessions, to come together to my OS session to plan the next steps. I have a feeling it's a good idea, but not sure how to work it out. Any experiences, thoughts, warnings? I will greatly appreciate any comment. I still haven't approached anyone with my idea. Just playing with it for now. I need to see this happening clearly in my head first :-) Thanks a million! * * ========================================================== [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
