Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I do think the personal touch, from someone, matters. That's what I took from Ralph and Deborah's stories.
BTW, there was a facebook for the event. The roster is here: http://www.mediagiraffe.org/wiki/index.php/Jtm-dc-roster; participants got bios and pictures in advance. I've been doing that with quite a few events and it does a great job of giving people a heads up on who is in the room. appreciatively, Peggy ----- Original Message ----- From: Harrison Owen To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2007 8:08 AM Subject: [OSLIST] FW: The challenge of "luminaries" Deborah - I think your idea of a "facebook" sent out in advance is a great one. And it would avoid doing a "round the circle" at the beginning, which I personally find less than useful for two reasons. First it delays the actual start when people go to work - and this is the most important consideration for me. Secondly, all those names and needs/wants/desires badly confuses this old mind. After the first two or three I just hit "overload." For our up coming OSONOS by the Sea I sent out a full participant list and invited people to add whatever information/requests they might want. Some people chose to remain a mystery (great!) and others wrote a whole bunch. How much of this actually gets read I don't know, but a number of folks said it was useful and fun. Since email addresses were also included, the party started early, which was wonderful. I am a little less enthusiastic about special guided tours done by the facilitator - though it is certainly a nice idea. I find one of the great things about an Open Space is the speed with which new comers are included - some of this just happens on its own, and in other cases participants will notice a stranger looking a little lost and take them under their wing. I really like that as it serves to build and bond the community. If the lost guest is "important" having some "just plain folk" do the job can be wonderful. And who knows a useful connection could be made. At most I (as the facilitator) might suggest to one of the "older" participants that "so and so" looks a little lost - maybe you could take them on a tour - sort of thing. That way I can hold the space and members of the community take active responsibility for the inclusion. Win/Win - I think. Harrison ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Deborah Hartmann Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2007 10:34 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: The challenge of "luminaries" Hello Kerry: > address their presence during the introduction I hesitate to address the presence of particular people during the introduction. I see it as a "democratizing circle" and as such, I strive to communicate the message that we are all equals, and so we are equally responsible for our experience of the event. No matter whether we specify that "luminaries" are equal to everyone else, we's negate this by simply naming them and not everyone else! Here's an idea: Something that emerged at RoCoCo was a round of "needs and offers", though it happened too late, in the opinion of many. We went around the circle stating what we needed (ideas, collaborators, hardware, software) and our offers (some offered skills, resources, collaborative sites, and others answered just-stated needs, ex: "I have an old computer like that, let's talk"). This would allow luminaries to introduce themselves, equally with others, allow them (if they choose) to align themselves as members of this OST event's "people". I think attendance at this activity would need to be voluntary, as it takes some time and perhaps people would rather network informally. This would have been useful to us, as we had decided not to call out any particular participants in the opening. I'm not sure where this fits... we thought that if we'd done this at the start, people would have had an idea of who was there and how they could help them. Ex: If I'd know people from the citizen journalism movement were present, I would have posted a session: how is Citizen Journalism changing the face of news? But as it was, I only discovered their presence afterwards. Ideas: Perhaps, do it as part of a social the prior evening, before we open the space? Another idea was a "needs and offers" wiki page or wall - the problem being that using the wall for this removes the human face from the transaction. We could encourage people to do this at registration, so we could browse the list of who's coming and their needs/offers (sometimes this happens with BarCamps). Hey, could a facebook group be used for this?!! This activity would have been particularly useful for our type of OST - it was not so much a "themed" event as a "community gathering" event - a particular flavour of OST I'm seeing a lot in the Tech community now. "The right people" are the ones who want to be part of the community, in general - and it's often a big surprise what interests and skills they bring! It's as if a "community gathering" OST is simply a coalescence at a particular time/place of a continual OST event which is the community itself. deb kerry napuk wrote: Hi Peggy When faced with "luminaries," experts, speakers et al, maybe it would help to address their presence during the introduction. A facilitator could note their valued participation and opportunity to be on equal terms with an audience, experiencing the need to discuss and exchange views rather than be lectured at. It might even be fun! Cheers Kerry Edinburgh www.openfutures.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 -- Deborah HartmannAgile Process Coachdeborah.hartmann.netmobile: 416 996 4337 "Learn the principle, abide by the principle, and dissolve the principle." -- Bruce Lee* * ========================================================== [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 * * ========================================================== [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
