Dear Andrew, Lisa, Birgitt and you others, a few years ago I was asked to facilitate an event in the northeastern corner of Poland with folks across the border from Lithuania also attending. The sponsor asked two translators to translate my US-American introduction into Polish and Lithuanian. They walked the circle behind me as Lisa also described. One effect was that I constantly had little breaks to focus on the next thing to say and the participants had various inputs they could understand in different languages (my assumption: all understood their mother tongue, of course and most had at least some rudimentary language skills in the other languages spoken). All posters were in the three languages and issues were written on sheets that had been folded into three spaces, so that translations could be added by other participants. I was wondering how they would manage in the breakout sessions. To my surprise, a number of the breakout sessions used Russian... so there was a common language? On inquiry, I was told that it would never do to use Russian in an event like this, at least not in the "official" parts. Ok, be prepared to be surprised.
Here is a short summary of some aspects of this event back in 2002 as recorded in the Open Space worldscape
http://openspace-landschaft.de/an_veran.asp?veranstaltungId=1041&sprache=en&von_seite=ue_veranstaltung.asp&ds=10&branche=&begleiterId=9&anzeigeOrtId=0
Reading through this report I noticed that I did not include the part about Russian in my note... hmmm? Political correctness?
A few years later, Harrison came to Berlin and did his three day Practice of Peace event. Every day starts with a lecture followed by an open space on the theme of the lecture. On the first day, Harrison introduced the process, on the second day a colleague from Russia did it in Russian and on the third day I did it without using spoken words. To me, the most memorable moment was during the Russian introduction (not being translated) when pretty much at the beginning a participant ran to the Russian colleague, kneeled in front of her pleading, in English, to please translate her introduction. At that moment, his friend that he sat next to in the circle called out: "Hey, come back here, I know Russian and can translate for you if you like!" This was a hilarious intervention that not only stopped the space invader but also demonstrated how hidden the ressources in the group are even for people in the know (friends).
From all this and other situations I learned to ask questions when the issue of translation arose (especially when the sponsor of the event does not come from the local context). This often leads to "one less thing to do" and to make more space for the forces of selforganisation to do its thing.
Yes, lets hear how things went and I invite you to deposit a note about this event in the Open Space worldscape, a data base with presently 793 events recorded, here is the link, its in English and German
http://openspaceworldscape.org/
cheers mmp
22.02.2016 22:18, Andrew Rixon via OSList wrote:
Hi All, I'm helping a client prepare for an Open Space event - 400 people, and within the audience there will be a group of 10-20 koreans who will require a translator. I'd love to hear stories and tips on what people have found to work well... Warm regards, Andrew -- Andrew Rixon PhD Director Babel Fish Group W: http://www.babelfishgroup.com E: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> M: +61400 352 809 F: +61(0)3 8610 0162 *Come join Bob Dick and I on April 12th and 13th in Melbourne for:* "Kickstarting Change that Lasts: How to flatten hierarchies, build relationships and get work done! <http://kickstartingchangemelbourne2016.eventbrite.com.au>" <http://kickstartingchangemelbourne2016.eventbrite.com.au> An innovative program on applying Open Space Technology and Action Learning _______________________________________________ OSList mailing list To post send emails to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org Past archives can be viewed here: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
-- Michael M Pannwitz Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany ++49 - 30-772 8000 Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 402 resident Open Space Workers in 67 countries working in a total of 143 countries worldwide: www.openspaceworldmap.org _______________________________________________ OSList mailing list To post send emails to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] To subscribe or manage your subscription click below: http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org Past archives can be viewed here: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
