Community noticeboards still perform a function in many places, providing just the right channel for some kinds of information for certain kinds of people. Here’s a nice example I picked up recently – plenty of variety with announcements of events, things to be sold, and services to offer.Yes I know, neighbourhood online systems provide this and more, but there’s still something enchanting about the scruffy visible publicness of this as a role for a local venue like a post office or newsagent. I think I’ve seen similar in launderettes and chemists, but not in pubs, which is curious; and only ‘official’ (not personal) items in libraries
Why I vastly prefer the aesthetics of a real bulletin board in Open Space versus a computer assisted model with projection screens and an automatic scheduling routine.
[tags]bulletin board, openspacetech[/tags]
- Kaliya Hamlin is getting really noticed for her work promoting Open Space in the tech community. The whole idea of unconferencing has jumped the shark, but there is still an art to doing Open Space. It’s easy but not simple, and Kaliya has been a great guardian of the essence of the process as it grows into the tech world in a big way This article from the Business 2.0 blog is another piece of good attention being thrown her way. Actually there are a rash of articles out these days on Open Space, including one in a publication called Meetings and Incentive Travel, that quotes my Canadian mates Diane Gibault, Michelle Cooper and Larry Peterson. Add to that this very useful short film on Open Space, and you could safely say that our beloved process has truly tipped.
- And speaking of mates, Thomas Arthur comes through with a link he sent by Google chat which deepens the ida of Pattern Language, moving it into another level of “generative code” for building living neighbourhoods. This gets at something I was saying in Belgium, standing up for Pattern Language which I understand as a noticing about the world rather than a prescriptive recipe. It is very much generative code. Thomas’ link sent me running to check up on Kevin Harris’ excellent blog and I note he has been recently posting interesting things on third places, mass creativity and social interactions in public spaces. Kevin’s blog is in my “check once a month” folder, and it’s always rich.
- Last note for this week: While I was in Belgium a couple of weeks ago, the Vancouver Island Aboriginal Transition Team held a monmumental celebration to mark the formal shift to an interim authority. What this means is that we are half way to becoming a full authority for Aboriginal child and family services on Vancouver Island. The celebration was held at the Snuneymexw longhouse near Nanaimo, and a really nice piece aired on TV about it (.wmv).
At the Leading Change conference today, the organizers were fretting this morning about a sit down lunch. We’re in Open Space, so the room is kind of chaotic. We weren’t sure how this would happen, so we carved a half hour out of the agenda, and let people know in the morning that we would need them to be out of the way while the room was getting set up.
But this is Open Space, and of course it was also about leading change. Eleven o’clock came around and the groups broke up and trickled back into the main room. Someone asked if they could help set up the room others joined in and in 7 minutes, we had transformed the room from a chaotic circle to a sit down lunch, complete with linen.
And then, lunch completed, we reversed the whole process and got back to work for action planning.
And to cap it off, the lunch was sponsored by The Co-operators. How cool is that?
Opening space today at the Vancouver Art Gallery, for the United Community Services Co-op and about 70 people from their membership. Lots of interesting conversations about the non-profit sector and a pregnant sense here about something wanting to be born…a network, a learning centre, a practice group. We shall see what emerges.
A couple of things that I’m trying here include having people avoid handing in reports that are just bullet form lists (“bullets kill!”) and inviting graphical harvests. The client, playing on the idea of the art gallery location, provided everyone with an empty canvas to fill in, and I invited the groups to harvest something graphical that would complement any text that is also harvested. So far the results are terrific!
Some notes and stuff from my trips around the web:
- Passion bounded by responsibility is one of the tenets of Open Space. To see how powerful this is in action, you should go and visit WikiClock. Very simply, it’s a clock that shows the current time if you update it to do so. It’s a ridiculous notion, until you realize that it actually works. And if you still don’t know what a wiki is, Viv McWaters has come across a video that might help you understand it a lot better.
- Jack Ricchiuto has discovered something about appreciative leadership in Aboriginal communities that has long formed the basis of my practice: “he understanding is that childhood traumas cause our souls to fragment. The work of healing is to enable the reclaiming of these parts of our souls – like wisdom, love, and courage – that are ours to reclaim.”
- It still amazes me how intimate people can be in person after engaging with each other over time on weblogs. Since my lunch with new friends in London last weekend, Richard and Kevin have both posted interesting thoughts about this particular lunch on their blogs. If you still haven’t had the experience of meeting someone physically whom you have known only through a blog, I recommend it. It will blow your mind.
- One of the processes we used in Belgium for looking at ourselves was a systemic constellation. I’m quite interested in this methodology (here is a website for the community of practice) and would welcome anythoughts from those who have used it in organizations and communities about resources that are useful for understanding it in those contexts.
- Finally this week, a note on a great looking training offered by my friend Christine Whitney Sanchez in Colorado this summer combining Open Space, Appreciative Inquiry, World Cafe and Polarity Management. It’s just one more offering on the kinds of things we teach at an art of hosting. You can also explore these ideas through a workshop with Myriam Laberge and Brenda Chaddock, which they call “Wise Action that Lasts.” (July 9-11 near Vancouver, BC) and of course you could also come to an Art of Hosting training, several of which are going on in Europe and North America this summer and fall.