The 2005 iteration of a 14 year tradition, the annual Open Space on Open Space will take place this year in Halifax,. Nove Scotia. And despite it being on the other side of our continent, it’s still closer to me this year than it has been since I co-hosted the gathering in 2001. So I’m going.
And if you are interested in Open Space Technology, and free August 4-6, you might consider joining us in Halifax.
Technorati Tags: openspace, conferences, halifax
While I was in Prince George, David Stevenson and I rejigged the OST practice workshop that Michael Herman and I have been delivering around the world over the last two years. We changed it from two days of mostly open space, to four half days of focus on the practices of opening, inviting, holding and practicing. I sent the design to Michael and he pushed the parts around a little and came up with this riff:
2. practice of inviting. it’s about goodness. finding benefits TO others, as in what’s in it for them, and also benefits IN others, as in recognizing what they can add to the process of achieving what is desired personally in the first practice. it makes that first practice social, collective, organizational, and cultural, but also documented in invitation emails, letters, posters.
3. practice of holding. it’s about supporting movement and change. providing space and time, structures that support without making decisions for people, giving attention, carrying in awareness or carrying forward, holding in one’s heart or home or conference room. it creates room for others to expand, explore, experiment… to bring new things out in the world. it is simultaneously logistical, mental, and emotional.
4. practice of practicing. it’s about sustaining, returning, realizing, and making real. this is action, taking a stand, making progress, going somewhere, documenting results. this implies the continuation and diffusion of the above. standing ground, staying the course, seeing things through. it is the personal and individual (I, me, my) pursuit of the good that WE invite, in the space that WE provide. It can look simply mechanical and become deeply meditative, as we go round again, starting with Opening. (note… this might also be called the practice of ‘participating,’ perhaps ‘making,’ or simply ‘doing’ or ‘changing.’ stay tuned”
The first time we offered this workshop was with our friend Judi Richardson in Alaska with a bunch of middle school peer mediators in 2002. This iteration was offered to street involved youth in Prince George. There is something about working with youth in the north that brings out good training designs!
Not only can we offer it in two days, or in a couple of hours, but it lends itself to a four day iteration with a number of somatic exercises built in to anchor these practices in the body. It could be an organizational development workshop, a personal development workshop, Open Space Technology training or a short cut to a deeper practice of facilitation.
We offered the workshop Monday and Tuesday this week. In London, Johnnie Moore has already picked up on it. In four scant days, it has travelled half way around the world. Amazing.
Technorati Tags: openspace, facilitation, leadership
This is being posted elsewhere, but David Weinberger has co-written a little manifesto on the infrastructure of democracy for a conference in Madrid on terrorism, security and democracy.
I especially like this line:
I agree with that and then some. The internet may form an important piece of the infrastructure of democracy, but this principle applies to all processes and techniques that humans use for communicating and collaborating, including conversational processes.
Over the last week in Prince George I did a two day Open Space practice workshop with some young women (formerly drug addicted and/or street involved) and some service providers. We were looking at the the four essential practices that are required for Open Space Technology facilitation: inviting, opening, holding and practicing. The conversation about practices of opening yielded a great list of practices including appreciation, saying “I don’t know”, asking questions, offering, giving, being silent, listening and so on. To me these are the essential personal practices that can then work within an infrastructure of democracy that supports openness.
Technorati Tags: democracy, citizenship
From four-year old Finn today:
“Night comes when the earth yawns and the darkness comes down from space.”
It’s nice to be back home after 8 days in Prince George. Great to reconnect with the little ones and be privy to this sort of wisdom.
Prince George, BC
I’m in Prince George again, in the middle of a week of all kinds of work. Today is day two of an Open Space meeting with a group called Communities Against Sexual Exploitation of Youth (CASEY). CASEY is wrapping up a year long project by using OST to connect people and ideas to community based action on these issues.
The theme for the gathering is “Lanterns of Hope” and indeed after the action planning today, there is a lantern making workshop which will precede a nighttime walk through an inner city neighbourhood to literally and figuratively bring light and hope to these dark parts of the city.
This morning there are thirty people working on six projects to talk their work out of the room. Thirty people showing up on a Saturday morning to create community based action around these issues is actually quite a feat. Despite that however, one of the organizers is struggling with expectations that more people would see this issue as important. In the large room next to where we are working, dozens of families are packing into the Prince George ATV and Motorcycle show. Our thirty participants provide an interesting contrast to that.
To answer the question of “what does it mean that only thirty people have shown up” I began this morning by telling the part of the Ojibway creation story where Giizhigokwe – Sky Woman – falls to earth and comes to rest on the back of a turtle. The earth at this time was covered by water, and the animals had no idea how to create a place where Giizhigokwe could give birth to her twins, the children who would be known as Anishnabe – the original beings. Giizhigokwe asked them to find one of them to swim to the bottom of the ocean and bring back some soil from which a new world could be created. The animals all tried without success, but the muskrat, the least of all of them, finally pulled off the feat and returned to the turtle’s back with a small morsel of soil in his tiny paw. Giizhigokwe spreads the soil around the turtle shell, blows into it and the world comes to life.
There are five key teachings from this story that apply to the idea that “whoever comes is the right people” and that numbers don’t matter for action:
This is a story that defines in many ways my practice of working with groups that are in tough and complex situations for which the transformative moments seem so far out of reach. Simply playing the role of Giizhigokwe – holding space and trusting the story that change will happen – is an important role which creates a container in which all of this work suddenly takes on meaning. But it’s not easy, and that’s a key thing top remember. Transformation comes at a tremendous price. Cracking open the world that we create for ourselves to find a better future always costs something, and one must be prepared for this work if one’s contribution is to be sustainable.
Technorati Tags: ojibway, transformation, change, leadership,
