Yesterday we undertook a new experiment at Catalytic Communities, inspired by a friend and collaborator, Michael Herman.
and then goes on to say:
As the director of CatComm I was refreshed to see staff taking control of the meeting… I was fascinated by the topics that came up naturally, as they are different to those I would have posed, but are perhaps closer to the pulse of what is really important…
Spirited Work is an experiment in ongoing Open Space that’s been running in the Seattle area since 1999. Anne Stadler, one of the founders and leaders of this multi-year journey, has posted an excellent short history of Spirited Work, complete with pictures.
Here is a list of conferences and exchanges, with contacts for more information, that Michael M Pannwitz helped assemble for us…
Learning Exchange in Southern Germany (July 16-19)
email Georg Rehm or Wolfgang Faenderl
OSonOS in Moscow (August 4-6)
See International OSonOS page for details
OSonOS by the Sea USA (September 11-12)
Hosted by Harrison Owen. Think it’s sold out now.
Learning Exchange in Ukraine (September 20 -22)
email Bohdan V. Maslych or
Andrey Klymyshyn or Lad Kanevska
Jo Toepfer sent this about an International Open Space Technology Training that is going to take place in Blossin / Germany (close to Berlin) from November 2 through 9, 2006…
Many of us experience our work, the organizations we are part of, our communities, even our countries and in fact the whole world around us as transforming at ever increasing speed. To effectively deal with the resulting challenges often perceived as chaos, conflict and confusion we need an approach that involves all interested parties with their insights, experiences, questions and wisdom. An approach in which we collectively focus on making organizations and communities places in which the human spirit can unfold and thrive.
Open Space Technology is such an approach. It supports systems of all kinds and sizes in unfolding the forces of collaboration, cooperation, participation, creativity and spirit required to come to action on the burning issues facing them. It provides a framework of time and space in which people self organize their learning and planning. In this framework everyone works with everyone else on those issues they feel passionate about and for which they are taking responsibility.
Michael Herman, who has provided lots of resources to the Open Space community over the years, has just released two updated offerings:
Open Space Technology: Inviting Leadership Practice – reviews the basics of Open Space, considers its evolution, and points to its dissolving into the ongoing practice of Inviting Leadership.
Open Space Technology: An Inviting Guide – a short guide for Inviting Leaders, with new meeting/event planning worksheet and notes on sustaining action after the big meeting.
What a nice thing to do a week before he gets married!
(Congrats Michael, from the whole osw.org posting team!)
From Ashley Cooper to the OSList about doing Open Space with 42 third graders in 1 hour and 10 minutes (I would’ve given you an excerpt, but couldn’t bear to cut any of this):
The theme was What can we do to make our school a better place? What can we do to make our world a better place?
Of course, the children took to it so easily. We had 2, 20 minute sessions in which they generated 18 topics such as New Rules for the Playground, How we should be nice and kind to each other, Learning from history’s mistakes, Children’s Voting Rights, Try to help the environment! Not polluting any more!, and Not excluding people from anything.
We ended with a once around reflection circle in which everyone had a chance to share. Here are some of their comments.
- What I liked in my group was that there were no debates. We were all united. There were differences about how it is, but we were all united.
- We decided to start a fund to save the rainforest.
- Our group went well. Kids voting rights. It was a good opportunity for discussion.
- In history’s biggest mistakes, it started as being silly with just girls there. Then the boys came in and made it better. In the second session I bonded with someone I didn’t know that well.
- Everyone agreed with saving the rainforest. It wasn’t silly. We were serious.
- I think we talked about an important issue: not excluding.
One little touch that I think helped a lot with this age group was to provide a basket of objects that hosts could choose to use for a talking stick. I saw a few kids struggling with everyone talking at once and then one of them running to grab a talking stick. I also provided a generic form for them to use for note taking.
Aside from the opportunity for their voices to be heard, to connect with one another around things that matter to them, and to experience themselves self-organizing, I greatly appreciated that students who have a tendency to wander and not participate in assigned topics (students that can often be labeled as challenges) that at the OS they actually had names and roles for their ways of being, butterflies and bumble bees. I loved that they were doing what they were ‘supposed to be doing’ by wandering around and trying to figure out where they belong and where they want to participate.
