Today a post by Peter Buys on the OSLIST caught my eye… I am fully convinced that Open Space is a marvelous tool to stimulate individual creativity; spontaneous collaboration (for the duration of the Open Space event); and an expression of trust in people by the client (in other words the ones who bought / decided for the Open Space event)…Many if not most Open Spaces are only very short blips (events) in typically much longer processes of change. But the Open Space does not really address that issue nor does it really offer (as far as I know) options …
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Here’s a report on an OST meeting that I did on the weekend for a really interesting project which got youth to monitor violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in the city of Vancouver. The project was the brainchild of a number of organizations in the Vancouver, who came together to ask about how the UN convention could be used to draw attention to some of the pressing issues faced by children and youth in Vancouver. These issues included experiences in the child welfare system, poverty, lack of equitably funded education opportunities in poor neighbourhoods, …
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The Open Space Practices An email on the OSLIST today prompted me to find the story of the Open Space event I did in Alaska with Judi Richardson and Michael Herman. The event was a gathering of 200 middle school students, teachers and counsellors and the theme was “Becoming a Peacemaker.” Over the months that followed Julie sent stories about Open Space blossoming all over Alaska and Michael collected and posted them at his site. That was also the first time we offered the Open Space practice workshop together in a two day format. We had 60 people in that …
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Over the past few weeks I have been working hard in Victoria facilitating the Aboriginal engagement strategy for the Victoria Urban Development Agreement.The work unfolded in two stages, with the first stage being three focus groups on economic, physical and social issues. We used the ICA Focused Conversations methodology to deepen and inquire into the participants experience of their community. Objective data was recorded as mind maps which we then overlay with data harvested from the reflective, interpretive and decisional parts of the conversations. Following the focus groups, we conducted a large 1.5 day community meeting to gather issues and …
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Victoria, BC My two favourite processes of the moment, and there are people all over the place looking at ways to combine them. Today, Christine Whitney Sanchez sends the report from her latest effort, which used OST and World Cafe to work with up to 2000 people at the National Girls Scouts Convention in the USA. The proceedings are online. Tomorrow I am about to do the same thing, beginning a two day conversation with the Aboriginal community of Victoria. Christine’s efforts are my inspiration tonight.