Three years ago, I designed and facilitated an Open Space track of the Agile/XP Universe Conference for programmers here in Chicago. Nice to hear that some of the seeds sewn there have begun to sprout. This report came in recently…

Yesterday, I opened space at the PNSQC conference in Portland OR. (Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference) Ellen Gottesdiener (copied on this email) opened space in July at the Agile 2005 conference, also software-related. In both of those the OS ran concurrently with other sessions. Here in the NW we are planning another software-related regional conference (XP Fest NW) for next spring to be all Open Space, all the time.

The first time I saw Open Space in a conference setting in 2002, Michael Herman opened it for the XP/Agile Universe.

It’s not the ideal way to facilitate Open Space, [conference tracks] but it makes for a more enjoyable and rich conference, IMHO. The more conferences I attend with Open Space tracks, the more impatient I get with powerpoint presentations. Another thing I’ve noticed in conferences that regularly include Open Space…the senior folks and “gurus” tend to show up there and become more accessible than in more formal sessions.

I’d agree with Diana. Better to run the whole thing in Open Space, but sometimes the tracks are a necessary bridge to that. Go, Diana, Go! And perhaps the coolest part about Open Space is that somebody can see it once or twice and then just dive into the leadership for themselves. It helps to have a couple of good looks at it, but after that, it’s just a matter of Practice!

Talked with organizer Matt Homann today, who tells me that he’s not heard a single negative comment about last weekend’s BlawgThink conference. Recall from previous postings here that we started with 2/3 of a day in traditional conference mode, then spent a full day in Open Space “unconference” mode. Here’s one of my favorite comments:

I just returned from the Blawgthink conference in Chicago. As the name suggests, this was a group interested in law blogging and law bloggers. You know, you’d think a room full of lawyers would be boring. You’d be wrong actually. This group was a blast.

Matt’s posted comments and more comments. Looking forward to more experimentation with the BlawgThink/LexThink gang.

First, the hiking was fabulous.

Second, in The Conversation, the Open Space conference that was my reason for being there, we did two innovative things that bear reporting here, for future practice.

One of them happened very spontaneously. We convened for the opening at 3pm, built the agenda, and then started the first working sessions in Open Space at 4:30pm. Meanwhile, 15 or so of our 100 participants were battling weather conditions, airport delays and mountain traffic in hired vans, still trying to reach us in Aspen. So we called them on cellphones and gave them the first session discussion topics. They had their sessions in the vans!

The other innovation was part of the program design, in response to the sponsors’ request for “some structure” and “panel discussion.” How did we build a structured panel discussion in the middle of Open Space? We picked the five panelists from participants, but not until just a few hours before the “discussion.” We asked them to talk about their experience at the conference, everything that was being accomplished, and also to look forward at what was yet to be done or discussed. We put them in the center of the room, rather than at the front. And we did it at the end of 1.5 days of Open conversation, the evening before what would be the closing half-day for action planning.

It worked perfectly, in that we allowed for panelists to tag or be tagged by others, so that those center seats could rotate. After a couple of rounds, the panel broke down, into one big circle with a talking stick. The structure gave way to community. We heard ideas, insights and appreciations from many people, which did an excellent job of setting up the next conversations, convened on the last morning. Next time, I’d put 6 chairs in the middle and use that empty chair as invitation to come join, and the signal that somebody should leave the panel.

The Conversation event was a great success, by all accounts. Two accounts of The Conversation, one from the event and one from the vans, were published in newspapers and are posted in my wiki notebook.

Reporting in from Aspen, Colorado, where I will be facilitating The Conversation, a large-ish Open Space Summit on the future of what it means to be Jewish in America in the 21st Century. Where else to have this visionary meeting, but on the mountain top? Some interesting innovations built into the program, to be reported on later this week.

Aspen itself is absolutely gorgeous. I always breathe better in Colorado. I love it here. So much more space, room to breathe. My theory is that the mountains make us more aware of how far we can go up, but whatever the reason, it’s working for me. Looking forward to having Jill here later in the week.

Meanwhile, there’s a big climate change conference finishing up just before we start. Al Franken almost ran me over coming around a corner in the hallway today. Theresa Heinz Kerry standing next to me at the front desk as I was checking in. And Al Gore passing by later this evening. Too bad they’re not working in Open Space!

Oh yes, and I guess the John Denver festival is just wrapping up, down the road a piece. Woohoo!