Category: Miscellany

Two weeks ago I facilitated the first-ever Omidyar Network members conference in Open Space. After the conference, we started a discussion thread called “What I loved about this conference.” Anne Marie Bellavance posted this comment, which is a perfect example of how “action” happens after an Open Space meeting.

I loved meeting Dennis and Tony from Kaboom, so much so i returned home knowing i wanted to participate in a Kaboom build [community-built playspace] asap. I was reading the local paper last Friday, and discovered this article profiling the groundbreaking of a new recreation park in the town next door. The head of the committee happens to be the Athletic Director at the college I used to work for. I emailed him this morning asking if they would be interested in a Kaboom build ~ he responded immediately with a enthusiastic YES.

My first Kaboom project has begun

So often we seem to operate under the impression that the facilitator, the leader(s), or more mysteriously “the organization” does something to make action happen. Mostly I find that organizations don’t take action. People do.

The best any leader can do is invite and support it. That is exactly what Open Space Tech does, invite and support. Then, as Anne Marie is demonstrating, the action is easy.

A while back, I posted here the four things that people tend to say when I work with them or their organization. I can’t resist posting this bit of yesterday’s thank you note from a recent client, as it lines up so well with those earlier claims.

…thanks again for your elegant facilitation and gentle nudgins into self-organize…it was a very enjoyable experience and it exceded all of our expectations for success…in fact, one of senior members of our community said to me on the street later that eve, (in his french accented english):

“at first i thought if i saw another flip-chart, i would throw up!…but really, that was the best meeting i have ever attended in our community in the last 20 years”

I love this last part… open space as the antidote for flipchart sickness!

Almost everybody who calls about working in Open Space these days wants it to lead to some sort of “action.” Sometimes they want to design it in and “make it happen,” but here’s a good example of how real action often happens…

A couple of months ago I facilitated a one-day meeting with a middle-to-senior sort of group of about 20 people. The focus could be described loosely as “get all of these great ideas to market.” They’d been working in “product” teams for a year and a half. I challenged that structure in the invitation and design process, but they assured me that they wanted to keep these teams into the future, beyond this meeting.

We set up the day as a big chunk of Open Space followed by one round of breakout sessions for their “product” teams to turn the day’s ideas in the direction of “action.” When that session happened, the energy dropped off quite a bit. Conversations wandered. Almost no notes were taken. Some wondered if the whole day had been wasted. The “lull” in energy lasted for some weeks after the meeting. The proceedings didn’t get sent out as had been promised. Teams treaded water or failed to meet altogether.

Then somebody determined to send out the proceedings. I helped draft a few questions that invited engagement on various levels. The conversation started to churn a bit. The original Space had given the old structures every chance to succeed, but everyone could see that something more was needed. Then that something happened.

With widespread agreement, the old “product” teams were dissolved and new “product development” functions created in their place, without sacrificing people or progress. What could have been called a failure for “no action” at several points, suddenly opened into a whole new way of doing business.

The new structure more directly supports current needs and actions. It builds directly on all their past work. As it turns out, it also looks a lot more like Open Space than did the old one, adopting such concepts as “temporary teams” and “open invitations.” Energy is rising, conversation is flowing, and new actions are being taken.

This from Rose Vines blogging the Omidyar.net Members’ “More and More” conference that’s running here in Open Space this weekend:

I’m starting to understand the permissive wisdom of Open Space. Can’t say I thought about it much before the conference, but I am so thoroughly enjoying the way this is all happening. (Thanks, Michael.) There’s no compulsiveness about start/stop times; or staying in one group (love the concept of butterflies and bumble bees who cross-pollinate between discussions). And so what I’m discovering is that the discussions never stop…just keep going through lunch, in hallways…morphing as people pass by and drop in a comment. Huge, huge amounts of interconnectedness, repetition (in a really useful sense), common underpinnings to diverse topics.

Just finished cleaning up the contents page of our conference proceedings, after the first of three days in Open Space with Omidyar friends gathered here in Chicago.

Aside from handling facilitation and hosting matters, my own conversations focused primarily on alternative currencies, markets and credit, looking at the possibility of mutual or community-based credit (as opposed to commercial or institutionally extended credit). The attraction is that mutual credit systems rely on webs of relationships rather than interest payments. Much to digest before I can say more. I’ll try to ground some of today’s learning in next steps for Small Change News Network in a session I’ve posted for tomorrow.

Most fascinating proposition of the day, given my recent studies of China and world currency markets, is the explanation that the real reason for going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan was to gain/maintain greater control over the flow of oil to China. Why? Because they are a tremendous economic wildcard, we can’t control their fiscal, monetary or currency market activities, but if we can manage the oil spigot, we can speed or slow their economy to better serve the American economic interests. In this context, the Chinese bid for Unocal looks like a real shot across the bow.

Most remarkable thing here is the simultaneity of well-informed global scope and really down-and-dirty practical action in so many different localities around the world. More than any place I’ve ever been, there is a palpable, credible sense of “we can do this,” no matter what. The whole of our work seems to be powered by a tremendous, yet unassuming, generosity. Yum!

Today is the first day of a the first-ever Omidyar.net Members’ capacity building conference. I had dinner last night with a group old (online) friends who’d never seen each other before. We are from Boston, Chicago, Denver, California, Oz via New Orleans, Brazil, Germany, New York, Vancouver, and someplace else so far. We have others coming from Africa and elsewhere. We didn’t pick delegates, that’s just where we all happen to come from.

We are, as a group, doing all kinds of different things, amazing things really, “so that more and more people discover their power to make good things happen.” We are meeting these next three days, in Open Space, to have make more of all the good this group is already doing. You can read more and more about Omidyar Network and this conference. Time to go facilitate! Will report more and more later today…