Showing revision 12
Issue: Open Space country

Convenor: Gerard Muller

Participants: Eva Sv, Marei, Peggy, Alexander, Jan, Julie, Gabriele, Gerard.


Summary of the meeting:

How to move from opening space for those who ask to opening space for those issues you mostly care for ?

1. Move from one-off events to longer and more deep processes with client systems

2. Use the interfaces between systems where you have worked and have a network to connect to those you would like to work with, and that requires deciding what to focus on.

If you had a magic stick and could decide what issue and clientsystem you would facilitate an Open Space for, what would you choose ?

1. What school do we need in the future and how do we create it ? Teachers, parents, kids.

2. How to create a good cooperation instead of fighting eachother in the media: the Danish Parliament.

3. How do we create the Government we want ? For the politicians in Northern Ireland.

4. Journalism that matters - key people from the media

5. How to deal with kids well in spite of all cost reductions ? 50 workers in Kindergartens.

6. Top business leaders: how to create a better work-life balance

7. How to create a better (and more effective) working place in public organisations ?

In discussing how to realise these we found that: - bottom-up strategies seem more likely to succeed (also looking at trends in grassroots movements like move-on.org) - just contact those who you could work with - a process could for example start at community level and move 'up' from there, creating 'Momentum' during the process - Peggy mentioned an example where 20 local OS's for art commissions in Washington State were converged into the 6 major topics to be handled. The process was set up as a relay where results of each OS were available online and could inspire the next OS's.

There could be an Open Space political party, whose 'politicians' would be conveners rather than talking heads, the political program being a result of series of (pysical or on-line) Open Spaces.

Another possibility is to pool resources and contacts to create a better foundation for organising a key Open Space on a major topic


Follow up: The Danes in this group have decided to meet to discuss potential issues and how they could jointly make it happen. Gerard will contact the others and convene a meeting.


Online Comments:

This magic stick approach is helping me think again about this, because we do have magic sticks and can invite anyone. Making the commitment to start into a large issue with the seeds of an invitation and invitation list and no funding can be a big step, though. Marrying the invite, list and funding is an ongoing interest. --MichaelHerman