The goal of the event is talk about Open Space with other experienced Open Space facilitators. Open Space is the primary method that I use in my unconference practice. I am most interested in talking about other methods in conjunction with open space and how they are applied.

• In the session so far I have gained clarity on the spectrum of Open Space use.
• Within a sub-section of the organization – a department
• For an Organization
• For an Organization and a few companies
• For a network of companies/organizations/people engaging with a complex topic/problem
• For an organization having a “conference”
• For public engagement by government with experts
• For public engagement around a set of problems

The two that are highlighted is where my work doing unconferences is mostly.

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I and 3 of my facilitator friends are helping with this unconventional candidates forum in District 10. 2009 Congressional Candidates & Community Interactive Dialogue on Open-Government

We will be hosting a World Cafe to support a deeper dialogue to engage with what President Obama outlined in his Transparency Memo and to consider what it means for the district.

We are inspired by President Obama’s commitment to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government. Outlined in his Memo from his first day in office.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset.

Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government’s effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge.

Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperate among themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector.

At the conclusion of each of the three rounds of dialogue we will be inviting participants to write key points from the dialogue down. We will collect these and they will be the basis of a document that will reflect key themes from the conversation.

Once the rounds conclude we will invite citizen reflections on the dialogue for thirty minutes. We are hoping to find a graphic recorder or two to support this part of the process. To conclude the event each of the candidates will have three minutes to make a statement on the record.
I am really excited to be applying my skills as a facilitator in this experiment and hope that it can be used as a model for future innovative events.

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This all came about out of Transparency Camp last weekend where I met David Peterson one of the candidates running in the Congressional District 10 Special Election being held September 1.

He was interested in the upcoming candidates forum being on the themes of transparency and openness in government and wanted some of us from the camp who were “experts” in the subject to be the moderators. Silona Bonewald was there talking with him too. We got to talking about what the goals were for the event and what the audiences’ goals were. World Cafe seemed like a good match. Please join us if you are in District 10. We will be writing up how this goes and hopefully it can be a case study for other candidates’ forums to use in the future.

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Let’s assume that you are going to succeed at attracting 50-1000+ motivated, smart people from around the region or country to attend your conference, ok? As the convenor, you now have an amazing opportunity to engage and influence a large number of active and talented folks about an issue that is important to you. Inspiring speeches can energize attendees and spark new ideas, but that alone is not enough. There is nothing like active participation to prepare people to take what they have learned out into the world.

It covers a range of potential ways of including conversation and audience participation within ‘traditional’ conference formats.

Participatory Formats to put at the Middle or End of an informational presentation.

• Pause for Pairs
• Small Group Sharing
• Attendees Interview Each Other
• Panelist or Participant Fishbowl
• Panelist Circles

Participatory Formats to Supplement or Replace One-Way Presentations

• Storytelling
• World Cafe
• Representative Fishbowls
• Kinetic Spectrum (Spectrograom)
• Speed Dating
• Project Gallery (Speed Geeking)
• Appreciative Inquiry
• Open Space

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First I will do picture filled “tour” of unconfernce processes and patterns for about 1/2 an hour and then answering some questions.

The irony of being asked to speak about designing unconferences is not lost on me because conferences have experts or distinguished speakers share their knowledge broadcast style to an audience. I decided that it would only be appropriate to do what happens at unconferences tap into the knowledge is in the room because the BayCHI community has been to many 100′s of events, conferences, workshops, meetings. They know more collectively then I do.

We will use the discovery process of Appreciative Inquiry to share the knowledge in the room about effective and inspiring process at conferences.

The audience will divide up into dyads and answer these questions:
Think of a time in your entire conference going experience, when have you felt most alive, most inspired and most proud. What was it that made it a high point? Please tell that story. Follow up question What seemed particularly effective or innovative?

Then we will gather in small groups of 6-10:
First tell each others story to the others in the group.
2. Merge lists of key qualities and circumstances of peak (un)conference going experiences.
3. Pick from this list the top two elements.

Then with the whole audience will hear from each group the key elements they found in their group.

BJ a Dialogue Mapper will capture the whole audience participation. I will collect the papers that have the merged list of each of the groups and will post them likely on the dCamp wiki.

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