Humanize the Earth!

This WikiSym story that Gerard wrote about started with last year’s WikiVan story.  Remember that one?  Two solid days of rolling open space going to WikiSym last October and then two more days on the way back?  The conference itself was a bit of a letdown, to be sure.  Instead of trying to convince the organizers that adding an open space componant was a good idea (truthfully, we did try that), we decided to have RecentChangesCamp, a 2.5 day, by-the-book open space in February, hoping the WikiSym organizers would come and then be able to make a more informed decision.  That didn’t happen, but they heard enough good reports, I suppose, that they decided to try it anyway.

So the conference schedule grid simply had a column for each day that said “open space” in each time-slot.  As Gerard tells us below, we even had to carve out a time for an opening with everyone, which we did.  After Gerard opened, topics went onto the wall like mad.  Fantastic stuff!  The one complaint I heard was about the lack of available timeslots on day 2 (we only put day 1 schedule grid on the wall given all of the uncertainty Gerard describes).  Of course when I looked back on the wall later, indeed there were topics posted for day 2, no grid needed!

That first day’s energy was really fantastic, as usual.  Lots of topics being discussed all over the place.  Some of the paper presentations also interested me, but I never managed to get over to them, given all that was happening in open space.  At the end of the day, however, my assessment was that the energy wasn’t so much about “doing” anything as it was about theorizing and talking about interesting topics.  So given the lack of a plenary room for day 3 and this seeming lack of movement toward action that needed further planning, I recommended to stop after day 2 and Gerard agreed.  We did a closing instead of an evening news, with very good attendance, as there was no evening keynote or anything else distracting.

The two of us then met with the same group from the night before to talk it over and one of them was very strong in his opinion that we must not stop after day 2.  He felt that the 3rd day was really necessary for some of the magic of open space to happen.  Our conclusion was to defer the decision once more, with the provision of a plenary room one of the requirements.

For morning news (new opening) of day 2, I was on my own, as Gerard had a family event.  We didn’t have a dedicated time so I carved out some time from the coffee break after the morning keynote.  I invited people to bring their coffees into the open space room.  We had very low attendance, and very few topics posted (5, maybe?).  I had to exercise my facilitation by breathing technique for that time!

Interestingly, even with few topcis, there was action in the open space room and the hallways all day long.  People played (and taught) Go, others had all kinds of butterfly conversations and sessions not
posted, others used their two feet to enjoy the town.  At the end of the day, a plenary room for the following day was still not available, and given the apparent lack of energy, we decided to close there at the end of day 2.  Again, we had no dedicated time, but had to carve out from a coffee break, this time with a very popular keynote speech immediately following, where some people wanted to get good seats!  Again, very low attendence, as was fitting for the day.  Still, people shared very nice experiences.  We gave them the news about no formal open space on day 3, but assured them that they wouild create the conversations and future work that needed to be done without us just as well as with us, and bid the formal process goodbye.

I may have more to tell on this, but I’ll set it aside for now.
Gerard?  More from you?