Gulu, Uganda Open Space – Day 2

This post was typed on 27Feb, but back-dated to appear on its day of the conference.

Gulu, Uganda Open Space – Day 2 (Tuesday)

• R was quite sick on the airplane over to Uganda and after the bus ride yesterday, skipped the opening day to rest. We ended up taking her to the hospital in the evening. That’ll be a whole post of it’s own, but in short, we both spent the night in the hospital. I expected to get picked up between 8 and 9am so I could have breakfast and do morning news at 9am. R was discharged about 9:15 and no pickup yet. And I had no phone numbers to call to even find out when the ride was coming. Shortly after 9:30 G arrived to drive us! I just kept thinking to myself, “Whenever is starts is the right time,” and “If I’m missed, maybe they’ll send someone to get me,” and “They can certainly do morning news without me, or even just skip it and start right in on sessions.”
• Turns out I wasn’t missed. Breakfast had been late and they weren’t quite ready for morning news yet when I arrived. All was well.
• The rest of the day went as per usual, morning news, two sessions, lunch, two more sessions, evening news.

RecentChangesCamp07 – Portland, OR – Feb 2-4

I will be co-facilitating this event and would love to see you there!Invitation – RCC 2007

You are reading this Invitation because someone (Ted Ernst, actually) wants to see you at RecentChangesCamp 2007. RecentChangesCamp is an un-conference (BarCamp) of, for, and by folks who want to ‘build communities worth having’ both online and off. This especially includes the OpenTechnology/OpenCulture movement. We are coming together to make connections, write code, have fun, revise the CyberneticRoadmap, do as much good work as each and every one of us can … and then go home more connected, more energized and more capable of building great communities and the tools they depend on. Bring your friends and join a good party that’s growing even better!”

The day before, also in Portland, Emerging Futures Network is having a one-day gathering: http://emergingfutures.net

WikiSym

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?

Ted update

Each of these could be it’s own post, but I’m just going to lump them all together, including the ones I’m not going to write about now. link

• LocalNames and WordPress plugin

It’s still crashing the blog, so no news yet. Hopefully soon.

• Future of Wiki Conferences

WikiSym looks like it’ll be in Montreal next fall. I’ve been invited to be part of the planning committee. Recent Changes Camp is also in Montreal in May. There are rumors it’ll move to coincide with WikiSym, but we’ll seen. WikiMania bids are in. Perhaps Europe. Perhaps Asia. Perhaps Alexandria, Egypt.

• Opening Space at a traditional conference

I’m still punting on this one. I’ll link to Gerard’s initial post about this when I finally reply in full.

• Inviting others to build groups in the Humanist Movement

Punting on this one for now as well.

• Air travel and terrorism

If we (the West) were really in a war with “terrorists” we would’ve already lost. Air travel is so disrupted as to make it hardly worth going. On the other hand, getting us used to putting up with crazy delays, searches and inconviences could be very useful for governments that like their populations docile. Coincidence?

• BeyondYes, large-scale decision-making

Brandon CS Sanders and have started a new business called BeyondYes. We’re working on corporate structures and stuff now, but our principles line up, and we’re looking for people interested in hiring us now. “Hire us for what?”, you ask. Well, to help your group make decisions, of course.Let’s say you’re the WikiMedia foundation, the organization that runs Wikipedia. You need to make decisions about what’s most important for the next release of the software. Maybe the way you’ve been doing it works pretty well. The community makes comments here and there, perhaps even well-organized, and the developers make recommendations based on those comments and their own inclinations and the lead developer makes the decision. Sounds pretty good. And what if that process is leaving people feeling as if they’re not part of the process? That’s where we come in. Using our process, we can help your community (including developers) make decisions that pretty much everyone agrees on.

Or let’s say you’re ICANN, the organization responsible for domains (one level above the companies actually selling domains to you, they decide if .com, .org, etc are enough or if applications for more, like .berlin, make sense). How do you satisfy all of your public and private consituencies around the world to make a decision? Right now your board takes all kinds of input and then votes on a plan. With out process, all of those consituencies can be directly involved in shaping the plan, both getting their own concerns heard and addressed, and helping to make sure the same is true for all consituencies.

Have another idea for a large-group decision that could use some help? Let me know and we can talk about what your goals are and see if there’s something we could help wtih.We are currently looking for our very first paying customer.

Inviting Individual Actions to Meet: ALL AT ONCE

Michael and I have been talking about a Chicago event. He writes:

Some of us are talking now about the invitation to a Chicago Summer 2007 conference that would be the extension of our Giving Conference in 2004 and Omidyar Member conferences in 2005 and 2006.In writing the invitation, I suggested we focus on what it is we’re interested in, and who we *would* invite, rather than the groups of people that we think *should* be there. Too often, *should* begins as a fantasy and ends up as the excuse for NOT acting, not inviting. Better to focus on what we already care about and the people we already know or really want to meet and connect with.

Here is my interest and what/who I’d like to invite in Chicago:

My work with the Humanist Movement is all about non-violence, and the connection between personal and social change.  For the last two years I’ve been mostly working with people active in the social realm, helping them connect with whatever personal work might be helpful for them to be even more effective in the world.

I also have quite a few connections with people very active in healing, massage and other energy work, and other places that seem to me to be about personal development and wellness.  I’d love to invite them to connect with the socially active people above for everyone’s and the planet’s benefit.

And I really like the name ALL AT ONCE because the world is getting faster and faster, and we’re in need of some very grounded, but very immediate work that’s going to take all of us working in many areas ALL AT ONCE.

Please let me know if you’re interested in inviting to this event, and thus interested in co-creating the invitation that you’ll be excited about distributing to those you want to attend.

Better Use of a Parking Spot

Via the carfree email list and then by web search:

Citywide parking space art event
The only requirements are that you:
1. Use a parking space with a meter
2. Don’t engage in any activity that would be illegal in and of itself

You will “rent” the space(s) by paying the requisite amount for the time. This payment should authorize and entitle you to use the space in any way you choose. Why should cars be privileged? Why should so much space be devoted exclusively to automobiles?

The purpose of these citywide action/performances is to interfere with the monolithic and unimaginative uses of urban space.

– Jenny Roberts

opening space

The circle was walked.
Space more visible.
In lieu of a nap
neighborhood walked.
Upon return,
work underway

Still breathing.

Picked up cups.
Topics on a wiki page
for something to do.

Nothing more
to be done.
Feel it.
Smile.

intention

Recently I was having a conversation with someone (can’t remember who) when “intention” came up. I told this person I’d send a link to this photo. Seems like this is the best I can do for now (click the image to make larger).

More on organizing The World We Want

Phil writes at The World We Want a whole bunch of reasons all this work gets easier when it’s not just a one-off, but part of an on-going, national series.

My 5 year plan

Last August I made myself a two-step, 5-year plan to quit my job entirely. Step 1 is to find a way (or ways) to make some money so I can feel confident dropping to part-time at my job (knowing that I might lose it entirely in the discussion process). Step 2 is to use the extra time freed up to continue those passions that also make money from time to time and be able to quit entirely. In the last few months I’ve been feeling more confident about the direction I’m going, having oppotunities come up to gain experience opening space at the o/net July conf and at WikiSym in Denmark in July.

In the last month I wrote my first useful computer program in a long, long, time, which gave me an amazing feeling that this is not simply an intention, I now have evidence that it can be a reality. Sure, no money yet, but no rush, I’ve got 5 years.

And in the last week it became clear that 5 years is too long. Without deliberation, I have now shortened the plan to 3-4 years. Rich Henry suggested a book to me on Wednesday (yesterday) called Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life, by Gregg Levoy. I read the first hundred pages or so on the train this evening.

That’s where I’m at.