Documenting Dialogue

Comment

Comment by Lisa Heft on October 3, 2010 at 1:48am

Hello, wonderful 'Documenting Dialogue' folks -
I recently designed a 'The Power of Pre-Work' workshop - where I learned so much from everyone in the several-day learning experience. And the participants of this workshop accepted my invitation to try something else - they documented almost every part of the workshop !
I designed some of it and built it into the processes, they added some more ideas. Really interesting. And now I am taking my workshop notes, combining it with their workshop notes, and photos, and the artifacts they created throughout the workshops - and I'm building a little co-created booklet that they have helped build out of their words and experiences.
It is all an experiment, and really a lot of fun.
And I will finish the booklet and give it back to them...one day soon (whenever it is completed is the right time, and all that).
So: in 2011 I will be designing a third workshop (Open Space Learning Workshop, The Power of Pre-Work, and...) Documenting Dialogue.
I invite you to share what you have learned and experimented with and explored for any participant-driven documentation you have used in any method of face-to-face dialogue. I know we will all be enriched by your experiences...What have you tried? Did it work? What did you learn?

Comment by Lisa Heft on May 15, 2010 at 10:01pm

Dear colleagues in the Documenting Dialogue Group -

I posted this on my Ning blog and the OSLIST but I realize you may not all receive RSS feed on this site or be yet on the OSLIST. And this group I am about to describe was about dialogue in silence so what was created during the (silent) conversations was indeed documenting dialogue....read...on...
___
I wanted to share that I so enjoyed a group I hosted yesterday at the WOSonOS.

I held up a blank piece of paper as my topic sign, selected a time and space and placed the sign on the Agenda Wall.

People gathered and sat in companionable silence in a circle.

Then I wrote some thoughts on cards such as:
___

Choices

Sit in silence

Communicate in silence

Experience an activity that can be done to help people reflect in silence *before* discussion
___

Other cards said:

Documentation?

Someone to note the time?

(or something like that)
___

In silence, we 'discussed' and agreed upon the agenda (the time card was tossed away into the air, the documentation was my camera)
We agreed to move from the sit-in-silence to the 'communicate in silence' portion of our session.

Much mutual appreciation, twinkling eyes and laughter, exploring little movements together, a bit of running around for some of our members, some putting of things on heads, some sitting laps and a high portion of silliness followed.

Then we shifted into the 'an activity that can be done to help people reflect in silence before discussion' portion of our agenda.

I guided folks (in silence, which is not usually how I explain the guidelines) a reflective activity I have designed - and some of you have helped me field test this activity in past WOSonOS and OSonOSs - which invites participants to answer four questions by drawing their responses (no text). The process is called 'Graphic Window'. After reflection and drawing in response to four questions, we spoke again, going around the circle and sharing what each person drew and what they reflected upon as they heard each of the four questions.
___

Lovely and nutritious - especially to have silence in the midst of a high-talk environment such as an Open Space.
I bow (silently) with (silent) thanks to my fellow explorers,

Lisa

Comment by Kathie Wallace on February 25, 2010 at 3:05pm

Thanks to all of the host team, of OSonOS 2010 in San Francisco for creating a wonderful experience of Open Space which I am grateful to have attended.
The Book of Proceedings is also an amazing compilation.
For the sake of accuracy, I need to point out that the Spiral Dialogues session on page 23, which I facilitated, was only attended in its entirety by John and Willow.
In e-mails with Lisa, this notice of correction is how she indicated I could make this correction.
Dancing the unfolding,
Kathie Wallace
From the Olympic experience of Vancouver, Canada

Comment by Lisa Heft on February 25, 2010 at 12:59am

(and now, the full message from the OSonOS 2010 San Francisco Host Team):

Dear colleagues --

This January we hosted an Open Space on Open Space - a several-day conference in and about Open Space Technology. We shared learning, inquiry, exploration, differences in style, discoveries about our practices, tasty 'pot-luck' dinner, laughter and community.

A tradition for an OSonOS or a WOSonOS since 2001 has been to include a 'Global Village Marketplace' (participants bring lovely items to sell) and a 'Silent Auction' (more beautiful things we bring and buy from one another - highest bidder wins the lovely item). Both of these traditions raise money and awareness for the Access Queen project (more about that in a future email). Looking across those tables you might have seen fresh Hawaiian honey, kilim-style pillows, a journal with a bookmark in it from Taiwan, a photo of a fern frond unfurling, and more.

Looking about the room you might have also seen one participant after another enjoying a massage kindly and skillfully provided by Alpha Lo, another person taking a sip of a great local wine, someone enjoying their tasty box lunch and someone else doing their stretches.

Topics included:

- When We Do Open Space - What Do I/You Do that is Different from What You/I Do?
- Open Space and Systems Theory
- Technology Tools People Are Using
- Haiti (Ayiti) - Next Steps - What Can We Do?
- Producing an Open Space Video
- How Do We Create A Balance Between 'Whoever Comes Are The Right People' and Acknowledging Those Who Are Not Present? (Seeing Cultural Blind Spots)
- The Power of Pre-Work
- What OS Tools are We Missing?
- Massage (that was ongoing massages throughout the OSonOS given by the fabulous Alpha Lo)
...and more.

We have posted the Book of Proceedings from the Open Space on Open Space 2010 in San F... for your reading enjoyment. A warm thanks to Kas Neteler, our Newsroom Coordinator and Book of Proceedings producer.

Some of us will see some of you in person at the WOSonOS in Berlin this May - and this particular OSonOS will happen again next year.

Jeff Aitken, Kaliya Hamlin, Lisa Heft and Heidi Nobantu Saul
The OSonOS 2010 San Francisco Host Team

Comment by Lisa Heft on February 25, 2010 at 12:45am

Hello, all - I am delighted to announce that you can now find the Book of Proceedings from the Open Space on Open Space 2010 in San F... to read and enjoy. Warm thanks to Joseph Boyle for his help in posting this. Included are the notes from a session on Documenting Dialogue (including Eric Kapono's lovely Mind Map). Happy reading....

Comment by Lisa Heft on February 17, 2010 at 2:31pm

Welcome, Christine Koehler and Cynthyny Lebo to Documenting Dialogue! Cynthyny - I am unclear - how the message you just sent to all members of this group relates to Open Space and Documenting Dialogue. Thanks for explaining it further to us.

And folks - I have a question for you - I find that there is one level of providing documentation back to participants and client - the Book of Proceedings (which in my own way of doing things can be completed and distributed within a week or so post-event, to re-stimulate thinking and interaction about the topics and relationships. However I have observed that some clients desire one further step in understanding all that raw data - they either do the following themselves or ask me / hire me to do it: re-package that Book for their next-level use - into for example worksheets or other ways of clustering and seeing the info in terms of (depends on their situation) recommendations that came up in the conversations, unanswered questions, whatever they need.

What have others found?

Comment by Lisa Heft on February 11, 2010 at 3:28am

Hello, everyone - if you are able to come to Berlin this May to join a bunch of international colleagues exploring and using Open Space - our annual World Open Space on Open Space (WOSonOS), you will see some of us there...

Comment by Lisa Heft on January 18, 2010 at 6:01pm

Interesting thought, Harold - we talked about it a little bit in the Open Space on Open Space that happened this weekend. Some people give participants graphic templates. Kas Neteler, a wonderful Member of this Ning community, says she brings colored post-its and markers wherever she goes. I have explored the use of graphics and other non-text tools to help people shift into a deeper level of thinking - especially when the topic is very 'heady'.

But as we are in a 'Documenting Dialogue' stream here - it's interesting to think of these tools not just as tools for deepening the dialogue but also as participant-driven documentation.

Like Open Space has as one of its outputs a Book of Proceedings. So I think for retention having participants doing graphics - as shifting into any other non-text modality - does indeed improve retention. And I'd put all that into their Book of Proceedings as well. What do others do and think?

And I have another observation: when people draw during their session on a flip-chart - so often I find that the chart holds meaning *for that group* - but when others see it (for example in a Book of Proceedings) it may be hard to understand what the group was talking about (though non-linear images always evoke something). What are others' experiences and observations? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Comment by Harold Shinsato on January 18, 2010 at 1:12am

I met another graphic facilitator at Re-Imagining Journalism and Community in the Pacific Northwest last week. Steven J. Wright has actually received training from "The Grove". This kind of graphic facilitation has been proven to improve retention. I wonder how much more our retention could be increased if the artwork were done by all the participants.

Comment by Lisa Heft on January 9, 2010 at 4:15pm

Welcome, Eleder Aurtenetxe Pildain (Spain) and Kas Neteler (USA) to the Documenting Dialogue group ! Enjoy reading back through the existing emails here and we look forward to learning with you...

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