a hello

Wendy,
I think it is wonderful that you started this blog. And that you have the courage to let us co-create this space from the get-go.

It was encouraging to see how much energy even yesterday's short OST meeting on homelessness generated.

All OST meetings are alike yet different. This was the first OST meeting where I didn't actually witness people visiting the marketplace to decide which sessions they wanted to participate in. The sessions sort of happened. It made me a little nervous, which meant it was time to go for a walk.

Also, this was the first time I saw people carry tables to the session areas so that they wouldn't have to go anywhere for their tea, coffee, etc.

And even in this short meeting we had written reports!

And I am glad Larry Peterson responded to my post on this.

Other thoughts post-meeting:
I wish I had made it clearer that we are the ones to develop new ways of tackling homelessness. It's nice to expect that someone will develop those methods for us, but it is really our responsibility.

Two recent questions re-emerged from a conversation post-meeting:

1. Marketing OST- there is no better or more effective way of marketing OST than offering public OST meetings. That is what I have found to be true. And I have found that OST is hard to "sell" via a website.

If I could go back to Heavenfax, I'd pose the question of where in our community/organization are the resources/wisdom around "marketing" OST.

2. OST and other large group intervention toys- are there articles out there that attempt to come to some general principles from the application of blended approaches in using OST and other similar toys (AI, World Cafe, etc.)?


Warmly,
raffi

p.s.
Wendy, btw I just posted the announcement of your and Chris's workshop to the Intertraining listserv. Now, it is unlikely we will have anyone coming to BC from here. But one member, Dina Muxamedova, currently lives in Toronto (and is job-seeking, by the way). In that message, I asked what connection do Wendy and Chris have to us? Well, Chris introduced the talking stick. And you introduced the zen fart parable indirectly to a storytelling session this year at Intertraining's annual conference. That parable in a small way made its way to our strategic planning discussions when one IT member prefaced her comments by saying, "Now, you may want to say "fart fart but..." "Fart fart" in Russian is "pook, pook."

I wish you luck in your upcoming workshop. I will be with you in spirit and am intrigued by your design.

p.p.s. If you write something addressed to OST facilitators (or future OST facilitators) in Russia and other former Soviet states, I can post the workshop information to more places.

p.p.p.s. Wendy, the OSworld wiki pages have a location for listing OS blogs. Might you want to have this listed there, too?

p.p.p.p.s. It may have taken some friendly and intense interest in OS Sangha for you to get this started earlier than planned. But you getting her started was enough for me to cybersquat this.