Imagine! “[W]all-to-wall FOOs, alpha geeks, and techies from the greater Boston area.” (I think foo in this setting means high-level discussion, action or both, but would welcome an explanation from someone with experience.)
I can imagine Victoria Weinstein (PeaceBang) — if I may pick on her for a moment — doing on-the-spot clergy make-overs! Or sharing some insight on how to deal with a television producer. Or playing the BANJO.
Here I am feeling so innovative — it must be the Day Job — by talking up Open Space Techology, Unconferences and BarCamps, and then Dan Harper very gently reminds me (us) that he’s been down that road before about a year and a half ago:
Organizing it and running it seem pretty straightforward to me — just an organizational overlay over standard event logistics.
While my post generated absolutely no interest among the religious liberals who read my blog, I still think it would be a good event. Indeed, a decade ago I helped plan one or two UU young adult conferences (this was back when I was a young adult) which had some resemblance to this idea. It’s one of those things where if people actually tried it, they would realize that it’s so much better than the standard, dreary General Assemblies and district conferences.
I even commented at the time but it slipped my mind. He’s right, you know, and very persuasive at his site. (Read this earlier post, too.) So, what about it gang? Please comment.
I’ve been writing about BarCamp, Unconferences and Open Space Technology — but how do you do it?
[Later. I realized I haven’t written about BarCamp or Unconferences, but intended to introduce them before publishing this. “A BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment”– using the Unconference model, which itself is a looser kind of self-organizing meeting like Open Space. So far its mostly a techie thing, but there’s a skeptics BarCamp in Denver in August so the door has been opened to broader subjects. Got it? I’m thinking these might be good inspiration for the <snark> new “unaffilliates” </snark> and district and cluster meetings.]
I’d first recommend you read and bookmark/del.icio.us/Digg the following:
I was bad and was asked to leave the General Assembly plenary hall one year.
Oh, I wasn’t alone. This was Before Blog, but there were two or three other current bloggers with me. We were cutting up and talking too loud. (We could pipe down or leave; we left.) I, for one, had felt obliged to sit in for some of the mock-cheerful official droning, seeing as I was a ministerial delegate and all. But there’s something about a Big Talking Head shuffling papers on a Big Video Screen that brings out something very wicked in me. In each of us, it turned out.
“If I had a hammer . . . .” And a killer pair of red track shorts.
Note: the maker of this blog does not approve of proprietary software, even when he’s making a pop culture point.
But I think the Open Space Technology process — a terrible name, suggesting more video screens, hereafter just Open Space — could be very helpful if
GA participants trust that it might do any good: a hurdle since, apart from a bit of fun, it’s hard to see how GA does any lasting good, and
GA participants trust one another a bit: a bigger hurdle since the fear that “somebody’s trying to take us over” is built into our operating system. Unitarian Universalists, as a community, are too small and culturally isolated to get caught there. The Sacred Cod fishery was depleted long, long ago.
While a couple of decades old, Open Space depends on the same principles of self-organization that makes Internet social networking possible and lively. in short: go where you need to be. A rule of the closely related — if less formal — Unconference movement is that if you’re not teaching or learning, go somewhere else. Also: there are no observers, only participants. If the group you’re in isn’t the right one: move. These principles trust there is “more wisdom in the crowd” than on the platform.
I will confess some worry about who’s allowed a voice and who isn’t. UUs have a history of experimenting with unscientific and unrepresentative polling and sampling and then using the data as if it was scientifically or representatively gathered. Since all GA participants can participate in a process that speaks to the Board of Trustees, then anyone who can afford to go to GA gets a voice, delegate or not. Not there? No voice.
That’s a problem which can be mitigated if
this experiment goes on for several years, at least
similar unconferences meet all over the country (and not just at district meetings.)
there were clearer lines for individual feedback to the Board, either directly to members or through an ombudsman office.
Bloggers can each help by examining the process and — should it be found convincing — promoting it in their space. We can also hold the UUA Board of Trustees accountable if the results are misused or unfairly discounted.
Because believe me, I’ll find the right place to speak and listen.
Jamie Goodwin (Trivium) looks forward to the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship Revival conference, held this November in Cleveland. That’s much closer for him than General Assembly, and closer for many of us. Now, how to get there?
I suppose I could fly: I did for General Assembly a few years ago, but short-haul flying is something many of us are trying to avoid because of the higher proportional energy costs and environmental damage than surface travel.
The Megabus bus line might be a desirable option for some who live in Midwest. Amtrak — which I prefer! — serves Cleveland by the Capitol Limited (Chicago to Washington D.C.) and the Lake Shore Limited(Chicago to Boston or New York, via Rochester). Sometimes that run is deeply discounted. But it is 11 hours or so each way, a bit more than I would normally be happy about.
Connecting service for much of the U.S. comes out of one of those cities, but that’s an even harder sell.
Every day, central authorities loose a little more power. Whether their power was delegated or co-opted, we needed them to make decisions because there was no way to organize mass, non-local movements on a peer basis. Every day, technological improvements and personal attitudes lower the barrier to peer-to-peer information sharing, product production, collective action and learning.
