Yeah! What about a conference on hospitality exchange, could we bring that about? A conference to share our experiences as volunteers, facilitators, organizers, hosts and guests? Let’s say a conference where we can create new concepts of sustainable hospitality exchange (SHE) and to discuss how hospitality networks currently interact with their users and members, how this could be improved and link this with sustainable forms of traveling, art, volunteer empowerment, cultural exchange, trust metrics, gift-economy and pre-modern roots of hospitality exchange? Wow, wouldn’t that be just awesome?!
So you’re interested? Great! Initiative has taken place to start facilitating this process and to pull the first things together. A small group of active participants within the networks are securing a location in Amsterdam on behalf of SHE as we write and they invite you to help organising this event, scheduled for a weekend in June. Your input is essential and you are invited to constructively help facilitating it.
SHE wants to be a tool of knowledge about sustainable hospitality exchange mechanisms and networks. SHE also claims that “though this is not a party-event, we do aim to walk all naked in the park, to exchange local practices and to increase trust.” All sorts of help is needed to bring the conference about as a dynamic flow of excellence and experience. Be warned though as SHE “will be potentially the most pretentious social networking event of 2008!”
You know what? SHE already exists in wiki-space. Check her out and be creative!
love it…I wish I could come over there but I can’t:(
Lovely, thought about such a conference for so long. Now it happens. Unfortunatelly without my physical participation but I hope there will be a better communication then it exists on the CS Collectives
Sounds great! Just a small thought… for Europeans this is probably the right time frame to announce things.. but for anyone on another continent, 2-3 months is not really enough if you want our participation. Sadly, while i could make it in the fall (hoping to stop through AMS as usual!), i maybe could have made it in june with more advance notice. As it is.. hope it’s fun!
Awesome. Incidentally, june 29-30th is the only open weekend left for me in that period. As an extra cosmic twist, the week after that I have to be in Amsterdam anyway, so perhaps I’ll hang around? So, my vote strongly goes towards that weekend!
12th of may preparation in Antwerp is of course my cup of tea (although, isn’t the 11th more logical?). I could also help with some funding (if necessary).
Why not go OpenSpace all the way?
Great! I’m fine with the 29-30th.
Yeah, we’ll go OpenSpace – but I’ve only done one real OpenSpace event, and that was at your place, Thomas
Nice.
I am very happy about the No Agendas and OpenSpace approach.
The Four Open Space Principles
1. Whoever comes is the right people.
2. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened.
3. When it starts is the right time.
4. When it’s over it’s over and when it’s not over it’s not over.
Have you thought about inviting a OpenSpace facilitator? I think somebody (neutral) with a lot of experience in OpenSpace could maximize the benefits and could give the organiszers also a bit the chance in participating in such a great event…
this is exactly the way the groups of children in my neighborhood play…they have a wonderful time; so much fun.
adia, where can we find such a neutral OpenSpace facilitator? It would be great to have one!
Openspace is an excellent concept but should not be a dogma
I think a combination of prep-meetings, proposals that can be done in the wiki and space during the conference connects the most of ‘both’ worlds. No ‘structure’ in advance would scare some people, while at the same time too much structure would scare other people. Mixing it would be grant.
@Robino
OpenSpace isn’t really about having “no structure”. You could, for instance, prepare/announce some of the topics (and speakers) in advance. It’s how you deal with it once it really starts what makes a difference.
Incidentally, I feel confident I could facilitate an OpenSpace meeting by doing an introduction is desired. I’m not sure what you mean by “neutral”, but a good introduction to OpenSpace is topic-agnostic anyway. I’m not sure if it’s practical to try to look for someone who knows OpenSpace and HospEx and who doesn’t have an opinion about it (=classic “neutral” description).
OpenSpace can make people really enthusiast and can be the right nutrition for things to emerge. One of the biggest risks of OpenSpace is when it is not facilitated probably, than it will result in frustration… Kasper, I will send you some links and addresses, I am sure, there are some people up for this…