This post is from our good friend Joel Wilcox at EcoFactory.

We here at EcoFactory managed to catch Steve Cochran at Green Cities™ Florida and talk to him a bit about Open Space. It’s quite an impressive concept, to think that you can solve problems that might take weeks of meetings by doing an Open Space session for a few hours. I didn’t have the chance to ask everyone what they accomplished in sessions on May 21, but judging by past successes, I’d say some good things were accomplished.

Cochran told me that he’s done Open Space sessions with groups of all sizes, most recently with attendees at the Green Cities™ Alabama Summit. Seems like it always produces some good ideas. I can believe that, considering that some of my best classes in college were based on the sort of discussions that Open Space tries to foster.

Here’s how Open Space works: You gather a bunch of people together and encourage them to bring up topics on a particular theme. Those topics are written on pieces of paper, and anyone interested in that topic follows the piece of paper to the sidelines, where a discussion will start on the topic. Essentially the idea is that the people, not the leadership, set the agenda. If you get a bunch of people together in one room and encourage them to think freely to bring up solutions, odds are you’re going to come up with something original and creative.

The only requirements Open Space puts on participants govern how the discussion works, rather than what is discussed. Principles like “if you’re not contributing or learning, move on” and “when the discussion is over, it’s over” indicate that the direction is not to force accomplishment, but instead to foster it.

I hope that the Green Cities™ Florida Open Space session managed to accomplish some great things. Certainly there were some big movers involved in the discussions, with people coming from businesses, non-profits, and government offices. The biggest thing I brought away from the whole event was that there are people out there with big dreams for a greener planet. Let’s hope those dreams come true!