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Off The Beaten Path - Open Space Technology 

Hall Houston

Hall Houston is an English Instructor at City University of Hong Kong, English Language Centre. His first book, The Creative Classroom, was published in 2007 by Lynx Publishing (www.lynxpublishing.com). His professional interests include cross-cultural communication, discourse analysis, creativity and critical thinking. E-mail: hallhouston@yahoo.com

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What is OST
Principles
Final guidelines
Contact
References

 What is OST

Open Space Technology (OST) is an alternative way of holding meetings. Harrison Owen created OST over 10 years ago. It was based on the observation that some of the richest conversations at a conference occur during coffee breaks. OST meetings have been conducted in many types of organizations in many countries. 

Principles

There are four principles to OST:
1. Whoever shows up are the right people.
2. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened.
3. Whenever it starts, that's the right time.
4. When it's over, it's over.
 
In addition, there is one law, the Law of Two Feet:
 
If you are in a situation where you are neither learning nor contributing, you move to another place.
 
Final guidelines
 
Be prepared to be surprised.
 
Here's one way a meeting can be held: Participants sit around in a circle. They think of an agenda for the meeting on the spot (NOT in advance). They can write topics on a blackboard, then choose certain topics to discuss in groups. The meeting progresses from there, with people joining conversations, and leaving them to join other conversations. As its name implies, the meeting is really quite open.
 
You might have noticed some similarities to World Cafe, which I described in a previous issue of Humanising Language Teaching. However, one major difference is that Open Space Technology does not establish an agenda ahead of time. Also, OST has much less structure.
 
Consider using OST at your school. It can open up discussion on how your classes are going.

Contact
 
To learn more about Open Space Technology, take a look at these two websites:
http://www.openingspace.net/
http://www.openspaceworld.org/

References

Owen, Harrison. 1997. Open Space Technology: A User's Guide. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Owen, Harrison. 1997. Expanding Our Now: The Story of Open Space. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

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