Re: [OSList] org'n works too good to use OST…?

My experience has been specifically with pumping up passions. . . groups will naturally morph to present themes.

A random improve technique is what I've seen most effective, even with the stale old boring folks.  It can start as simple as a Name-Game.  Everyone stands in a circle and states their first name spinning round the circle back to you.  "Let's do it again with one word names!"  With kids I would challenge them to see how fast they can do it, without interrupting each other.  This evolves from one-word, to single syllable nick-names.  Each time it came back to me I would do the circle again with another word, a passion, skill or immediate feeling.  Here's where you can really get everyone focused again.  

If you really make it dynamic encouraging people to express, if gets kinda cool, especially with like a dozen people.  Like give me a passion that rhymes with your name, "Eric the Engineer," Donna the Dean, no rules of course, just spontaneous expressions. . .

The idea is to create Flow, strong and present.  Then you can direct it better.  So if your Hospital group is having trouble settling on new workgroups/plans . . .Give them something they can all chime in about . . . "this time give me one word, on Hospital Food" . . .  now ask others to suggest a theme for one-word responses. . .

If you have a really large group you can still do it easily.  "Everyone who had lunch from the vending machine last month stand up" . . . now create your circle again really quick by asking they state their names as you point . . . now do the same process as you point around the room. . . Too many people, not creating flow.  "now let's have mom's born in December stand up. . . "

What's kinda interesting for me doing these kinda things, is often people think it's child-games and it is.  So of course everyone gets into it playing like the child we all are. . . course it's also great to team-build, create community, inspire innovation . . . etc ;-)

here's another must see challenge on the same vibe:

http://socialmarketing.blogs.com/r_craiig_lefebvres_social/2014/08/the-future-of-social-marketing-craigs-happiness-talk.html

Have a wonderful Day
Eric

Eric R.R. Weaver, MBA, MSM, Research Associate
Patel College of Global Sustainability
University of South Florida

http://eweaver.myweb.usf.edu/

 

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From: Thomas Herrmann <thomas@openspaceconsulting.com>
To: OSLIST <oslist@lists.openspacetech.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2014 8:27 AM
Subject: [OSList] org'n works too good to use OST…?

Had a "funny" experience yesterday when I facilitated an OST with an organization that I mentioned about earlier, they have dived into OST and use the approach more and more in everyday life. Every August they have 1-2 days with all employees. Last year we had 2 full days (twice with half the staff each time) in OST resulting in a total of 23 action plans implemented by self managed workgroups. We have had follow up meetings reporting the progress from teams that now have dissolved or are still working. Their business (a hospital) now runs really smoothly, producing well over targets with energy and high spirit.

Out of different reasons the message for the first of this years conferences (one full day, next Friday is the next - for the other half of the staff) was a bit blurry (in my opinion/how I experience it) so the energy was not so high (setting agenda was really slooooow, didn't experience anything like that in the hundreds of events I have facilitated!) and some thought the day was a bit boring/slow. At the end most who were still there were happy(some left early - long day on Friday is not a good choice either)  - 9 action plans with concrete improvements! I used re-opening space, so it was all by invitation (-:

Anyhow, a challenge may be to find a really hot theme when business runs so good… I am now in communication with the leadership about how we can get the steam going better next Friday.
Any experiences to share, ideas and/or suggestions?
Warm regards
Thomas Herrmann
_______________________________________________

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Her Family Stopped Eating Sugar for A Year

Her Family Stopped Eating Sugar for A Year, and This is What Happened | The Mind Unleashed: A Bright Idea

I took all of this newfound knowledge and formulated an idea. I wanted to see how hard it would be to have our family — me, my husband, and our two children (ages 6 and 11) — spend an entire year eating foods that contained no added sugar. We’d cut out anything with an added sweetener, be it table sugar, honey, molasses, maple syrup, agave or fruit juice. We also excluded anything made with fake sugar or sugar alcohols. Unless the sweetness was attached to its original source (e.g., a piece of fruit), we didn’t eat it.



Now that our year of no sugar is over, we’ll occasionally indulge, but
the way we eat it is very different. We appreciate sugar in drastically
smaller amounts, avoid it in everyday foods (that it shouldn’t be in in
the first place), and save dessert for truly special occasions. My body
seems to be thanking me for it. I don’t worry about running out of
energy. And when flu season comes around I somehow no longer feel the
urge to go and hide with my children under the bed. But if we do come
down with something, our bodies are better equipped to fight it. We get
sick less and get well faster. Much to my surprise, after our no-sugar
life, we all feel healthier and stronger. And that is nothing to sneeze
at.

How to tell if your olive oil is the real

How to tell if your olive oil is the real thing | Life and style | The Guardian:
Last month, the Olive Oil Times reported that two Spanish businessmen had been sentenced to two years in prison in Cordoba for selling hundreds of thousands of litres of supposedly extra virgin olive oil that was, in fact, a mixture of 70-80% sunflower oil and 20-30% olive.



In 2008, Italian police arrested over 60 people and closed more than 90 farms and processing plants across the south after uncovering substandard, non-Italian olive oil being passed off as Italian extra virgin, and chlorophyll and beta-carotene being added to sunflower and soybean oil with the same aim.

Most alarmingly, a study last year by researchers at the University of California, Davis and the Australian Oils Research Laboratory concluded that as much as 69% of imported European olive oil (and a far smaller proportion of native Californian) sold as extra virgin in the delicatessens and grocery stores on the US west coast wasn't what it claimed to be.



In Britain, of course, it wasn't so very long ago that the most likely place to find olive oil was the chemist. Today, thanks partly to the health claims made on its behalf and partly to the fact it tastes good, the oil Homer called "liquid gold" is in half of all UK homes and we get through 30m litres of olive oil every year – more than double than we did decade ago. We're now, in fact, the world's 10th biggest olive oil-consuming nation. So with a litre of supermarket extra virgin costing up to £4, and connoisseurs willing to pay 10 times that sum for a far smaller bottle of seasonal, first cold stone pressed, single estate, artisan-milled oil from Italy or Greece, can we be sure of getting what we're paying for?

On the right path | Letters | Times Higher Education

On the right path | Letters | Times Higher Education

Given USF’s vision of becoming a global research university, our ambitious 2009 strategic enrolment goals, and our recognition that we had neither the luxury of time nor sufficiency of expertise and resources to achieve them, seeking a proven partner committed to a long-term “insourcing” model guided by student success made best sense to enable USF to deliver on its global talent recruitment strategy.

This strategy is built around attracting the best and brightest intellectual talent (students and scholars) from around the world; expanding the global diversity of our student body to enhance the quality and relevance of our education; extending the global reach and international brand recognition of a young research university; aligning with US multinational companies’ desire to educate and train their future global workforce in the US; encouraging more USF students to explore and connect with the world, and facilitating educational and research partnerships with a small number of top universities.

Due in large part to USF’s joint venture with INTO, our total international student population has grown 20 per cent annually over the past two years – almost three times the US average of 7 per cent as reported by the Institute of International Education. The university currently enrols 2,648 international students from 140 countries.

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Clearwater Opens a Park for Horses

6/23/2014 9:50:45 AM

Contact: Anna Gurney

CLEARWATER, Fla. – The City of Clearwater has opened a 27-acre equestrian park just south of Lake Chautauqua Park equipped with facilities to allow horse-owners and their horses a place to enjoy a ride through a nature preserve.

Lake Chautauqua Equestrian and Nature Preserve features parking spaces for horse trailers, a shaded pavilion with picnic benches, and even a self-watering trough. The land was acquired by the city in 2009 through a Florida Communities Trust grant in the city’s efforts to provide the community more natural park recreation opportunities. “Pinellas County is the most densely populated county in Florida. The City of Clearwater is committed to giving its citizens areas to enjoy natural ecosystems and biodiversity through land preservation. We have 110 parks in Clearwater, with 28 of them labeled nature preserves,” says Felicia Leonard of the City of Clearwater’s Parks & Recreation Department.
The project was funded through a $200,000 Recreational Trails Program grant by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Additional funding for the project came from Penny for Pinellas sale tax.

Lake Chautauqua Park is located at 2312 Landmark Drive, south of Enterprise Road in Clearwater. The park’s amenities include parking, trails and picnic areas. The park is open every day from dawn to dusk.