While I believe conferences can be useful, I often find myself disappointed in the actual impact beyond a limited amount of networking and sharing of information. Ideally, especially in the context of our energy predicament, conferences would create or lead to ongoing activities among participants and/or by participants in their locale. (The East Bay Post Carbon Solutions Group has been planning a conference and this came up as an issue.)

This post provides a high-level plan for a 1-1/2 day conference designed to both bring in new people and also leverage the knowledge and experience of those of us in the movement to start localization projects that excite and energize the participants. The conference uses Open Space conversation for the latter.

‘Open Space’ is an emerging conversation technology that enables diverse groups of people to create inspired meetings and events. According to its practitioners, opening space (as an intentional leadership practice) has demonstrated its utility in creating inspired organizations, where ordinary people work together to create extraordinary results with regularity.

Synchronizing with Post Carbon's work, I suggest that the conference could be called "Relocalize Now! A Participatory Conference to network and launch localization projects for Climate Change and the End of Cheap Oil". The event could also be called a participatory conference, town hall, community brainstorming session, community think tank, symposium, whatever you want as long as it is clear that the purpose is to start ongoing localization projects.

The purpose of the first evening is to set the tone and provide a high level intro to energy peak and relocalization for beginners, as well as provide the latest news and commentary.

On Friday evening, there would be two one-hour panels, the first with several speakers on our energy predicament and the following one with several speakers on relocalization. Between the two panels, there would be a 30 minute break for people to connect with and meet people with similar localization interests (e.g., food, water, shelter); this would be facilitated so that people loosely congregate in groups by interest.

The purpose of second day is not only to share information about localizing essentials (e.g., food, water, energy) and reconfiguring cities for less transport and energy, but to get some projects started that excite and energize participants.

The morning of the second of day would be panels of local experts that are doing localization work in 6 to 9 key areas (i.e., food, water, energy, money, health care) and/or raising awareness. There would be two to three tracks of 50 minute panels starting at 9 and going to Noon. One of the purposes of the panels would be to identify information that is needed to start localizing and localization opportunities; there would be a scribe and/or facilitator to ensure that key ideas get captured. At 1pm people, a four-hour Open Space conversation, preferably someone experienced in its use, would commence with the intention of connecting people to work on projects. For more info on Open Space see http://www.openspaceworld.org/tmnfiles/2pageos.htm and http://www.openspaceworld.org/wiki/wiki/wiki.cgi.

Specific to this application of Open Space, the facilitator would solicit conversation topics for each of the key localization areas (i.e., the four or five that will be the focus on the event) and raising awareness, one at a time. She would read the localization information needs and opportunities identified in the morning session before soliciting conversation topics for each area. She would make it clear that each conversation topic is intended for starting some sort of project or ongoing activity or conversation related to localization. The promotions for the conference would make this clear as well to both ensure the right people come and also enable people to prepare ahead of time for a topic they would like to bring to the event.

She would then organize the conversation topics offered by the participants into tracks for each key area and one for raising awareness, assign times and locations, and invite people to sign up for conversations. Conversations would last about 45 minutes. Signup sheets and other relevant materials would be available and groups that want to start a project would be encouraged to register with the event organizer for follow-up purposes.

Ideally, there would be a subsequent event (with the same format) already scheduled for presenting the progress and results, getting more people involved, and starting follow on projects.