In the words of Twisted View, one of our first Ropenspace Factilitators:
“…I love the energy of an open space event. Everyone is usually much more engaged in the classes. They are all really excited about the classes because they are the ones that created the schedule that morning. The board is filled with their passion and you can just feel it.
Open spaces are completely unpredictable. I’ve been to lots of cons and organized lots of educational events where the presenters and classes were all known well ahead of time…I get a lot more excited about the unpredictability of open space events.
Over the years I have seen a lot of things that normally wouldn’t be taught in a class…Sometimes it is world class presenters who want to try out a new class that they are passionate about but haven’t flushed out into a structured class yet. Sometimes it is a topic that doesn’t fit nicely into the standard time slot. Imagine someone has come up with a new single column tie that they really want to share. Would any con pick that for a 1.5 hour time slot? No. I wouldn’t want to sit through more than 30 minutes of going over that tie and discussing differences. Now imagine someone is really passionate about talking about building better rope communities. Would that fit into a class slot? Not really. That is the kind of topic that could go on for hours. I saw it happen at one of the first RopenSpaces.
I love not quite knowing what I am going to learn and at the same time knowing that I can learn or share exactly what I love the most. There have been times that I have really wanted to learn about a specific thing that isn’t normally taught. All I had to do was write it down on a piece of paper, stick it up on the wall and I almost always had at least a few people who love doing it teach me how to do it. At some events I really want to share something that I really love and open spaces give me that opportunity.