My first experience at an unconference must have been about ten years ago. The organizers enthusiastically invited first-time attendees to organize a session - that it was a tradition. While the idea of standing in front of a roomful of strangers made my stomach turn, I thought I should - that I had to. It was a tradition!

I was so pumped that people came to our session, that I had things to say that people wanted to listen to and that we had a lively exchange. I treasure this memory because it forever changed my perspective of what an event could feel like. And that a group could self-facilitate a learning experience, solely based on the knowledge, experience and attention of who was in that room, was priceless. I went home and promptly organized an event at work to learn how to host the whole shindig myself.

At that time of my life, I had dove headfirst in the world of Creative Commons, open-source software and citizen journalism. The unconference format seemed perfectly at home in these movements. Years later, I was surprised to encounter OST in the fields of agile development and organizational culture change. And a few years after that, OST popped up in the list of Liberating Structures that I was thumbing through, and I thought - of course. This is a Structure that Liberates.

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This entry is part of an ongoing series of Field notes from my Liberating Structures practice.

LS under development
- Aug 16, 2020 Tiny monsters
- Aug 13, 2020 Narrative reauthoring
- Aug 12, 2020 Spiral journal
- Aug 9, 2020 Mad Tea Party
Microstructures
- Feb 24, 2021 Helping Heuristics
- Oct 4, 2020 Nine Whys
- Oct 4, 2020 Appreciative interviews
- Sep 24, 2020 Ecocycle planning
- Sep 20, 2020 Celebrity interview
- Aug 22, 2020 25/10 Crowdsourcing
- Aug 22, 2020 Open space technology
- Aug 22, 2020 Wise crowds
- Aug 14, 2020 Wicked questions
- Aug 13, 2020 Heard, seen, respected
- Aug 13, 2020 15% Solution
- Aug 13, 2020 Triz
- Aug 13, 2020 Min specs
- Aug 12, 2020 User experience fishbowl
- Aug 11, 2020 Conversation cafe
- Aug 11, 2020 Troika Consulting
- Aug 11, 2020 Impromptu networking
- Aug 10, 2020 1-2-4-All