The Future of Reprographics: Where is it going and how can we change with it?

Friday, May 21
11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
1:30 – 3:30 p.m.

At this year’s convention and for the first time, IRgA will host the innovative meeting concept known as “Open Space Technology” (OST). All attendees are encouraged to attend and participate in this simple and fun, yet productive session that will focus on the topic: The Future of Reprographics: Where is it going and how can we change with it?

This session is your opportunity to gather and discuss, from your unique viewpoint, how you view the industry as it emerges from its current paradigm shift of being a print provider to a technology service provider.

What is Open Space Technology?
OST is a simple way to run productive meetings – for five to 2000+ people – and a powerful process for leading any organization, in both everyday practice and under extraordinary circumstances.

OST provides a platform for inspired learning, powerful connections and effective communication in order to develop solutions and strategies, and boost team productivity. While OST is considered a modern approach, it also is “tried and true” and has been employed by groups all over the world as a successful way to resolve issues.

OST employs advanced adult learning techniques through a format that includes:

• No speakers;
• No prior groupings;
• No agendas – participants define the agenda, and may adjust it as the meeting proceeds;
• Free flow of ideas in a relaxed, non-intimidating environment;
• Content determined by participants; and
• Ability to move freely between conversations and groupings to maximize learning.

How It Works
The OST gathering begins with everybody seated in a circle. After a brief welcome, our facilitator explains the process by which the group will self-organize to decide on the day’s detailed agenda, to carry out the agenda and to prepare the material for the post-meeting report.

The facilitator invites all participants to identify any issue or opportunity related to the theme. Participants willing to raise a topic will come to the center of the circle, write it on a sheet of paper and announce it to the group before choosing a time and a place for discussion and posting it on a wall. That wall becomes the agenda for the meeting.

People who wish to address a specific topic within the day’s theme prepare a simple poster, announce the topic to the group, and select a meeting place and time slot on the agenda wall.

When all sessions have been proposed and posted on the agenda wall, individuals sign up for the working sessions in which they have the greatest interest. This is a wonderfully dynamic process as people negotiate for sessions to be combined or split, and as meeting spaces are traded to accommodate the needs of bigger or smaller groups. This process creates the agenda for the day.

Each session includes a number of people who have chosen to spend time on a particular topic. However, people are not bound to remain with one particular topic group for a whole time slot. If someone feels unable to learn or to contribute, he or she is encouraged to move on, join another group or take time out to reflect. At the end of the day, notes are compiled into a proceedings document that is distributed physically or electronically to all participants.