-Rick Karash, learning-org host
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The following Request For Discussion has been posted in news.announce. If this
newsgroup is of interest send your comments to the usenet newsgroup news.groups.
________________________________________________________________________________
REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
Newsgroup name: misc.business.facilitators
Status: unmoderated
Distribution: world
Summary: A worldwide networking forum for professional workshop, seminar,
and meeting facilitators, moderators, designers, leaders, and
trainers.
Submitted by: Mary Margaret Palmer (palmer_mary_m@lanl.gov)
This is a formal Request for Discussion (RFD) for the creation of the
unmoderated newsgroup misc.business.facilitators. Discussion will be held
starting December 1 and go through to December 30. If there is enough interest
in the newsgroup, a Call for Votes (CFV) will be posted in January. The voting
will be conducted by a neutral third party.
Please send all follow up comments and messages to news.groups.
CHARTER
misc.business.facilitators is intended to be an unmoderated discussion group for
anyone who is professionally involved in providing facilitation or facilitation-
type services in a business, community, or governmental environment including
professional development "canned" seminars.
This newsgroup will be open to (but not limited to) those who
- conduct professional training workshops or seminars (e.g., CareerTracks type
seminars, management retreats, Seven Habits)
- design and conduct Search Conferences or Future Conferences
- design and conduct Participatory Design Workshops
- provide OD consulting and facilitation services
- design and conduct systems design workshops using a methodology like JAD,
FAST, or The METHOD.
- facilitate electronic meetings using groupware or meetingware (e.g.,
GroupSystems V, TeamFocus, CI-Toolkit)
- facilitate decision conferences
- conduct team building workshops or assist self-directed teams
- provide quality improvement assessment and facilitation services (e.g., TQM,
Malcolm Baldrige, Quest 2000, ISO-9000)
- provide conflict resolution, intervention, moderation, or arbitration services
- assist organizations in strategic planning, process engineering and
reengineering
- facilitate meetings for their organization
This is a fairly broad list, but since it is not an area currently addressed on
the net, the initial scope of the group will remain fairly open. Omission of a
category of facilitation services from this list is not intentional.
RATIONALE
Currently there is no newsgroup specifically for those involved in or interested
in the field of facilitation. There are mailing lists that address specific
related fields but nothing encompassing facilitation and facilitation-type
services in general. This newsgroup will fill this gap by becoming a place
where facilitators, OD consultants, business trainers, session leaders,
electronic meeting facilitators, TQM and team building specialists, etc. can
share ideas and lessons learned, provide advice and assistance, and post
educational, training, and consulting resources and opportunities.
CROSS-POSTINGS
This RFD will be cross-posted to the following newsgroups: comp.groupware,
alt.org.toastmasters, alt.computer.consultants, alt.self-improve,
comp.infosystems, misc.education.adult, and biz.misc.
Notices of this RFD will be sent to the following mailing lists:
bpr-1 (business process redesign), kaw (knowledge acquisition workshops), gss-l
(group support systems), trdev-l (training and development), 4Hchall
(facilitator/challenge [ropes] training), learning-org (learning organizations),
crea-cps (creative problem solving), brkthr-l (breakthrough thinking), and
cscw-human-issues (Computer Supported Cooperative Work).