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Meetings, Conferences, Workshops

1996 Sense-Making Workshop

WORKSHOP FOCUS
Sense-Making as an approach to the study of communication and information processes has been applied in different countries and settings to a wide variety of research genres --- e.g. audience reception studies, information seeking and use, public communication campaigns, media education and literacy, health and risk communication, development communication, cross-cultural communication, participatory communication, feminist studies, interpersonal communication, mass communication. It has been described as a "methodology between the cracks" because it attempts to transcend such traditional polarities as quantitative versus qualitative, critical versus administrative, and theory versus practice, by moving from focusing on nouns as primary entry points for theorizing to focusing on verbs.

This workshop brings together persons actively using Sense-Making as theory, methodology, method, and/or practice for reports of work completed and work in progress. Purpose is to provide a working session in which those interested in the approach and/or the problematics to which it attends can tease out and bring diverse comment to bear on common interests and struggles.

Moderator: Brenda Dervin, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

Fee: $25 , lunch + two coffee/tea breaks included. All attendees -- presenters, respondents, and audience -- are required to register and pay fee. Enrollment is limited.

Participation is on a first come, first serve basis. Enrollees must agree to attend the entire workshop and to abide by the communication procedures established for the workshop.

Briefly these mandate that time for talk be shared as equally as possible and that comments on the work of others be both appreciative and constructive. Participants and enrollees will also be called on as respondents.

WORKSHOP PROCEDURES
Workshop procedures will be different/new for many attendees. Drawn from Sense-Making and other sources of work focusing on dialogue, the procedures aim to:

*open up issues and directions rather than close them down;

*give presenters as many ideas as possible for furthering their work

*share time among presenters and respondents as equally as possible

*provide room for every participant (presenters, respondents, and attendees) to be mid-journey in their projects -- i.e. not done, not perfect

* focus participant attention on appreciative and constructive responses to others

Those of us trained in the usual modes of academia may feel some discomfort at these procedurings. They go against the usual norms -- the idea that every time we open our mouths we should say all we have to say and that what we say must be thoroughly "cooked" (i.e. logical, coherent, a narrative without gaps); the idea that our job in responding to others is to go on a search and destroy mission or s to show them how we could do the job better. Since this includes all of us we will share discomforts. These "alternative" procedures for academic discourse can take many forms.

The form to be used here has been worked out with consultations from 5 members of the group with some past experience using these kinds of procedures. For fairness' sake we will stick with them for this workshop and revise for the next time around. Forms of organizing that were rejected included: breaking down into small groups. and panels of presenters followed by respondents. Both of these would allow more time per presenter and respondent but would detract from the aim of opening up doors for dialogue/ connections/ exploring. Hence this design, this time around:

1. Each participant is to write a 3 page maximum precis (single spaced) which follows this outline.

a. Presentation #:
b. Presenter name(s) and contact information:
c. Presentation title:
d. One paragraph project "essence" description:
e. The reason(s) I (we) took this road is(are):
f. The best of what I (we) have achieved is:
g. What has been particularly helpful to me (us) in this project has been:
h. What has hindered me (us), what I (we) have struggled with has been:
i. What would help me (us) now is:
j. Project abstract (as one would do for a journal where you might eventually publish):

Presenters may, if they wish, prepare a full length paper for distribution. But that would be in addition to the precis above

2. Presenters are asked to e-mail these precis no later than May 10.

Presenters take note that it is to your advantage to get an e-mailed precis out prior to the conference so others can have skimmed your precis and can be thinking about it. [Please note: earlier I issued a call for one paragraph descriptions and got a very meager response. I thank those who did respond -- Myke Gluck, John Higgins, Albert Linderman, Howard Rosenbaum -- and send you all a big : ). For the rest of you, this call incorporates and replaces that assignment.]

3. Presenters to bring to the conference 40 copies of their precis (collated and stapled) + 40 copies of a full length paper if they wish to distribute one. The paper is NOT required. The PRECIS is. Presenters are to deliver their precis (and paper) copies to the meeting room (see schedule below) at 8:30 am so we can collate and distribute and be ready to start promptly at 9:00 am. Presenters again, please note, it is to your advantage to be on time with precis in hand. If you do not have a precis, responses will be less useful. If you must distribute a precis during your time slot, the distribution time will be subtracted from your presentation time.

4. During the workshop itself, there will be reading times when all participants will have a chance to read precis for upcoming presentations.

5. Each workshop participant to be given a set of 14 blank feedback forms with the categories for responses listed below on each form. Participants will write in comments under categories as they are moved to during the day. At the end of the day, the booklets will be collected and Dervin will have them typed so that the collected set can be distributed by e-mail in some fashion: In this way, every presenter and attendee is an official respondent, including the designated respondents. The categories for responses are:

a. Presentation #:

b. Presenter name(s):

c. What I appreciated here was:

d. What I learned here was:

e. What I struggled with here was:

f. What I disagreed with here was:

g. What would have helped me was:

h. What I think the presenter(s) ought to consider is:

i. What people other than the presenter(s) said that I appreciated was:

j. What people other than the presenter(s) said that I disagreed with was:

h. The way in which this connects to my project is:

6. Each presenter's work to be given a 30 minute slot to be divided as follows:

10 minutes = presenter to talk

20 minutes = 5 respondents @ 3.5 minutes maximum each

Respondents for these "oral" responses to be selected as follows:

2 from the group of official respondents

2 from the group of presenters

1 from the group of other attendees

with Dervin determining on each round who would like to talk and then rotating across volunteers as we move from presenter to presenter. In their talks, presenters can use time in any way they choose that they judge will be helpful to them. In their responses, respondents will need to pick and choose from among their comments that sub-set they feel most important to share orally.

7. Much will be left unsaid in the public arena, of course, because of lack of time. But, there are multiple avenues for continuing the dialogue: at lunch; throughout the conference; e-mail to an interested list; e-mail one to one, and whatever other means you can dream up. And, of course, the workshop feedback packet will provide a continuation as well. The time schedule is tight and we will stick to it. For whatever discomfort that introduces, our presenters will be getting 15 minutes more time than most of those at all other ICA sessions.