Hi Nick,
Open Space Technology is a facilitation methodology even older than you
and me. (Just kidding--no method is that old.) I've been using it for
years and participated just last week in a whole conference in Istanbul
using the technique. At the Madrona Institute we massage it and combine
it with additional processes to see what it takes to break folks loose
from old paradigms. One of those old paradigms is the insistence on
moving toward consensus as a best outcome. In true complexity fashion,
we abandon the need for agreement. Since Steve is a part of our recent
Madrona group, he is experiencing a version of OST.
Merle
Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Everybody, (anybody?),
I stumbled on this, yesterday. Note that it cites Kaufmann for it's
inspiration.
http://www.openspaceworld.com/brief_history.htm
It's a system, called for some reason "Open Space Technologies", for
organizing meetings and moving toward consensus.
My Calvinist curmudgeon nature tends to automatically deplore this
sort of thing, (Any time I see chairs arranged in a circle, my first
impulse is to run screaming from the room.) But I have to admit, it
interested me. The trick is that if there is more than one circle, the
group can reorganize spontaneously. I guess people are dragging their
chairs around the room.
The hedonist in me particularly liked:
/The Law is the so called Law of Two Feet, which states simply, if at
any time you find yourself in any situation where you are neither
learning nor contributing – use your two feet and move to some place
more to your liking. Such a place might be another group, or even
outside into the sunshine. No matter what, don't sit there feeling
miserable. The law, as stated, may sound like rank hedonism, but even
hedonism has its place, reminding us that unhappy people are unlikely
to be productive people./
//
Ah, the years I spent in Department Meetings when I could have been
"/outside in the sunshine!"/!
I bet Steve Guerin will like:
/The lesson from Open Space is a simple one. The only way to bring an
Open Space gathering to its knees is to attempt to control it. It may,
therefore, turn out that the one thing we always wanted (control) is
not only unavailable, but unnecessary. After all, if order is for free
we could afford being out of control and love it. Emergent order
appears in Open Space when the conditions for self organization are
met. Perhaps we can now relax, and stop working so hard./
Anybody out there have any experience with it?
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
<http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
