Ilja -- Understanding that the whole world is self organizing (in Open Space, as it were) -- including all human activities/organizations/institutions is useful to me because it keeps my efforts in perspective. In opening space I don't bring something new to the table. My effort and intent is simply to help what is already there work better. As I think I said, all organizations/meetings are already in Open Space. They just don't do it very well, and in fact as Michael points out, they often do everything in their power to shut everything down. Odd! However, even in the most repressed environment/conference -- there is still Open Space. You know that because the people are all looking forward to the Coffee Breaks, and once they get there (coffee break) it is very hard to get them back in the meeting room. Could be the folks are telling us something?
Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Dr. Potomac, MD 20854 USA Phone 301-365-2093 www.openspaceworld.com www.ho-image.com (Personal Website) To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ilja Preuß Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 3:26 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: On "Failure" / Coaching Hi Harrison, > Doing an Open space is one thing, but > building upon that experience in an ongoing way to the profit and betterment > of the organization/group is the next level up, as far as I am concerned. I > am not talking about, becoming an Open Space organization if only because > I sincerely believe that all organizations are already there. I share the notion that the whole world basically is self-organizing. But taking that to the final logical conclusion, we also need to say that every single conference, every single meeting is an "Open Space". And while there is something to it, I don't find this to be a very helpful notion. While it's true that the whole world is self-organizing, it also seems very obvious to me that very different things happen once we deliberately open the space for this self-organization to happen, instead of deciding to impose a limiting structure. So much different, in fact, that I dread conferences that don't make that space. So I find value in only labeling those conferences and meetings as "Open Space" where there is deliberate action taken to open the space, and I'm assuming that something similar holds true for "Open Space organizations". Cheers, Ilja * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected]: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
