Dear List-Members, as the founder of OpenSpace-Online® I was invited to hold a speech and to do a presentation in a E-Democracy-Conference in Berlin, Germany. Host of this conference were "government-near" organizations and it was sponsored by IBM and Deutsche Telekom (http://www-5.ibm.com/de/solutions/public/).
In my speech I spoke e.g. about the essentials about a trustful and respektful communication and what basics we need to move forward. No matter in what areas we are living or working, no matter in what culture or religions. What could be the basics to live and to work in a more healthy and in a more peaceful way? For me one of the best practise model are the wisdom of OST like Harrison said again a few days ago here in our List: " .... always remembering -- whoever comes is the right people, whatever happens is the only thing that could have, whenever it starts is the right time, and when it is over it is over. Last, but by no means least -- always observe the Law of Two feet, and be respectful of others who do the same." For me OST is much more than, like Michael M Pannwitz said: "I keep reminding myself that open space is an action and planning methodology and a window opener to the open space nature of all organisations and not a process of "democracy". My personal view is that YES, it is all what Michael said and at the same time the best model of practising the wisdom of a democracy. That deep believe was for me the motivation to enable groups also to work online, based on the principles of OST on-line. But my idea was too, that each organizer and each group should work total independendly from us or other third parties. So, we integrated a virtuall facilitator in that system and additionally a code of democracy values in the beginning of that real-time conference. What that E-Democracy Conference showed was, that the future demand for participation and e-participation is really big. And that "they" (the official key speakers) are looking for practical models and for synergien between the "offline and online world". So my key message was that we need a proactive politicy, with the main goal "enable" sustainable democray by practising and enabling participation more and more. And that we all - not only the politicians - have to inspire many other people and organizations to cooperate in opening more and more spaces for respectful and solution-oriented communication. Regardless of whether it is online or offline. Our ever "smaller" world needs an exchange of ideas, needs communication! And that each of us can make a contribution. Many of our countries need no better laws - but a better understanding of the wisdom of peaceful and respectful communication. One of my dreams is, that the wisdom of OST will be teached in schools ... everywhere. Best regards to all of you! Gabriela * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
