Dear Dominique (cc Philippe) Welcome to the OS-community. I?m also happy to have you on board! Not to long ago another French man contacted me asking me to share my experiences from our starting OSI Sweden. The story might be worth repeating on OS-list so here it goes, the short lifestory of OSI Sweden (from my perspective):
Starting in the 90?s Harrison Owen and Birgitt Williams have been to Sweden a number of times. Some of our collegues have also facilitated OS-trainings and a number of consultants use OS in their work. My view of it though, is that not too many focus really clearly on OS and what has grown outof OST e g the Genuine Contact (TM) program. There are a few of us, to my knowledge. The last years me and my collegue Eiwor Backelund have offered open OST trainings as well as GC-trainings on regular basis. Since about 2,5 years we have had monthly meetings, to share and learn about OS and other issues on our minds, here in Gothenburg at the westcoast. In autumn 2001 we decided to register OSI Sweden. On that meeting we also had collegues visiting from Stockholm which was good. Otherwise there might have been a risk that it would have been viewed as a "west-coast-thing". Actually we also had a guest from Holland on that very meeting - Koos, who cheered us on) ! Anyway the formation of OSI Sweden didn?t make much of a difference to our lives, of course. One of the reasons why we decided to go ahead to register the name was that there are/were some organizations in Sweden who certify OS-facilitators. We wanted to make sure that OSI-Sweden should be an organization working in the open spirit of OS. So OSI Sweden didn?t "live" too much until quite recently. Well, together with OSI Denmark we have organized 2 Scandinavian OSonOS?s 2002 and 2003 (with about 20 and 10 participants). Actually I also organized a Swedish Online-OSonOS using OpenSpace-Online, last autumn. One result from that meeting was that we started a Swedish listserv which is on www.smartgroups.com There are about 25 people connected so far but, so far, not a lot of communication going on. I do think that it may become an important tool further down the road. As I guess you know, we organized the 11th International OSonOS last August. That was quite a challenge but worked very well. There were me and my collegue Eiwor who put a lot of effort into this in Sweden, together with our Danish/Dutch friend Gerard Muller. Unfortunately nobody else got really into it due to different reasons. We did put effort into making sure the invitation to join in was out but "whoever comes..." and "whatever happens...". It worked great anyway! During OSonOS we invited our Swedish collegues to talk about the future of OSI Sweden. We had a short but really inspiring meeting and made some decisions. Everybody wanted to take part in the work to develope this further. One of which was that one of our collegues from Stockholm (east coast) would take over the role as chairman 2004 for OSI-S, we also had some new members of the board. We think it?s important to share responsibility in leadership. A team of collegues in Stockholm volunteered to host the 3rd Scandinavian OSonOS 18-19 of March 2004(you?re welcome to join in!). I?m happy that people have taken the chance to engage and take responsibility to jointly develope the OS-work in Sweden and the world. I?ve recently made some new contacts in Finland and Norway so hopefully our Scandinavian network will grow too. I wish you the best of luck in forming an OSI France. My advice is, just get a bunch of people together. Start meeting regularily and see what happens. Staying connected to the international network of OS facilitators is a great help in the development, I think. Warmest regards Thomas Herrmann, Sweden -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- Fran: OSLIST [mailto:[email protected]]For Dominique Proudhon Skickat: den 16 december 2003 08:58 Till: [email protected] Amne: New member Good day all, I joined the OSlist a few days ago and have been lurking for a while. I am very impressed with the quality of the exchanges on this list and find myself drawn to participate. Several threads called my attention; in particular the one questioning the list itself (what are we doing? Aren't we loosing our spirit, Should we split?) -I find these conversations very healthy. And also the one about Civil Conversation, which resonates with an old questioning of mine around ways to implement real participative democracy - I am dreaming of initiating some real debate around the question "what world do we chose to build for tomorrow?". I believe we humans are caught up in our own contradictions: after centuries of evolving faster and faster technically, and having more transformative power than ever, we are now facing the essential question of Meaning: How do we participate in the world and to what end? What is our responsibility in regard to what is happening in our world? Especially all the "not so nice" little things like irreversible destruction of earth resources, loss of entire species, wars and weapon builders, starving, and all that noisy ongoing disconnected stupidity on our tv and radio shows that take people away from being. I believe that for the first time, we, at least in "developed" countries, have won the freedom to look beyond simply working for survival, to ask ourselves: how do I want to also make this place a little better? Anyway. I'll stop here for today. My goal was actually to introduce myself: I am French and leave in Grenoble. After a PhD in molecular/cellular biology and 6 years of research. I decided to do something else with my life and moved to human resources development. I actually did that career move in the US: I lived 10 years in North Carolina. I wanted to understand why people so often get into conflicts because of "films" they make in their heads that have little to do with reality. I wanted to find ways to work on re-establishing lost connections, especially in the workplace, where they could serve common projects and goals. I trained with Will Schutz, originator of the Human Element, became a mediator, trained in various psychometric tools and got to work with various groups. Two years ago, just before I came back to France, I bought a book that called my attention: Open Space Technology, a user's guide. I read it in the plane. It was one of those "ha ha": I found something I was looking for. A piece of extreme simplicity that called on very ecological principles to set the stage for real connection between people and for meaning to happen. On top of that, this approach was shared openly without any bind, just as a gift to humanity, which seduced me even more... I decided to try it as soon as I would get the opportunity, here, in France. Starting a new business as a group facilitator/team consultant has not been easy thing. Things are slow going and I often get discouraged. But I finally got the opportunity to run two different open space events for two different clients in the last year (30 people and 36 people). Both very energizing experiences and both around the question "How could we improve the way we function as a team?": I loved the first moments of surprise in people's eyes, and then the sudden rush to bring up issues as they understood that the event was theirs. Several persons approached me at the end telling me how much this work had moved them from a negative reactive position to an engaged position and telling me about a number of places they would see such work as useful. Thanks to Harrison, they got a gift they deserved. Felt quite good to serve in such a meaningful way. I'll continue. I now would like to share this approach with others in France and starting a French Open Space Institute (web site in preparation for sometime next year). Of course, I have plenty of questions around OST, but I'll wait: This post is already long enough, you guys are busy, and I need to read more of the documentation to make sure I am not asking questions that have already been answered 20 times. All the best to each of you, Dominique Note: I am a guy, for those who would wonder. Dominique Proudhon Group Facilitation Problem solving Conflict resolution Dampierre 38470 Notre Dame de l'Osier (33) 4 76 36 71 34 (33) 6 78 91 48 77 * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
