A friend sent the following, and I thought you all might enjoy - Thought you might enjoy this quote, taken from Tom Stewart's latest book (and reminds me of your story, about how you discovered self-organizing people systems/Open Space):
"It is worth mentioning ... the piece of hardware that has been documented to be the most effective means of sharing knowledge. It is called a coffeepot. Coffeepots are cross-functional and nonhierarchical. They encourage informal discussion. Serendipitous things happen around them. They are part of one's daily routine, and, except for wimps who drink decaf, are always stimulating. However, they do not scale well; people on different floors, in different offices, and in different time zones are rarely found around the same coffeepot. Also, some of what is shared around a coffeepot may be unrelated to increasing shareholder value, and what passes for knowledge might not always withstand rigorous analysis. The single greatest opportunity in knowledge management is to develop coffeepots that avoid these problems." Obviously Stewart (whoever he is) hasn't done Open Space, if so he would know that the ultimate coffee pot had in fact been created. Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, Maryland 20845 Phone 301-365-2093 Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/> Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html * * ========================================================== [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
