Raffi Wrote: " One conversation I would like to be part of *live* some day is to hear more of the questions about whether "self-organization rules," as your November 2005 Practice of Peace workshop announcement in Berlin put it. My understanding from my very superficial knowledge of the topic is that there are a number of questions about your proposition and I don't know if that conversation has ever fully played itself out."
Raffi -- not a doubt about it. Virtually everything I have to say is definitely "questionable." Which is a major reason why I typically advise people not to believe a word that I say, at least not until they have tried "it" for themselves. Another variant on the same theme is, "The Open Space Experiment." Truthfully (for me at least) the 21 years in Open Space has been one wonderful, continuing, natural experiment. And the thing about experiments is that you can only develop a degree of confidence in the results when they have been run repeatedly. If the results come out with some degree of uniformity, confidence levels build -- but then you are left with the interesting question of interpretation. What does it mean? With Open Space, I submit that we (collectively) have now run that experiment multiple times. Further more, the results have been pretty consistent across facilitators, cultures, organizational types etc. So it would seem that something is definitely going on which largely contravenes current organizational theory and practice. In a word, from the point of view of most current organizational theory and practice -- Open Space simply could not happen. But it does :-) When your theory is at odds with your experience, that would be some reasonable indication that a change in theory might be a good idea. It is also true that for many people this disconnect between accepted theory and present experience is a very uncomfortable one -- which is more often than not resolved in favor of the theory. Thomas Kuhn gave us the history of all that with his work on paradigms -- and paradigm shift is a most painful and traumatic event. I think we are at a moment of paradigm shift, at least we certainly have most of the usual signs. But what is the new paradigm? What is the new theory? -- What does it all mean anyhow? How would you make sense out of this (OS)experience? I think what we have learned to date about self-organizing systems offers the best framework for understanding. But that is a personal judgment, and doubtless there are many other possibilities. Which is wonderful and definitely provides the "start point" for many good conversations. It is all questionable, it is all conversable. And I also think this may just be the most important question to be addressed and conversation to hold with anybody, anytime, anywhere. We have had bits and pieces of it here on OSLIST and at several OSONOS's -- and we need more. But first and last -- don't believe a word I say. Try it for yourself. And then we can talk about it. . . :-) Harrison Harrison Owen 7808 River Falls Drive Potomac, Maryland 20854 Phone 301-365-2093 Skype hhowen Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org Personal website www.ho-image.com OSLIST: To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit: www.listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Raffi Aftandelian Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2006 12:04 AM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Re: Mystery of Open Space Indeed, Harrison, I was quite amused, quite tickled by the piece. I am very grateful that your muse was able to amuse. And we being human we all have our tickle bone in different places...Some may re-fuse to appreciate it... Your piece (re-?)starts a number of important conversations. One conversation I would like to be part of *live* some day is to hear more of the questions about whether "self-organization rules," as your November 2005 Practice of Peace workshop announcement in Berlin put it. My understanding from my very superficial knowledge of the topic is that there are a number of questions about your proposition and I don't know if that conversation has ever fully played itself out. It is hard to have a complete conversation about this onlist because of the sheer two dimensionality of this space. And curiously, I find that in some ways an OSonOS also has elements of a two dimensional space, a space where I wonder if we as participants feel we can easily choose to be ourselves. (An excellent book describing what I mean by living in two dimensional space is "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television) I think something that happens quite naturally when we have reached a certain level of renown in a field is we acquire a reputation, maybe at times fall into an image. I wonder if what happens in an OSonOS is that when in a space where literally anyone can participate that it is not easy to let go of our image fully, to fully bring ourselves to any and all conversations. The two OSonOS'es I have participated in have given me a little bit of this sense...and I enjoyed them immensely. Is it possible to park the ego in the disabled parking zone before an OSonOS? Don't know. It's a tall order. quizzically and in anticipation, raffi * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist
