Dear list, It’s probably the first time writing to you. During the last one year and a half I’ve been following your conversations, your perspectives, your insights. I believe I’ve been learning from all of you. I’ve been practicing OST in Portugal, mostly in Portuguese language but with a few limitations; after all I’m working alone with an unknown method to most of people. Portugal seemed to me at first sight a difficult country to implement this method. Although the culture is very open, the business companies and organizations in general still tend to use traditional methods for meetings or for solving problems. Nevertheless the few experiences I had, people did told me in the end, that they really enjoyed having the freedom and the space open for creativity. The first steps are always the harder to take. And that leads me to last 7 to 9 of September in Porto where I had the pleasure of being invited by Ted Ernst to co-facilitate Wikisym – the 4th international event around wikis you can see more in http://www.wikisym.org/ws2008/index.php/OpenSpace This was certainly the event that made me realize how much I want to continue to do Open Space. It was a such a fulfilling experience. I noticed something very curious whatever is taken as a talking stick, there’s always a soul that tells a beautiful deep and unexpected story about it. On this event I happen to choose a natural stick coming from a beautiful plant growing outside university gardens. From something completely out of the technological world an amazing story was told: a plant once seeded on a dry vast corner of the world in spite of severe climate conditions, was so beautiful that would always be able to grow and for that called the joy of the children’s flower. I cannot thank Ted enough for all the amazing things I’ve learned about me as a facilitator. After all I also can facilitate OST’s in Portugal don’t matter the conditions. Peace. Ana
"If you want to go faster, go alone. If you want to go further, go together." African proverb * * ========================================================== 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
