Dear Artur,
"Be prepared to be surprised!", in German, which I understand you have
been learning in preparation for your trip to the WOSonOS in Berlin, I
phrase it "Augen Auf! Mit Ueberraschungen ist zu rechnen!"
Aside the four facts of life (them aint principles, come on) it is what
Harrison called the admonition (all tongue in cheek, never to be taken
with total seriousness...all on page 91 of the third edition to the Guide).
So its been part of my intro to OST all on an extra large flipchart
paper. I had the notion that everybody has been using this seeing it
sometimes on photos of os events.
Maybe I am missing something here.
Fact is, I have never been to an os event where there were no surprises!
Great and small, happy and nasty...
See you next week at the WOSonOS where I will expect you with the
denatured ethyl alcohol in hand for the "international suitcase buffet"
to fuel your grill for the chouriços...I remember them well at 8th
WOSonOS in Berlin 10 years ago...
Cheers
mmp
Artur Silva schrieb:
Chris (and all, in Melbourne and elsewhere)
I understand and respect your desire to honor Brian,
which I used to call a friend, even if we have met only once. But one single
face to
face meeting is enough to develop a solid friendship, especially when one is
prepared to be surprised...
As you all know my relationship with the principles is
not easy, and I only can understand them as "what always happens" if one opens
space - or in what Harrison used to call an "InterActive
Organization".
Anyhow, for me, "Be Prepared..." is not something
that always happens. Is a king of recommendation to open oneself to the space
being opened.
My counter suggestion comes like this: OST has 1 Law
(and a very powerful one), 4 principles (if we have to accept that...) and one
recommendation
(you may chose another name), that from now on can be called "Brian's
Recommendation".
What do you all (in Melbourne and elsewhere) think
about that?
Regards from a sunny Lisbon - happy because I will soon
met a lot of friends in Berlin and unhappy as I will not have the possibility
to met some others that will not come this time
Artur
--- On Mon, 5/3/10, Chris Corrigan <ch...@chriscorrigan.com> wrote:
From: Chris Corrigan <ch...@chriscorrigan.com>
Subject: [OSLIST] Brian Bainbridge and the fifth principle
To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu
Date: Monday, May 3, 2010, 9:49 PM
Hello from Melbourne. I've just opened space at a conference here with Viv
McWaters, Geoff Brown, Anne Pattillo and Johnnie Moore. We've got a two day,
full on participatory conference on evaluation with 179 people. 40 topics have
gone up for our day and a half OS.
It's sweet for me being here in Melbourne, which for me is the spiritual home
of Open Space in Australia (would you agree Brendan? :-)). Of course for me
that impression largely comes from the fact that this was Father Brian
Banibridge's home, and I regret that I never made it here while he was alive,
only able to meet him over the years at various OSonOS gatherings or when he
stopped by our place on retreat or en route to elsewhere.
Brian of course was such a stalwart member of our community...he and Viv have
hosted trainings in Australia for years and of course they took the mantle of
hosting OSonOS X in 2002 after Laurel Doersam and I co-hosted it in Vancouver.
It's such a pleasure to be here working with Viv and our team in this place,
with Brian's presence very much in our mind.
And so as way of honouring Brian in our own little way today we took the
unprecedented step of officially adding a fifth principle to the Open Space
canon. Of course the four principles are very important and probably all we
need, but Brian always posted a fifth one up when he worked: Be Prepared to be
Surprised. For years I have also made a poster with that one on it and put it
up in the room, but today in my opening I elevated that most excellent phrase
by making it the third principle of five. It comes right after Whoever
comes... and Whatever happens... Be Prepared to be Surprised. And then When
it starts... and when it's over...lovely.
It seems a perfectly natural place to put it, and, being here in Melbourne, it seemed a
perfectly natural act to just say out loud "Open Space has 5 principles and one
law..." Viv and I both got a little shiver up our spine, our own little testimonial
to a great friend of our community of practice whose presence we miss dearly.
So from now on it'll be five principles for me, and in reciting them I always
see in my own mind Harrison's call to simplicity, Anne Stadler's call to take
simplicity seriously (which helped Harrison get the principles right - that IS
the story, right?) and Brian's mischievous imperative to be open to surprise.
So as we prepare to gather here in Melbourne on May 11 for a little OSonOS with
40 or so local OS-workers, and our community of friends and colleagues gathers
internationally in Berlin, Viv and I invite you to officially adopt Brian's
fifth principle not for sentimental reasons, but just because it makes sense,
and it lightens the invitation in just the right way.
It's all good.
Chris
----
Chris Corrigan
ch...@chriscorrigan.com
http://www.chriscorrigan.com
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--
Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49-30-772 8000
mmpa...@boscop.org
www.boscop.org
Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 397 resident Open
Space Workers in 68 countries working in a total of 141 countries worldwide
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