Hi Andrea,
So great to see you here, Andrea! I notice that you posted last year
that you were part of the "Lurker" list, but I think you just
disqualified yourself as a lurker!
Thanks for the reference to Liberating Structures. I asked about books,
and I've already put that on the list of recommended books at the Open
Space Institute - U.S. website. http://osius.org/books . Mostly because
Liberating Structures includes Open Space Technology, and it talks about
doing it in a short amount of time. But some of the opening conversation
is pretty interesting too, about increasing our vocabulary of meeting
options.
I'd not focused much on Triz - "Stop Counterproductive Activities and
Behaviors to Make Space for Innovation":
http://www.liberatingstructures.com/6-making-space-with-triz/. Have you
used it? Did it really "clear space for innovation"?
I'm curious as well to hear more about how things go with understanding
each others time perceptions?
And opening an intergenerational space sounds interesting too.
Warm Regards,
Harold
P.S. I'm in mountain time - so it was only 10:16pm when I posted. Not
that late, at least not for me. Talking about time perception!
On 9/3/15 3:43 AM, [email protected] wrote:
Rich thoughts Harold! You write so well late at night! And always!
This discussion reminds me of the Triz facilitation technique -
documented well at Liberating Structures!
Also, I have a friend who helps small groups of folks she facilitates
to understand each other's perceptions of time by asking them some
questions:
Where is now? Where is 5 minutes from now? An hour? A week? A month ?
A year? Where is yesterday? (Continuities with similar questions about
past?) as she asks each question, to each individual one at a time,
the respondent points to a location. Everybody has different
perceptual positions . One can notice cultural patterns - and also
patterns based on ones profession (a project planner's year from
Now might be right in front of them, but a teacher starting the school
year who'll have it off in the distance.) some have the past in front
of them and the future behind them (hasn't happened yet). It's quite
a fascinating texhnique!
Sad I missed Tuesday's call - glad that I was instead opening an
intergenerational space with a very long time elderly family friend... :-)
Choices!
Best,
Andrea
On Sep 3, 2015, at 12:16 AM, Harold Shinsato via OSList
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi Lucas, thanks for adding some of your thinking here. I was
intrigued by something you said at the Qiqochat supported online Open
Space experience we had on the OSHotline this past Tuesday. It seemed
to relate to what started happening soon afterwards on the OSList.
About "creating" or "opening" space - I do believe these are useful
and powerful metaphors. But in terms of some of the cosmology
thinking - I'm remembering what my college professor at my first
Physics class said.
We don't really know what time is beyond *time is what we measure
with clocks*.
We don't know what distance (space) is beyond it is what we measure
with rulers.
I opened that class's text book, and couldn't find it, but I found
the time definition with a quick internet search. It is attributed to
Einstein, and other text books do consider it an operational
definition of time. It seems fit well with Harrison's notions that we
don't really understand time or space.
Even given our not really knowing - we still measure it. Play with
it. Live in it. And one huge transformation from Prigogene which has
been discussed on the OSList before - was an insight from the life
sciences that essentially overthrew the principles of Entropy that
caused the character played by Woody Allen in Annie Hall to get
really depressed as a boy that the ultimate end of the universe was
complete dissolution. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U1-OmAICpU
"Why are you depressed, Alvy?"
"The universe is expanding... Well, the universe is everything, and
if it's expanding, someday it will break apart, and that will be the
end of everything."
The problem with the principles of Thermodynamics that Entropy (i.e.
disorder) always increases, is that these principles came from the
study of closed systems. If the Universe is truly a closed system,
our old physics required a rather dismal cosmology.
Maybe trying to nail down the ultimate truth about the Universe into
a formula or equation is a bad idea anyway, but the Universe *AS I
SEE IT* will certainly decay and dissolve to death. And I'll have to
grieve that understanding. Because my understanding most certainly is
FINITE at any point in space/time. But all I have to do is let go,
and I can open up some space in my understanding. And maybe at that
point - I'll break open into a new understanding. One that is bigger
and greater than the previous one. New Space! at least for me. And if
it creates space for me, perhaps I can invite someone else into this
new space as well. Or maybe we can walk into it together, after
properly grieving our past understanding - may it rest in peace.
To me - how this relates to your insight if you create space for X -
you are creating space against Y: perhaps there's something valuable
to that. Because often there really is a clearing away necessary in
order to "open" space. When I go to an OST event, I most certainly am
choosing to clear my calendar to accept that invitation. Yet - if
anything - I've always found my world expanded after attending an
Open Space. Always! And perhaps that is simply because my
Understanding grew - and therefore - voila - more space at least in
my own head.
And about your final sentence in bold, although there's some truth in
your win/lose perspective - perhaps if you viewed things from a
different perspective - the perspective that could take in the whole
system - you would see that the pie grows enough for everyone to
ultimately win - if they accept the invitation into this bigger pie.
And that bigger pie is the growth of our collective understanding and
comprehension of this infinite mystery.
Cheers,
Harold
On 9/2/15 7:47 AM, Lucas Cioffi via OSList wrote:
That's an interesting thread you started, Daniel, about inviting
non-invitation.
Harrison writes yesterday:
Here’s a thought... Space/time is infinite, defined by our
minds, and limited by our imagination. So “constraints” are only
what you make them out to be. AND... it is always nice to have
as much “space/time” as possible. A “genuine invitation” creates
a LOT of space/time.
*Do y'all think we are creating space or are we opening space? It's
an important distinction, because creating implies a win-win but
opening could be a win-lose situation. *I'd say none of us is ever
creating space, just opening it, and that someone or something is
always losing something else when we do.
*I'll do my best to explain...*
Instead of "creating space" I'd argue that instead we are "creating
space */for/*" because the space literally already exists. We are
creating opportunity for voices to be heard and for people to
participate. But in some indirect way a */space for X/* is at least
indirectly a /*space against Y*/. We are never actually creating
new space, instead we are creating "*/new space for/*" by marking
that space with an invitation/purpose, principles, and a law of two
feet. The space (the hotel conference room, the warehouse, etc)
already exists.
I don't disagree, Harrison, that overall space/time might be
infinite–I don't know :) –but each of us is limited to being in one
physical space at a time, monitoring/interacting with a handful of
physical spaces virtually, and having 24 hours in a day. In that
way we'd all agree that space and time are nearly zero sum at a
personal scale, so when we open/create space for _________, and
people accept the invitation, we are decreasing energy and time
spent some where else. There is a cost. We don't talk about that,
but I don't think we forget that either.
So, to take this argument full circle (pun intended), I'd say that
whenever we open space, we do it by force. Space doesn't open on
its own (or does it?!-- what if we aren't really /opening/ space and
the space is already open, that we're just the first to see it?).
Well, even if space opens on its own and then if we're the first
ones to walk into it and invite others, we are still inviting by
force–this not a bad force or a coercive force, but it's a force
nonetheless. We know this, because we know how it requires force to
launch an invitation into the world. (Or is this not always the
case? Can someone invite by simply being?)
Any invitation displaces people's time: to read it (maybe just 30
seconds) and then much more time is displaced for people choose to
attend (an hour, a day, etc). What I'm trying to say is that I'm
beginning to see opening space more and more as active, forceful (in
a good way), and intentional. When we open space that was
previously closed, we are using force, and that might mean that
someone else is experiencing something else closing (the old order
of business in an organization or fewer people attending another
event or doing something that they would have otherwise been doing
if they weren't attending).
Bottom line: It's hard to argue with creating space because it looks
like a win-win, but somewhere someone or something is losing our
time, energy, and support in the short term. In the case of an
organization the person losing is the boss who wants to keep the old
order of things. When that situation isn't applicable, we're at
least spending time away from other things we could be doing such as
tending to a vegetable garden or taking Fido for a walk. *So it's
always important to keep in mind who/what is losing when we open
space, and perhaps using the phrase "creating space" is a good way
to focus on the upside.*
--
Harold Shinsato
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
http://shinsato.com
twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush>
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Harold Shinsato
[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
http://shinsato.com
twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush>
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