Re: [OSList] open message to Nick Martin

[Harrison Owen via OSList]

Well said!

 

Harrison

 

From: OSList [mailto:oslist-boun...@lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Barry 
Owen via OSList
Sent: Sunday, June 9, 2019 7:41 AM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Cc: Barry Owen
Subject: Re: [OSList] open message to Nick Martin

 

Harold - What you wrote is great. Thank you!

 

Bhavish, I could copy and paste your comments @ Massacre of Open Space and send 
them to a group that does an annual event here in Nashville.

 

This event began with me doing an Open Space event. I invited REALTORS to come 
together to talk about issues and opportunities we were facing as a direct 
result of the Economic Downward Spiral in 2008 which was devastating for many.  
Because this topic also affected all of the "Service Support" people  we rely 
on during transactions (Lenders, Title Companies, Contractors, Inspectors, & 
etc), I invited them to come as sponsors. 24 of these sponsors paid $150 each 
for a table to display information about their business. This money paid all of 
the overhead, so the event was free for the REALTORS.  I arranged these tables 
in a concentric circle around the Main Circle and invited the sponsors to 
attend as participants. This was an Open Space meeting about a very important 
issue with people from every conceivable Real Estate related business - 300 
REALTORS attended, and the event was a huge success.

 

The following year, I was queueing up a "2nd Annual" event when I was 
approached by a group of people who had the backing of the REALTOR Association. 
Based on the success of the event I facilitated, they decided to do it using 
BarCamp - NashvilleREBarcamp and scheduled their event to conflict with mine. 
They asked me join forces with them rather than having 2 different events. With 
reservation, I agreed, and the event was also a huge success (Although not Open 
Space) - 500 Participants - More "Traditional" arrangement for sponsors who 
paid more money to sponsor breakout spaces and were not, under any 
circumstances, allowed to do any promotion beyond their name on the breakout 
space.

 

Over the past 10 years, that event has grown and morphed into what you describe 
. . . and even worse. The 10th Annual was a couple months ago - Over 700 
REALTORS registered . . . There were @ 30 "Experts" who flew in from all over 
the country to "teach" sessions. There were @ 35 sessions (I did one about 
"Operating a Brokerage in Open Space"). All of the sessions were scheduled 
before the doors opened. I was disappointed because I thought it could have 
been way better in Open Space Technology, but . . . 

 

I decided it was better than nothing :-) As I went through the day, I noticed 
that, even though OST wasn't the process for the meeting . . . Open Space 
happened for many of the participants.

 

My general observation is that Open Space happens at some level every time any 
group gathers . . . Having the meeting using OST simply increases the impact 
for more of the participants. So . . . 

 

Harrison Owen's mantra of "Just Open more Space" is happening every day as each 
of us is out there engaging important and complex issues and opportunities . . 
. even when it doesn't look like OST.

 

 

On Fri, Jun 7, 2019 at 3:58 PM Harold Shinsato via OSList 
 wrote:

Very interesting conversation and attempts to describe OST!

I'm reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book, Anti-Fragile. It seems to me Open 
Space is antifragile.

The idea of antifragility goes beyond resilience. Life in general is 
antifragile. It doesn't just bounce back from set-backs. It actually gets 
stronger as it overcomes challenges and stress.

Antifragility seems relevant in this conversation as it seems the more people 
try to document or describe Open Space, even with rather challenging 
inaccuracies, the stronger it gets. I like Liberating Structures. The 
'min-specs' for OST seem accurate in the book and the website, even if it 
leaves out how much more powerful it gets in the "long form" (or at least more 
than 90 minutes). And it leaves out the need to get strong authorization from 
leaders. I love that it says it's not open space without the law of two feet. 
But the Liberating Structures 'min-specs' don't emphasize the importance of not 
generating topics ahead of time. I've unfortunately encountered rather large 
events claiming to be 'open space' where the participants either generated the 
topics in advance, or worse, didn't even get to generate the topics.

The "Open Space" with-a-twist as described on 
https://workshopbank.com/open-space-technology shows a nice picture and I hope 
it introduces more folks to Open Space Technology. For me at least, doing the 
agenda creation before the OST is an unconference trick, but it hugely 
diminishes the potential power of OST.

For what it is worth - Harrison Owen may not have claimed any ownership rights 
of Open Space, but what he did do is ask us to share back what we learn as we 
practice Open Space. That should 

Re: [OSList] Government community engagement

[Birgitt Williams via OSList]

Hi Eric,
It seems that you have a longer term consulting assignment with
pre-determined outcomes asked of you.
The County Recovery Manager probably reports to some type of Council, and
thus has a particular mandate and pre-determined outcomes.
During the year, meetings have taken place. The meetings have engaged
people, data has been generated and collected.
Within a community, various community agencies including non-profit
organizations and private businesses have been following their own mandates
and carrying on with the work regardless of what is happening with this
process.
Extra relief money is soon to happen and to handle money there must be
mechanisms in place that will have their own parameters and expected
outcomes.

Is that about right?
Have people felt any value from the meetings to date?
Has the great effort by people and agencies in the community been
acknowledged and appreciated?

And now, for some reason, there is a desire of a multi-sector meeting for
the purpose of encouraging community based activities.

Emerging from all of the above is the need for well done planning to get at
the right theme for a multi-sector meeting, with the right people. As well
as this, in our Genuine Contact way of working with OST, we would help the
client to discern the many implicit givens that are in place (the list
above conveys many of these to me) and make them explicit. By making them
explicit, a clearer picture emerges of how much space is truly being
opened, whether it is a big space or a teeny tiny space. Regardless of its
scope, the size of the space being opened needs to be authentic.
Incorrectly convey that the space is bigger than it is, and you will run
into problems. Incorrectly convey that the space is smaller than it is and
you will run into problems. Getting the amount of space just right, with
clarity in the invitation including what the givens are, and you have your
best chance for a positive experience for having used OST. I measure the
positive experience as what one experiences as results after the OST
meeting.

I feel a bit like being in the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story.

I would certainly go ahead and propose OST as the best meeting format to
use for what you are wanting to accomplish. A true, well done OST meeting,
not an OST with a twist or what I laughingly think of as a twisted Open
Space. When you propose OST, hold steady with using it in its intended form
and essence.

in genuine contact,
Birgitt


*Birgitt Williams*
*Supporting Next Level Leadership "Leading So People Will Lead"*
Author, Senior Consultant, President Dalar International Consultancy, Inc

Founder Genuine Contact Program

Co-owner Genuine Contact Group, LLC

Founder Extraordinary Leadership Network


*Learn with us for your growth and development for the new leadership
paradigm *

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Phone: 01-919-522-7750


On Wed, Jun 5, 2019 at 10:53 PM Eric M. Kapono via OSList <
oslist@lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:

> Aloha all,
>
> I’m looking for references to a similar situation (more below) where OS
> was the contributing factor of success, in particular to communicate to
> government and community leaders here why OS will get the results they need.
>
>
>
> The context is the community engagement piece of recovery efforts from the
> 2018 volcano eruption in Hawaii. I’m consulting with the County Recovery
> Manager, who has been convening other types of gatherings much of this
> year. Now that disaster relief funding is closer to being on the ground,
> the County wants to convene a larger, multi-sector event, to encourage
> development of community-based recovery actions. The County is also
> planning to have a Disaster Recovery Fund setup, which would field a
> competitive process for proposed projects, some 

Re: [OSList] open message to Nick Martin

[Bhavesh Patel via OSList]

Hi Barry,

You wrote " *My general observation is that Open Space happens at some
level every time any group gathers . . . Having the meeting using OST
simply increases the impact for more of the participants. So . . .  *"

I am in total agreement that life, the universe and everything is an
on-going OST.

However, does your message mean, call it OST, and do what you want because
at the end of the day anyway OST will creep in there somewhere?

Also I guess you have experienced enough OST to notice it everywhere, how
does that work for those who have not?

I know the answer to my questions, and in fact any question, is "...well
just open more space"... and yet... because of the beauty I have
experienced in my own life and in groups etc through the opening of
space... I feel a kind of 'lost opportunity' when something is presented
explicitly as OST and then what is done is far from OST... it offers the
hope of a trickle, when a river lock could have been opened... and yet I
know that even a trickle can lead to more...

I dunno, think I am touching on some of paradox about letting go to allow
more instead of holding on... h... lost in thought...


Smiles Bhav...



On Sun, 9 Jun 2019 at 19:27, Barry Owen via OSList <
oslist@lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:

> Harold - What you wrote is great. Thank you!
>
> Bhavish, I could copy and paste your comments @ Massacre of Open Space and
> send them to a group that does an annual event here in Nashville.
>
> This event began with me doing an Open Space event. I invited REALTORS to
> come together to talk about issues and opportunities we were facing as a
> direct result of the Economic Downward Spiral in 2008 which was devastating
> for many.  Because this topic also affected all of the "Service Support"
> people  we rely on during transactions (Lenders, Title Companies,
> Contractors, Inspectors, & etc), I invited them to come as sponsors. 24 of
> these sponsors paid $150 each for a table to display information about
> their business. This money paid all of the overhead, so the event was free
> for the REALTORS.  I arranged these tables in a concentric circle around
> the Main Circle and invited the sponsors to attend as participants. This
> was an Open Space meeting about a very important issue with people from
> every conceivable Real Estate related business - 300 REALTORS attended, and
> the event was a huge success.
>
> The following year, I was queueing up a "2nd Annual" event when I was
> approached by a group of people who had the backing of the REALTOR
> Association. Based on the success of the event I facilitated, they decided
> to do it using BarCamp - NashvilleREBarcamp and scheduled their event to
> conflict with mine. They asked me join forces with them rather than having
> 2 different events. With reservation, I agreed, and the event was also a
> huge success (Although not Open Space) - 500 Participants - More
> "Traditional" arrangement for sponsors who paid more money to sponsor
> breakout spaces and were not, under any circumstances, allowed to do any
> promotion beyond their name on the breakout space.
>
> Over the past 10 years, that event has grown and morphed into what you
> describe . . . and even worse. The 10th Annual was a couple months ago -
> Over 700 REALTORS registered . . . There were @ 30 "Experts" who flew in
> from all over the country to "teach" sessions. There were @ 35 sessions (I
> did one about "Operating a Brokerage in Open Space"). All of the sessions
> were scheduled before the doors opened. I was disappointed because I
> thought it could have been way better in Open Space Technology, but . . .
>
> I decided it was better than nothing :-) As I went through the day, I
> noticed that, even though OST wasn't the process for the meeting . . . Open
> Space happened for many of the participants.
>
> My general observation is that Open Space happens at some level every time
> any group gathers . . . Having the meeting using OST simply increases the
> impact for more of the participants. So . . .
>
> Harrison Owen's mantra of "Just Open more Space" is happening every day as
> each of us is out there engaging important and complex issues and
> opportunities . . . even when it doesn't look like OST.
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 7, 2019 at 3:58 PM Harold Shinsato via OSList <
> oslist@lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
>
>> Very interesting conversation and attempts to describe OST!
>>
>> I'm reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book, Anti-Fragile. It seems to me
>> Open Space is antifragile.
>>
>> The idea of antifragility goes beyond resilience. Life in general is
>> antifragile. It doesn't just bounce back from set-backs. It actually gets
>> stronger as it overcomes challenges and stress.
>>
>> Antifragility seems relevant in this conversation as it seems the more
>> people try to document or describe Open Space, even with rather challenging
>> inaccuracies, the stronger it gets. I like Liberating Structures. The
>> 'min-specs' for OST seem 

Re: [OSList] open message to Nick Martin

[Marai Kiele via OSList]

Dear Nick,

I wanted to wait and listen to others voices before writing more. So here I am 
back again :)

Reading your response, "I'm always excited and willing to receive feedback.“ I 
smile and appreciate your willingness!

Wow, it was even a year that you wrote to the list. When I remember back, my 
memory says there were more people participating in the email conversation, 
giving you feedback in that form instead of via the document. My assumption 
(which could be totally off, of course) is that several of them weren’t 
inspired to contribute to your document as one could argue the overall tone and 
approach was quite far from what you call „the traditional OST“.

Looking at your doc today, I am also not energised to contribute more. While I 
am not a programmer, I believe to know that at times it’s better to replace 
mixed up code completely, instead of trying to keep mending it. 

So… picking up on Harold Shinsato’s message:

Why not go to the original description of OST as referenced there (or to 
another source by Harrison Owen) to describe „traditional OST“. 
Why create a new description with so many variations as yours has?

(On a side note, I have become really curious where that description originates 
from = Is this how you do OST? Have you learned doing it that way somewhere? 
Did you read about doing it this way? How did it come about?)

Last not least: In the comments below your post I see Harrison Owen’s. Quote: 

(…) You can call this some other thing. Unconference, barcamp, etc. are 
variants where the organisers or “facilitators’ feel a need to impose a little 
more structure and a little of their ego into the event. Of course it’s mostly 
unintentional, but it’s still what’s happening.
Open Space Technology, it is not.

Please permit your ego to give it a different name, to avoid misinforming 
others.

Receiving such a comment from the originator discoverer of anything would make 
me really think deeply. And honouring their authority, I would then choose a 
new name while referencing their approach as an inspiration, but claim 
ownership of my add-ons.

Having written all that, I am also remembering that so much stays unexpressed 
and unexplored in an email space. I do have an honest, real, deep desire to 
understand your choice of doing this balancing edge/split of creating something 
different (the twist) while naming it as if it was close to the original. If 
you are open to that, I’d love to have a live virtual conversation with you 
instead of email.

I always wonder… where is the deeper truth? The meeting point? Beyond any 
thoughts of being right or wrong?
Marai

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

 
When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.

 
mevlana jelaluddin rumi – 13th century poet and spiritual teacher



> Am 05.06.2019 um 08:33 schrieb Nick Martin :
> 
> Thanks for your open letter Marai. I'm always excited and willing to receive 
> feedback.
> 
> As you'll remember over a year ago I opened up the content of this article 
> for comments and input from this list in the form of a Google Doc. 
> 
> Such was the passion exhibited in the original thread I was eager and excited 
> to receive your inputs. Unfortunately only two people replied though. I'm 
> very grateful to both you and Keith Blundell for taking the time.
> 
> I must admit life took over and in my wait for more input other priorities 
> took over. I'm happy to revisit it now though as I can feel the energy is 
> back and I'd like to the right thing in the eyes of this excellent community.
> 
> Here's the link - 
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ufIsy0BQvIqlRUbW0FAyXHGV0IKw3VdDT8L91RIJJU8/edit?usp=sharing
>  
> 
> 
> Please add your thoughts, comments and feedback and amend the article as best 
> I can.
>  
> 
> 
> 
> Nick Martin
> Founder & CEO, WorkshopBank
> 
> M  +45 42 47 00 74   
> E 
> n...@workshopbank.com  
>   W  workshopbank.com  
>  
>    
>  
> 
>
> 
> On 05/06/2019 01:53, Marai Kiele wrote:
>> Hello Nick Martin,
>> 
>> I find myself tense in my belly after reading your newsletter today:
>> 
>>  I just wanted to share with you a popular WorkshopBank tool 
>> 

Re: [OSList] open message to Nick Martin

[Barry Owen via OSList]

Harold - What you wrote is great. Thank you!

Bhavish, I could copy and paste your comments @ Massacre of Open Space and
send them to a group that does an annual event here in Nashville.

This event began with me doing an Open Space event. I invited REALTORS to
come together to talk about issues and opportunities we were facing as a
direct result of the Economic Downward Spiral in 2008 which was devastating
for many.  Because this topic also affected all of the "Service Support"
people  we rely on during transactions (Lenders, Title Companies,
Contractors, Inspectors, & etc), I invited them to come as sponsors. 24 of
these sponsors paid $150 each for a table to display information about
their business. This money paid all of the overhead, so the event was free
for the REALTORS.  I arranged these tables in a concentric circle around
the Main Circle and invited the sponsors to attend as participants. This
was an Open Space meeting about a very important issue with people from
every conceivable Real Estate related business - 300 REALTORS attended, and
the event was a huge success.

The following year, I was queueing up a "2nd Annual" event when I was
approached by a group of people who had the backing of the REALTOR
Association. Based on the success of the event I facilitated, they decided
to do it using BarCamp - NashvilleREBarcamp and scheduled their event to
conflict with mine. They asked me join forces with them rather than having
2 different events. With reservation, I agreed, and the event was also a
huge success (Although not Open Space) - 500 Participants - More
"Traditional" arrangement for sponsors who paid more money to sponsor
breakout spaces and were not, under any circumstances, allowed to do any
promotion beyond their name on the breakout space.

Over the past 10 years, that event has grown and morphed into what you
describe . . . and even worse. The 10th Annual was a couple months ago -
Over 700 REALTORS registered . . . There were @ 30 "Experts" who flew in
from all over the country to "teach" sessions. There were @ 35 sessions (I
did one about "Operating a Brokerage in Open Space"). All of the sessions
were scheduled before the doors opened. I was disappointed because I
thought it could have been way better in Open Space Technology, but . . .

I decided it was better than nothing :-) As I went through the day, I
noticed that, even though OST wasn't the process for the meeting . . . Open
Space happened for many of the participants.

My general observation is that Open Space happens at some level every time
any group gathers . . . Having the meeting using OST simply increases the
impact for more of the participants. So . . .

Harrison Owen's mantra of "Just Open more Space" is happening every day as
each of us is out there engaging important and complex issues and
opportunities . . . even when it doesn't look like OST.


On Fri, Jun 7, 2019 at 3:58 PM Harold Shinsato via OSList <
oslist@lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:

> Very interesting conversation and attempts to describe OST!
>
> I'm reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book, Anti-Fragile. It seems to me
> Open Space is antifragile.
>
> The idea of antifragility goes beyond resilience. Life in general is
> antifragile. It doesn't just bounce back from set-backs. It actually gets
> stronger as it overcomes challenges and stress.
>
> Antifragility seems relevant in this conversation as it seems the more
> people try to document or describe Open Space, even with rather challenging
> inaccuracies, the stronger it gets. I like Liberating Structures. The
> 'min-specs' for OST seem accurate in the book and the website, even if it
> leaves out how much more powerful it gets in the "long form" (or at least
> more than 90 minutes). And it leaves out the need to get strong
> authorization from leaders. I love that it says it's not open space without
> the law of two feet. But the Liberating Structures 'min-specs' don't
> emphasize the importance of not generating topics ahead of time. I've
> unfortunately encountered rather large events claiming to be 'open space'
> where the participants either generated the topics in advance, or worse,
> didn't even get to generate the topics.
>
> The "Open Space" with-a-twist as described on
> https://workshopbank.com/open-space-technology shows a nice picture and I
> hope it introduces more folks to Open Space Technology. For me at least,
> doing the agenda creation before the OST is an unconference trick, but it
> hugely diminishes the potential power of OST.
>
> For what it is worth - Harrison Owen may not have claimed any ownership
> rights of Open Space, but what he did do is ask us to share back what we
> learn as we practice Open Space. That should start by honoring and sharing
> our sources.
>
> Another way to reference back is a project the Open Space Institute U.S.
> did a several years ago with Harrison Owen's help. "Open Space Technology:
> The Reference Definition" which is Creative Commons Share and 

Re: [OSList] open message to Nick Martin

[Bhavesh Patel via OSList]

I went to a Liberating Structures Immersion workshop last year led by two
of it's "leading practitioners" and they introduced OST to a group of 50
who I think did not know OST. They massacred it, I then sent the feedback
which I have copied below and it led to a very interesting discussion,
especially around how much you can "mess" with any approach and at what
point have you messed so much that you have left the
"fundamentals/principles" and it is not longer that approach, and is that
innovation, evolution, or simply something else, etc

*My feedback to them:*

*"And one critical piece of feedback if that's ok. You really massacred
Open Space Technology, what you did was quite the opposite of OST. I would
suggest calling it Options Space powered by OST principles.*

*The point of OST is for a person to be free to take responsibility for
their passion by naming it and then announcing it to the whole group. It
happens in real-time which is also very important as it acts like an
individual and collective sense-making exercise.*

   -
*What you did was have a bunch of pre-defined topics on the floor with no
   names on them and then invited the group to add more, even though we
   couldn't see what was on the floor. *
   -
*Of course the group will not add because there are already well defined
   ‘facilitators-in-power’ topics and they are not going to add to them. OST
   also doesn't mix well with other methods unless you really know what you
   are doing. Another key aspect is the facilitator being present and
   invisible, and you were very much in control. *
   - *The topics eventually got stuck up onto the wall without the energy
   of the ‘posting topics' part of OST.*
   - *The wall could have had the extra clarity of the timing of each
   session and also simple breakout space signs. This supports the
   self-organisation of participants. Open space can feel quite complex and
   increase a participant's cognitive load around topics and choosing, and so
   it is good to reduce cognitive load around logistics to increase bandwidth
   for the content and process.*
   - *There is no moment in OST where a topic/session convenor is asking
   whether someone will come to their topic.*
   -
*There is no attempt to reduce topics based on who might come. *
   -
*There is no checking by the facilitator in a very pro-active way of
   whether there are more topics by going around the room and eye-balling
   everyone. *
   -
*The self-organising magic of OST comes from not doing all of these things
   and increasing the space of serendipity. *
   - *It felt like a very facilitator controlled agenda, which is the total
   opposite of OST.*
   - *You definitely NEVER tell anyone to use a specific methodology for
   their session.*
   -
*There is NO time-keeping in OST, especially 05min warnings, etc. You can
   notice time on the hour if you want like Big Ben does, but that is
   observation, not direction. *

*Anyway I am sure you know all this, and maybe I am being a bit of a method
purist, but you really did massacre OST!"*




On Fri, 7 Jun 2019 at 23:58, Harold Shinsato via OSList <
oslist@lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:

> Very interesting conversation and attempts to describe OST!
>
> I'm reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book, Anti-Fragile. It seems to me
> Open Space is antifragile.
>
> The idea of antifragility goes beyond resilience. Life in general is
> antifragile. It doesn't just bounce back from set-backs. It actually gets
> stronger as it overcomes challenges and stress.
>
> Antifragility seems relevant in this conversation as it seems the more
> people try to document or describe Open Space, even with rather challenging
> inaccuracies, the stronger it gets. I like Liberating Structures. The
> 'min-specs' for OST seem accurate in the book and the website, even if it
> leaves out how much more powerful it gets in the "long form" (or at least
> more than 90 minutes). And it leaves out the need to get strong
> authorization from leaders. I love that it says it's not open space without
> the law of two feet. But the Liberating Structures 'min-specs' don't
> emphasize the importance of not generating topics ahead of time. I've
> unfortunately encountered rather large events claiming to be 'open space'
> where the participants either generated the topics in advance, or worse,
> didn't even get to generate the topics.
>
> The "Open Space" with-a-twist as described on
> https://workshopbank.com/open-space-technology shows a nice picture and I
> hope it introduces more folks to Open Space Technology. For me at least,
> doing the agenda creation before the OST is an unconference trick, but it
> hugely diminishes the potential power of OST.
>
> For what it is worth - Harrison Owen may not have claimed any ownership
> rights of Open Space, but what he did do is ask us to share back what we
> learn as we practice Open Space. That should start by honoring and sharing
> our sources.
>
> Another way to