when a client hires Open Space Technology, is this what she gets?

[Birgitt Williams]

Hi Dave,
I think you are very right about the list serve as a great community of
people creating, co-creating, problem solving (root being to probe),and
questioning (root being to quest). And we support each other tremendously.
Whoever shows up are the right people. There are about 270 of us on the list
at present. I also think the Open Space on Open Space is another key and
great way to keep on learning from each other. There are thousands of people
who have come through Open Space Technology training in the last decade. And
there are thousands more who have read the User's Guide and are off and
running. And there are many who have done neither but been a participant in
an event and then facilitate their own.

I suspect that each of us on the list has our own perception and
interpretation of Open Space Technology and we work from that perception and
interpretation. When I take people through a training program (a learning
journey) I start with a list of all of the possible ingredients of the FORM
that can be identified that make up an Open Space Technology meeting and
then I ask the people to keep things in a minimalist perspective, honoring
Harrison's minimalist approach. They take items off, and then we proceed
with the rest of the program. And then we look at our lists again after an
examination of our individual and unique perceptions of the ESSENCE Open
Space Technology. There is no one right perspective, as you know. We each
use our insights, our observations, our intuition, and develop our own
perspective. And then eventually go back to our lists in terms of
ingredients of the FORM of what makes up Open Space Technology. It is
amazing how many items get added back in, and with the awareness of each
individual of why they personally have this as their personal list. It is an
amazing process, a privilege to watch, and what I consider very sacred work,
to go at this in the depths of the person.

I will speak to a group about all of the decision making that goes on in an
OST meeting. There is the ideal situation and then there is what we really
have to work with. And I speak to the group about the importance of not
tampering with the essence when they make their decisions and they will
likely make good decisions.

Birgitt

Birgitt Williams
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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]On Behalf Of (David
Koehler)
Sent: Monday, September 11, 2000 5:11 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: when a client hires Open Space Technology, is this what she
gets?


In a message dated 9/11/00 2:27:27 PM Central Daylight Time, pholman at msn.com
writes:

<< Birgitt -- I think you're on to something -- how can we establish
competence
 without resorting to something insipid like certification? >>

Just to jump in on this conversation, isn't that what we have developed in
part with the listserv?  Here is a network of individuals who are in touch
with one another and with OST events that are taking place all over the
world.  I'm not sure that we can ever be successful in guarding against
those
who might "sell" something incomplete and call it open space.  Rather, it
seems we could do more to create awareness that a community of people exists
who know one another (even if only via the web), and who share and learn
from
each other on a daily basis.  What we're in effect looking for is
authenticity.  I think we give that to ourselves.

Thanks,

Dave Koehler

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