A User's NON-Guide (cover image is 100% virus free)

[Birgitt Williams]

Dear Michael and Chris,
I have thoroughly enjoyed your book and I thank you for following your
passion to pull it all together. With this e-mail, I provide permission to
you to use anything that I put onto the list in any way that is life
nurturing.

I have a suggestion for a change in the introduction. I also offer to you
the possibility of including in the introduction a contribution by Martin
Leith of The Innovation Agency in London, England. I admire Martin’s work on
three worldviews and it is well worth acquainting yourselves with and can be
found at www.theinnovationagency.com <http://www.theinnovationagency.com/>

First—my suggestion regarding an editiorial change for clarity in the last
paragraph of the introduction that currently reads “Like Open Space itself,
this material is offered free of charge, for your use and creativity with
one simple request
”. “Open Space” itself was created by Prime Creator. If
you are referring to Open Space here, I would suggest that you note that so
that it is not confused with Open Space Technology, developed by Harrison
Owen. If you are in fact referring to Open Space Technology, it is not free.
People pay for any of the books to learn it, they pay to attend training
courses, and they pay to hire a facilitator to facilitate an Open Space
Technology meeting. It is true that we don’t have to pay a franchise fee or
equivalent to be allowed to use the methodology.

As well, I am assuming that it is the Open Space Institute of the USA that
has copyrighted this book, rather than any of the other institutes. I think
that should be made clear. It is not the only Open Space Institute.

And now for Martin’s three worldviews:
Three Worldviews model:

Worldview 1, the world is a machine
Worldview 2, the world is an ecosystem (self-organizing systems fit here)
Worldview 3, the world is energy and consciousness (language becomes a
limitation here). Worldview 3 includes things that science cannot yet
explain, and things that it will never be able to explain.

Finally there's 'Beyond Worldviews' ... beyond concepts ... the realm where
all is one and nothing ... everything is, and isn't.

As I noted earlier, I admire Martin’s work and find his worldview model an
asset to understand different conversations regarding work with
organizations. If you follow his worldview model as you read this book you
have created, you might  find a teasing of your own worldview throughout.

Blessings to you both,
Birgitt


-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]On Behalf Of Michael
Herman
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 5:32 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: OST: A User's NON-Guide (cover image is 100% virus free)

hello all,
chris corrigan and i have just finished a little project that we want to
share with you because, after all, it's yours.
let me explain...
in late 2001, i got a bit behind on list emails.  then i managed to catch
up, all except for what seemed really juicy... all of that self-org and
spirit stuff.  by the time i got 'round to that stuff, others had already
told me it was gold, and sure enough i didn't even make it through the first
message before i went cutting and pasting the contents into a word
document... which is a long way from my normal read-and-delete sort of mode.
did i say this was already 1:00am when i started reading?
well, this stuff kept me gripped for most of the night and all the next day.
got to be such a puzzle, fitting so many threads back together into one
stream.  in the end, i fired off an email to chris, with 80-some pages
attached.  back and forth, back and forth, again in the middle of the night,
he agrees to help check my sanity and prepare this thing for presentation.
and something just more than one week and many messages later, we have the
following to present to you.  the confluence of various forms of midnight
madness... and the writing of 37 ost practitioners from around the world.
see below for the list of names.
we wrote a bit more of an explanation in a short introduction, minus this
gripping little tale, but the rest is all OSLIST... and like they said, the
stuff is gold, well yellow, for community, anyway... and seems the perfect
simple balance to the user's guide for running short training sessions and
browsing the night before openings.  something to give new recruits and
anxious veterans a dose of the depth that is this practice and this
community and this learning list.
all that said, the cover page is attached (manufactured and delivered virus
free from this macintosh pilot, i might add).  and now the only question is
what to do with the rest...
suffice it to say that we didn't find anything obviously incriminating in
what we've compiled and we are hoping that it's safe to assume that whatever
you do here in front of an audience of 300+ from all continents is already
pretty darned public.  even so, if you find something here attributed to you
that *really* needs fixing (beyond minor typing and spelling stuff that we
figure just come with the email territory) then we'll be glad to make it
right and reissue.  we didn't edit or add to any of your postings, just
cleaned up formatting, quoting, etc. and fit them all together.
so you have the cover and the authors list below as your invitation... funny
how everything is getting to be an invitation around here...
...i think you can click this link:
http://www.globalchicago.net/ost/nonguide5.pdf to download the whole
document... which should download in about 1 minute, pdf format, totally
virusproof and wonderful.  if that doesn't work, try this page
http://www.globalchicago.net/ost/nonguide.html.
myself, i'm looking forward to traveling with you all in this new
printable/packable form... and if this starts a legal firestorm here, i'm
gonna swear i found the thing in a dumpster on 57th street.
so turn on the printer and put on the tea...
with many thanks to all, michael (and chris)

p.s. chris and i considered a little oslist art contest as a way to give
this a little more color, but maybe we leave it as a simple invitation to
send along any (small) images that you think might fit in somewhere.   we'll
paste them in as we're able, for a short while... and then it's over and
done.
--
Michael Herman
300 West North Avenue #1105
Chicago IL 60610
312-280-7838 voice
312-280-7837 fax
http://www.michaelherman.com
...an invitation.



just for the record... the fine print above says:  copyright 2002, open
space institute.  not for sale.  share freely, like good tea, with friends
and colleagues everywhere.



Birgitt Williams, North Carolina, USA  mailto:birgitt at mindspring.com
Harrison Owen, Maryland, USA  mailto:owenhh at mindspring.com
Larry Peterson, Ontario, Canada mailto:larry at spiritedorg.com
Winston Kinch, Ontario, Canada  mailto:kinch at sympatico.ca
Tim Sullivan, British Columbia, Canada  mailto:Tim.Sullivan at gems5.gov.bc.ca
Nino Novak, Germany  mailto:nino.novak at tuebingen.netsurf.de
Kenoli Oleari, California, USA  mailto:kenoli at igc.org
Chris Corrigan, British Columbia, Canada  mailto:chris at chriscorrigan.com
J. Paul Everett, Washington, USA  mailto:JPESeeker at aol.com
Joelle Lyons Everett, Washington, USA  mailto:JLEShelton at aol.com
Jeff Aitken, California, USA  mailto:ja at svn.net
Prasad Kaipa, California and India:  mailto:PKaipa at aol.com
Michael Herman, Chicago, USA  mailto:mherman at globalchicago.net
Reinhard Kuchenmueller, Munich, Germany  mailto:mail at visuelle-protokolle.de
Jim Metcalf, Ontario, Canada  mailto:stjohnlu at altelco.net
Julie Smith, Alaska, USA  mailto:jsmith at mosquitonet.com
Judi Richardson, Nova Scotia, Canada  mailto:Richarjl at akerley.nscc.ns.ca
Glory Ressler, Ontario Canada  mailto:on.the.edge at sympatico.ca
John Engle, Haiti:  mailto:englejohn at hotmail.com
Michael M Pannwitz, Berlin, Germany  mailto:mmpanne at snafu.de
Ralph Copleman, New Jersey, USA  mailto:ralph at earthdreams.net
Artur Silva, Portugal  mailto:artsilva at mail.eunet.pt
Fr Brian Bainbridge, Melbourne, Australia  mailto:briansb at mira.net
Florian Fisher, Berlin, Germany  mailto:florianfischer at ff-wey.com
Meg Salter, Ontario, Canada  mailto:meg.salter at sympatico.ca
Peggy Holman, Washington, USA  mailto:peggy at opencirclecompany.com
Michael Molenaar, Tilburg, Holland  mailto:michael.molenaar at WXS.NL
Toni Petrinovich, Washington, USA  mailto:sacred at anacortes.net
Eric Lilius, Ontario Canada  mailto:elilius at halhinet.on.ca
Eiwor Backelund, Sweden  mailto:eiwor.backelund at centerpartiet.se
Chris Weaver, North Carolina, USA  mailto:chris at springbranch.net
Denis Hitchens, Australia  mailto:denisch at alphalink.com.au
Tova Averbuch, Israel  mailto:averbuch at post.tau.ac.il
Ken West, California, USA  mailto:zken at cwo.com
Naomi Kahane, Quebec, Canada  mailto:ns_kaha at alcor.concordia.ca
Bernhard Weber, Austria and Mozambique  mailto:wb-trainconsult at gmx.net
Robert Chaffe, Victoria, Australia  mailto:Robert.Chaffe at nre.vic.gov.au

okay, special bonus... i throw in a bit of the introduction:
Introduction
Like Open Space itself, this document was discovered, not created.  Indeed,
this conversation has been around for a long time, online and elsewhere.
Its discovery and publication here is offered in support of the worldwide
conversation and practitioner community that is Open Space Technology.
Paired with Harrison Owen's Open Space Technology, A User's Guide, it seems
to form a simple but powerful literary springboard for training workshops
and practitioner support groups.  Unlike the Guide, however, this Non-Guide
doesn't tell you how to 'do' it.  What you'll find here are clues and
support for the non-doing.
In this way, it is an invitation to go deeper... to invite, to experiment,
to reflect and to invite again, deeper and deeper, organizing for
yourself(ves) as you go.  As you'll see, it's all about the self-organizing
spirit that is manifesting everywhere in organizations that work, in open
space.  And, yes, it's just a conversation, but how does it stir you?
We describe Open Space Technology as the energy of a good coffee break, the
art of finding one more thing to NOT do, an invitation to maximize learning
and contribution, and a simple, powerful way to raise spirit and catalyze
self-organization.  For more about OST, see the Appendix, but for now,
suffice it to say that our online practitioner conversations have been --
and been about -- all of this, and more....

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