Some unwritten pressupositions of OST

[Artur Ferreira da Silva]

Hello dear friends:

No, this is not a reflection about VOSonVOS. It is a reflection about
OST, based on a personal and incomplete experience with what has been
called Virtual OS (an the memory of many old experiences with BBS's and
WWWboard)

I think that there are some "principles" (or "principles-like" or
"presuppositions")
that have never been written because they are obvious and need not be
clarified
in a normal OST meeting, where people really meet together). But they need
to be
clarified - and probably one must find "virtual" equivalents to them - if
one wants to
have virtual conferences that are meaningful and OST-like.

I will call them "presuppositions" (things that are present but have not been
made explicit - and probably need not to be - because they always happen
in normal OST settings.

Presupposition 1 - Human beings have volume!

(The volume implies that they can be seen by others and by oneself; that when
They enter (or leave) a room everybody will understand that this particular
volume
Has entered (leaved) the room.

Presupposition 2 - Human beings are animals

(they can see the others, the others' movements; feel the warmth of others,
interpret many signals that we transmit to each other  - as the other
animals do
to each other of the same species).

Presupposition 3 - In OST the non-verbal signals that people transmit to
each other
are vital ingredients as important (more important?) as the law and principles.

Presupposition 4 - People (volumes) cannot be in two places (rooms) at the
same
time

Presupposition 5 - To go from one session to another people have to LEAVE the
first one (and that will be noticed by everyone that is there - and before
leaving
one knows that the others can see that), to spend some time WALKING from one
place to another (they are NOT real bumblebees - the bumblebee metaphor is
just
that - a metaphor) and then ENTERING the new room (again, being seen by
everybody that is there).

Presupposition 6 - if one is speaking in a room the others must be
listening - if not,
no one will understand and everyboby will leave - if no one is listening
there is no
communication.

Presupposition 7 - Each person that is speaking in a room can see the others
and their non-verbal reactions.

Presupposition 8 - except in very special conditions, there can't be two
different
discussions at any time in one single "room"

Presupposition 9 - The fact that a new break out session is scheduled for
the same
room implies that the current session has to stop (or be renegotiated). The
principle "When its over..." is enforced by the physical conditions of the
conference
and the natural tendency to continue "saying nothing" (as it happens in many
meetings") is impossible.

(to be continued - and revised)

Regards

Artur

PS: As Wurman once wrote, in the information age the main problem of any
person is information anxiety, information overload, shat sometimes is
called "infoxitation". We need tools that help us avoid infoxication.

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