Democracy and Open Space

[Gabriela Ender]

Dear List-Members,

as the founder of OpenSpace-Online® I was invited to hold a speech and to do
a presentation in a E-Democracy-Conference in Berlin, Germany. Host of this
conference were "government-near" organizations and it was sponsored by IBM
and Deutsche Telekom (http://www-5.ibm.com/de/solutions/public/).

In my speech I spoke e.g. about the essentials about a trustful and
respektful communication and what basics we need to move forward. No matter
in what areas we are living or working, no matter in what culture or
religions. What could be the basics to live and to work in a more healthy
and in a more peaceful way? For me one of the best practise model are the
wisdom of OST like Harrison said again a few days ago here in our List: "
.... always remembering -- whoever comes is the right people, whatever
happens is the only thing that could have, whenever it starts is the right
time, and when it is over it is over. Last, but by no means least -- always
observe the Law of Two feet, and be respectful of others who do the same."

For me OST is much more than, like Michael M Pannwitz said: "I keep
reminding myself that open space is an action and planning methodology and a
window opener to the open space nature of all organisations and not a
process of "democracy". My personal view is that YES, it is all what Michael
said and at the same time the best model of practising the wisdom of a
democracy. That deep believe was for me the motivation to enable groups also
to work online, based on the principles of OST on-line. But my idea was too,
that each organizer and each group should work total independendly from us
or other third parties. So, we integrated a virtuall facilitator in that
system and additionally a code of democracy values in the beginning of that
real-time conference.

What that E-Democracy Conference showed was, that the future demand for
participation and e-participation is really big. And that "they" (the
official key speakers) are looking for practical models and for synergien
between the "offline and online world". So my key message was that we need a
proactive politicy, with the main goal "enable" sustainable democray by
practising and enabling participation more and more. And that we all - not
only the politicians - have to inspire many other people and organizations
to cooperate in opening more and more spaces for respectful and
solution-oriented communication. Regardless of whether it is online or
offline. Our ever "smaller" world needs an exchange of ideas, needs
communication! And that each of us can make a contribution. Many of our
countries need no better laws - but a better understanding of the wisdom of
peaceful and respectful communication. One of my dreams is, that the wisdom
of OST will be teached in schools ... everywhere.

Best regards to all of you!
Gabriela

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