Graphics in Open Space

Harrison Owen owenhh at mindspring.com
Wed Sep 25 04:00:32 PDT 2002


The use of graphics -- indeed all non-verbal forms -- is a wonderful way to
enrich and deepen the experience. But I find it important to remember that
Open Space is all about "doing with" and not "doing to." A number of years
ago, an old friend  from San Francisco created what he called Group
Graphics, and I rather suspect his work lies behind a lot of the approaches
that folks have been talking about here. His name is David Sibbett, and he
along with another old crony, Jim Shannon, concocted some marvelous images.
I loved them all, but I found myself commenting to David -- if this is
really "Group Graphics" why doesn't the group do it? Having put my foot in
my mouth, I felt compelled to come up with something. And so at the First
International Symposium on Organization Transformation (Open Space was
"born" at the third symposium) where we had some 250 participants exploring
an area that had barely been named, we created a huge bulletin board that
totally surrounded the folks -- who of course were sitting in a circle.
Around the room we had baskets of magic markers and crayons -- and an
invitation to draw what you couldn't say, or draw what you could say, but
make it clearer with a picture. For about an hour folks did their thing. At
the start it was largely individual efforts, but soon small groups formed
with group projects. When the initial wave of creation was over, we had
this wonderful walk about the hall. Totally without instruction, folks
naturally moved from their own work to their neighbors -- and of course
conversation followed, as did enhancements and improvements to the
drawings. At the end we had this marvelous mural created by everybody. I
would call THAT Group Graphics.

Harrison

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854 USA
phone 301-365-2093
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website www.mindspring.com\~owenhh

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