SV: New member

Wed Dec 17 15:55:26 PST 2003

Dear Dominique (cc Philippe)
Welcome to the OS-community. I?m also happy to have you on board!
Not to long ago another French man contacted me asking me to share my
experiences from our starting OSI Sweden. The story might be worth repeating
on OS-list so here it goes, the short lifestory of OSI Sweden (from my
perspective):

Starting in the 90?s Harrison Owen and Birgitt Williams have been to Sweden
a number of times. Some of our collegues have also facilitated OS-trainings
and a number of consultants use OS in their work. My view of it though, is
that not too many focus really clearly on OS and what has grown outof OST e
g the Genuine Contact (TM) program. There are a few of us, to my knowledge.
The last years me and my collegue Eiwor Backelund have offered open OST
trainings as well as GC-trainings on regular basis.

Since about 2,5 years we have had monthly meetings, to share and learn about
OS and other issues on our minds, here in Gothenburg at the westcoast. In
autumn 2001 we decided to register OSI Sweden. On that meeting we also had
collegues visiting from Stockholm which was good. Otherwise there might have
been a risk that it would have been viewed as a "west-coast-thing". Actually
we also had a guest from Holland on that very meeting - Koos, who cheered us
on) ! Anyway the formation of OSI Sweden didn?t make much of a difference to
our lives, of course. One of the reasons why we decided to go ahead to
register the name was that there are/were some organizations in Sweden who
certify OS-facilitators. We wanted to make sure that OSI-Sweden should be an
organization working in the open spirit of OS. So OSI Sweden didn?t "live"
too much until quite recently.

Well, together with OSI Denmark we have organized 2 Scandinavian OSonOS?s
2002 and 2003 (with about 20 and 10 participants). Actually I also organized
a Swedish Online-OSonOS using OpenSpace-Online, last autumn. One result from
that meeting was that we started a Swedish listserv which is on
www.smartgroups.com There are about 25 people connected so far but, so far,
not a lot of communication going on. I do think that it may become an
important tool further down the road.

As I guess you know, we organized the 11th International OSonOS last August.
That was quite a challenge but worked very well. There were me and my
collegue Eiwor who put a lot of effort into this in Sweden, together with
our Danish/Dutch friend Gerard Muller. Unfortunately nobody else got really
into it due to different reasons. We did put effort into making sure the
invitation to join in was out but "whoever comes..." and "whatever
happens...". It worked great anyway!

During OSonOS we invited our Swedish collegues to talk about the future of
OSI Sweden. We had a short but really inspiring meeting and made some
decisions. Everybody wanted to take part in the work to develope this
further. One of which was that one of our collegues from Stockholm (east
coast) would take over the role as chairman 2004 for OSI-S, we also had some
new members of the board. We think it?s important to share responsibility in
leadership. A team of collegues in Stockholm volunteered to host the 3rd
Scandinavian OSonOS 18-19 of March 2004(you?re welcome to join in!). I?m
happy that people have taken the chance to engage and take responsibility to
jointly develope the OS-work in Sweden and the world. I?ve recently made
some new contacts in Finland and Norway so hopefully our Scandinavian
network will grow too.

I wish you the best of luck in forming an OSI France. My advice is, just get
a bunch of people together. Start meeting regularily and see what happens.
Staying connected to the international network of OS facilitators is a great
help in the development, I think.
Warmest regards
Thomas Herrmann, Sweden
 -----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
Fran: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]For Dominique Proudhon
Skickat: den 16 december 2003 08:58
Till: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Amne: New member

  Good day all,

  I joined the OSlist a few days ago and have been lurking for a while. I am
very impressed with the quality of the exchanges on this list and find
myself drawn to participate. Several threads called my attention; in
particular the one questioning the list itself (what are we doing? Aren't we
loosing our spirit, Should we split?) -I find these conversations very
healthy. And also the one about Civil Conversation, which resonates with an
old questioning of mine around ways to implement real participative
democracy - I am dreaming of initiating some real debate around the question
"what world do we chose to build for tomorrow?". I believe we humans are
caught up in our own contradictions: after centuries of evolving faster and
faster technically, and having more transformative power than ever, we are
now facing the essential question of  Meaning: How do we participate in the
world and to what end? What is our responsibility in regard to what is
happening in our world? Especially all the "not so nice" little things like
irreversible destruction of earth resources, loss of entire species, wars
and weapon builders, starving, and all that noisy ongoing disconnected
stupidity on our tv and radio shows that take people away from being.  I
believe that for the first time, we, at least in "developed" countries, have
won the freedom to look beyond simply working for survival, to ask
ourselves: how do I want to also make this place a little better?

  Anyway. I'll stop here for today. My goal was actually to introduce
myself:
  I am French and leave in Grenoble. After a PhD in molecular/cellular
biology and 6 years of research. I decided to do something else with my life
and moved to human resources development. I actually did that career move in
the US: I lived 10 years in North Carolina. I wanted to understand why
people so often get into conflicts because of "films" they make in their
heads that have little to do with reality. I wanted to find ways to work on
re-establishing lost connections, especially in the workplace, where they
could serve common projects and goals. I trained with Will Schutz,
originator of the Human Element, became a mediator, trained in various
psychometric tools and got to work with various groups. Two years ago, just
before I came back to France, I bought a book that called my attention: Open
Space Technology, a user's guide. I read it in the plane. It was one of
those "ha ha": I found something I was looking for. A piece of extreme
simplicity that called on very ecological principles to set the stage for
real connection between people and for meaning to happen. On top of that,
this approach was shared openly without any bind, just as a gift to
humanity, which seduced me even more...  I decided to try it as soon as I
would get the opportunity, here, in France. Starting a new business as a
group facilitator/team consultant has not been easy thing. Things are slow
going and I often get discouraged. But I finally got the opportunity to run
two different open space events for two different clients in the last year
(30 people and 36 people). Both very energizing experiences and both around
the question "How could we improve the way we function as a team?": I loved
the first moments of surprise in people's eyes, and then the sudden rush to
bring up issues as they understood that the event was theirs. Several
persons approached me at the end telling me how much this work had moved
them from a negative reactive position to an engaged position and telling me
about a number of places they would see such work as useful. Thanks to
Harrison, they got a gift they deserved. Felt quite good to serve in such a
meaningful way. I'll continue. I now would like to share this approach with
others in France and starting a French Open Space Institute (web site in
preparation for sometime next year). Of course, I have plenty of questions
around OST, but I'll wait: This post is already long enough, you guys are
busy, and I need to read more of the documentation to make sure I am not
asking questions that have already been answered 20 times.

  All the best to each of you,

  Dominique

  Note: I am a guy, for those who would wonder.

  Dominique Proudhon

  Group Facilitation
  Problem solving
  Conflict resolution

  Dampierre
  38470 Notre Dame de l'Osier

  (33) 4 76 36 71 34

  (33) 6 78 91 48 77

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