Open Space / Open List

Birgitt Williams birgitt at mindspring.com
Thu Mar 18 17:35:34 PST 2004


Drew,
thank you for the logo. And for the work on the site.

Could you please make one correction on the site. The quick links would look
better in a little table across the page, I think...if it is possible. Also,
in the quick links you have two titled "whole person process facilitation"
but the second one should be "Conscious Open Space Organization".

With light and love I wish you joy, peace, God's grace and blessings, and
that you prosper in all things,

Birgitt





-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]On Behalf Of
Harrison Owen
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 11:59 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Open Space / Open List


>From the very beginning (1985) Open Space Technology has been free and
freely available. I can't possibly remember how many times I have said this
in print, verbally, and online - but I am reasonably certain that whenever I
said it, I followed with the words -- But there is a cost. That we freely
share what we are learning. The mechanisms of sharing are multiple including
training programs, public presentations, private emails and of course
OSLIST. The substance of what we share is even more diverse: Technical "How
toss," Philosophical meanderings, and deep feelings from the heart. And in
many ways, I think the deep feelings are the most important. It is from
those feelings that we learn who we are, what we are doing, and what the
true value might be. Were Open Space simply a technical approach to better
meetings, we might avoid both the philosophy and the feelings. I believe we
have discovered, however, that OS as a meeting methodology is but a tiny
part of the reality. Over time we have wandered into the strange world of
self-organizing systems, questions of peace making, human dignity, personal
sense of worth, constructive conflict. And our journey has always been a
shared one. No single person has, or could have, the total experience. And
no one has the interpretive capacity to explain and elucidate that
experience. We can only do this together, freely and openly.

Occasionally I am asked why I never trademarked, patented, or franchised
Open Space Technology. A flip, but honest answer would be that I was too
lazy, in addition to the fact that I had better things to do than spend my
time defending the sacred precincts. The same might be said for my refusal
to "Certify" OS Practitioners. More to the point, and closer to my heart
(true feelings :-)), I really felt/feel that OS does some good in ways that
this funny world of ours can truly benefit from. Therefore I wanted it to be
freely available to whomever, wherever, and however. . . And I don't just
mean Open Space Technology as a narrowly prescribed methodology. I mean the
whole enchilada - Method, Philosophy, Feelings, and anything else that has
popped up along the way.

The OSLIST has been one critical part of the Open Space experience, and the
evolution of the global Open Space community. From the very beginning it was
open to anybody who cared - with no questions asked about why they cared or
how much. People have come, people have gone, and some have just hung out.
There has never been any promise of privacy or exclusivity, indeed just the
opposite. Anybody who thought they had joined a private, exclusive club was
operating under a severe misunderstanding. Indeed, the nature of the
Internet, of which OSLIST is an infinitesimally small part, fosters this
openness, for anything that appears anywhere in cyberspace is quite likely
to show up somewhere else. In the case of OSLIST, all of this has been
profoundly and wonderfully true. Messages forwarded and copied have gone
around the world multiple times making Open Space, and the possibilities of
Open Space, available to people and places we will never know. Fantastic!

For myself, I propose to keep the space fully open. Or if we do restrict it
to a particular community, I propose the community of the Planet. And that
is a very strong feeling.

Harrison

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, Maryland   20845
Phone 301-365-2093

Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <http://www.openspaceworld.com/>

Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
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