OST as an "halfway technology"

[Judi Richardson]

Hello Harrison and all,

I have not read all the replies to Harrison's posting as I received the
initial posting and printed it off to take with me as I travelled to Open
Space for an international conference on Globalization.

I am responding to your posting now that 140 participants have generated 40
topics and moved to their groups.  A teacher arrived last minute with 30
high school students -- and, as always, they add amazing things to the
group.  I shall catch up on the replies to your posting upon my return.

I was curious at the Halfway Technology statement and

I see OST as a complete process.  We, as human beings, are here to evolve.
For a point in time, people agree to gather, to suspend disbelief around
some principles and one law.  In your posting, Harrison, you eluded that we
do this just to be what we already are.  I consider the objective mirror of
OST -- time out of time -- as a chance to see ourselves as we are -- and
once we do that we have to change.  I would love it if people see some of
the habitual patterns they develop -- and drop those to become more of what
we are -- fearlessly.

Who am I to have the audacity to expect the group to go further?  It is
their process.  It is up to their passion and responsbility to go further.

You state, Harrison, that it would seem that OST is not to be considered.
Why beat the drum of what we don't want?  I find more and more who want to
explore the OST process -- in training and in practice.  I facilitated OST
for 38 B. Ed. students once and they started doing their presentations with
OST -- no training -- worked myself right out of a job there!

My wanting more for an organization would be "closing space" -- what right
do I have to project my disappointment on their process?  I see my work to
build a relationship to the process, to the space, the form, in building the
container as the content belongs to the group.

OST - for however long is a snapshot in time in the evolution process --
time out of time, out of habitual patterns, embracing creative tension.  I
sat up last night with participants from Uganda, Zimbabwe, Australia,
LeSotho, Canada and the US who wanted to ask questions and play with
participatory processes.

When I finish here I'm off to Toronto to facilitate a change process for an
institution including a one and one-half day OST.  The next week I am
opening space for Aboriginal Fisheries Works in the Department of Fisheries
and Oceans.  And in the moment we close the space -- it is a full
technology -- complete, perfect in its imperfection!

And for now I see a few coffee cups to pick up! <grin>

with deep appreciation for the reflection and looking forward to reading
others responses!

Judi
__________________________________________________________
Judith Richardson, MA
Coaching & Consulting
Optimizing Performance, Potential and Profitability
www.ponoconsultants.com
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Phone: (902) 434-6695 Facsimile: (902) 435-1085 E-mail: judir at accesswave.ca

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>From  Mon May 17 16:50:13 2004
Message-Id: <MON.17.MAY.2004.165013.0400.>
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 16:50:13 -0400
Reply-To: john at theexperiment.info
To: OSLIST <OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU>
From: john engle <englejohn at hotmail.com>
Subject: personal coaches in philadelphia area
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed

hi friends and colleagues.

i am wanting to be in touch with a someone in the philadelphia area who does
personal coaching.

any suggestions?

thank you,

john engle

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Search, le moteur de recherche qui pense comme vous !
http://search.msn.fr/worldwide.asp

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