My reflections on the Goa OSonOS (longish)

[Alexander Kjerulf]

Hi

I just got back from India, and here are my reflections on this years
OSonOS.

First of all there were lots of things I enjoyed about the OSonOS:

    * I met some wonderful people, some for the first time; some again
    * The place was absolutely wonderful - See for yourself, I posted
      some pictures here: http://www.positivesharing.com/Goa
    * I had many great and inspiring conversations outside of the sessions
    * And best of all, we (the Happy at Work Project) may now have a
      shot at creating the Happy at Work Project, India

BUT :-)

Those of you who were there know that I was frustrated with the
conference itself. This was also true at last years event in Denmark
(the first OSonOS I attended) but at that time I chose not to express it.

During the evening news on the second day, I presented my observations
on what frustrated me. I realize of course that these are only my
experiences. Other people may have (and indeed did have) totally
different experiences. Anyway, here's what frustrated me at the OSonOS:
*Not much listening.* People seemed more eager to speak than to listen.
*Not much depth.* Few conversations achieved any real depth, since many
comments didn't seem to build on what was said earlier in the conversation.
*Too large groups.* Many (most?) groups had 10 - 20 people in them,
which of course makes deep conversation and listening more difficult.
For my taste, I prefer groups with at most 8 people.
*Too much weird stuff.* Every day of the OSonOS opened with singing,
chanting, laughter exercises and other "weird stuff" :-) . I have
nothing against that in itself (and indeed use some of it once in a
while), but it didn't really add to my experience.
*Experienced OS'ers don't seem open to input*. The experienced OS people
in the crowd were wonderfully willing to share their experiences, but
seemed less willing to listen to new ideas.
*Evening circle takes too long*. The evening circle went on for a long
time - too long in my opinion.

I say this without any intention of blame or indictment. Please also
remember that this kind of thing always looks worse in worse in writing.
And as I said at the conference, I only say this, because I think the OS
community can deal with it, and should be given a chance to do so -
rather than just me dealing with it on my own by not coming to any more
OSonOS'es.

The paradox here is, that all the conversations I had outside of the
sessions really made my coming there worthwhile, so my time there was
certainly not wasted. It's just that I KNOW that OS conversations can be
so much more than what I saw at both this and last years OSonOS'es.

Now, I'm not going to throw something like this out there, without also
thinking about what we can do about it, and so we did a session on that
on the third day. We saw some ideas brewing as to what we could do to
improve the OSonOS, while at the same time maintaining (and maybe even
strengthening) all the good things the OSonOS does for the OS community
already. This is not about revolution, it's about taking an appreciative
approach to what already works in the OSonOS, and how we can build on that.

But before we start that, there should be some sort of buy-in from the
OS community. If the prevailing mood is, that "the OSonOS is fine, don't
mess with it", then we'll leave it at the. If the mood is "The OSonOS is
fine, let's make it even more fine", then we might start with an
appreciative inquiry right here on the list - I'd be happy to get it going.

What do you think?

Cheers

Alex

--
Alexander Kjerulf
alexander at kjerulf.com
http://www.positivesharing.com

+45 2688 2373
Tagensvej 126, lejl. 613
2200 København N

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