question on open space origins

Jeff Aitken tzimtzum at earthlink.net
Tue Apr 12 11:47:22 PDT 2005


I have a battered old pocket calendar from 1989, which clearly shows that Harrison conducted an Open Space event in the basement of my old graduate school on a February weekend in 1989.

Some of our faculty and students participated in the OT conference in San Diego the year before, and invited HHO to do his magic on our little campus. The theme was something like "spirit in organization".

I remember it clearly because the closing day was my birthday, and it was my first Open Space. And it was fantastic!

Warmly,
Jeff Aitken
Petaluma California

-----Original Message-----
From: Harrison Owen <hhowen at comcast.net>
Sent: Apr 12, 2005 3:08 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Re: question on open space origins

The first time I used Open Space, other than with the International
Symposium on Organization Transformation was with Dupont. It involved some
175 polymer chemists on the re-design of a major product line. That was in
the summer of 1989.

 As for pre-work with Open Space, I have never found anything that usefully
added much. And actually every time I was in a situation when the sponsor
demanded some sort of prior "spirit raiser" the general reaction from
participants was something like -- "Why did we waste all that time?" I would
never do any more than sit in a circle, create a bulletin board, open a
market place, and get to work -- no matter how great the conflict. It is not
about "purity of process" -- just take it all under the heading of "thinking
of one more thing not to do," and "Never working harder than you have to."

Harrison

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

Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website http://mywebpages.comcast.net/hhowen/index.htm
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives Visit:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html



-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of chris
macrae
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2005 4:41 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: question on open space origins

Apologies if we have asked Harrison this question before

I wanted to write up the extent to which the networking origins of open
space, are different from the focused innovation or conflict resolution
ones

Going back to the 2 Martini story, I understand the first origin of open
space to have been that of turning an association (organisational
transformation) annual conference into a networking event

I was wondering: what was the first major open space where the
application involved an invitation which wasn't to do with an
association's gathering but a specific conflict or innovation challenge?
Also was there any additional preparation etc concerned with the early
part of the three days potentially requiring more understanding of how
to raise the communal spirits of people who may be coming together from
a conflict origin.

One of the reasons I ask is that in these days of virtual and real
communications methods, there is quite a lot of debate about how to best
use time in each mode? More specifically, I am noticing people who have
been called together for one day (and who cannot change the command that
this is all the time they will have) demanding some open (space) time on
the agenda rather than a wholly pre-planned agenda. This is going back
to how to making the most of people networking which we can then later
pick up on or of mutual shaping of ideas while we are together in real
time & real space whilst not necessarily being focused around one
challenge.

So whilst I understand there is at most one rule and 4 principles, there
is perhaps some difference in tacit experiences of a networking or
interdisciplinary open event, and a conflict resolving event. Any
origins clues on how these are similar or different?

Cheers
Chris Macrae

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu:
http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs:
http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist



More information about the OSList mailing list