report on Moscow OSonOSonOS

[Raffi Aftandelian]

Well, no, we didn't walk out at the end of day 3 with an action plan
for organizing the 14th International Open Space on Open Space set to
take place in Moscow August 4-6, 2006.

But, we did acquire a number of new and unexpected admirers, friends,
and allies in our work, people who will help us in organizing this
event. And curiously, among the 20-25 people who attended all or part
of the event there were management consultants (including one
who is established and nationally-famous) who use pre-OST methods, an HR-manager, other new OST
facilitators, people learning to do OST, trainers, and others.

This meeting took place at the Russian State University of Innovation
and Enterpreneurship. Business here is looking with more and more
interest at OST. Indeed, Galina Tsarkova and Mikhail Pronin conducted
an OST meeting with a financial company recently. The company was
very happy with the immediate results. Galina, maybe when you have a chance you
can tell that story?

I hope to have photos from the event up online at some point.

Speaking of photos, we had a small board with photos from the Berlin
OSonOS and Halifax.

As usual for any OSonOS event there were those who wanted to
understand the method itself, so we had topics like:

- The practical experience in the application of OST with large groups
(a woman from a pharmaceutical company offered this topic, an internal
consultant had run an OST there)

- who is responsible for the result of an OST meeting?

- OST for business: recipes for success and disappointments

- What can you do and not do with OST, OST's limitations

- the Post-OST meeting syndrome among participants of an OST meeting

Other topics were:

- What must be done so that the 14th OSonOS is useful for Russian
consultants?

- The needs of OSonOS participants and how they can be satisfied

- Does the OSonOS planning process require an organizing committee,
secretariat, program committee?

-the 14th OSonOS: its highest purpose.

The last topic I put up at the invitation of Anne Stadler, who invited
us to reflect on the question of what is the  highest purpose to be
served by the OSonOS.

The answers that came to us were:

- to acquire an awareness of where we are now and to appreciate it.
- to understand OST's power in facilitating human excellence.

Curiously, when Anne's topic was announced a second time by Mikhail
Pronin, an HR manager who had been present the first night, but absent
the second day, laughed. She had announced the topic "What are
humans?" for the second day, but she had forgotten all about this
topic. And Anne's topic was essentially on this score.

Thank you for your support and we'll be keeping you informed.

Raffi

p.s. Peggy, I am flattered that my comment on OS tricking people into
a spiritual practice spoke to you. Your reframing of many "simple"
aspects of OST in your last post really spoke to me, and I filed it
all away.

p.p.s. Agneta, I think it's funny that you forgot to take pictures for
me. Our next mentoring circle here is Dec. 25 (!). All the tea,
coffee, cookies you can eat for only 200 rubles (7 dollars).





                          mailto:raffi at bk.ru

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