Not so frequently told stories

[Harrison Owen]

Kevin -- I would guess that your search will not be too productive, which is
not to say that some folks over the past 20 years have found OS not to be
their cup of tea. In most of the situations which I have been able to run
down, the unhappy person was the sort who absolutely required somebody else
to tell them what to do. I could not understand that personally, but I am
clear that such people exist. In all the other situations where OS
supposedly did not live up to its billing the "fault" seeming lay with the
facilitator/sponsor. The most common case would be where folks tried a
"little bit of Open Space" which might mean a short time or very restricted
area of discussion -- in either case they really didn't have much open
space. However at the end of the day, or more accurately 7300 days (20
years) I can honestly say that I have never seen nor heard of any situation
in which OS failed to work provided the initiating conditions were present
(real issue, lots of diversity, lots of complexity, lots of conflict, sense
of urgency) and the process followed (sit in circle, create bulletin board,
open a market place, go to work).

Harrison  

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Harrison Owen
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-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Kevin
Cameron
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 4:57 AM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: Not so frequently told stories

So I was just reading over the Frequently Told OST stories list at 
Michael Herman's site,  ( 
http://www.globalchicago.net/wiki/wiki.cgi?OpenSpaceTech/FrequentlyToldStori
es 
) and I started wondering about the "not so frequently told stories".

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big believer, and my limited experience has 
been great, but I tend to learn from my (and others') mistakes and 
negative experiences. Is there anyplace that collects stories of OST 
gone bad?

My reason for asking is also that I am about to pitch OST, and I will 
feel more comfortable if I have more ammunition that "well, everyone 
else says it works great". While this may be true, with my limited 
experience I don't want to appear as though I am ignorant of the 
"nonsuccess stories". Rather, I want to be able to say "There are cases 
where it didn't turn out as well as hoped, and this is why, and how we 
can ensure that it doesn't happen this time...."

(BTW, thanks to everyone who answered my last question about 
facilitating and participating. It was a BIG help -confirming what I 
suspected but was reluctant to accept)

Cheers,
Kevin Cameron
http://www.bastish.net

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