Open Space and academic research

Wed Dec 2 08:35:07 PST 2009

One reason that I was able to conduct academic research in OST with few problems is because the faculty at my graduate school are participating in a significant revolution in what has been called "human science" or qualitative (not quantitative/statistical) research.
One purpose of this kind of research is not to "prove" that something works because it can be "shown" to work a certain percentage of the time; we are not testing pharmaceuticals or building auto tires. The purpose is to gather and share powerful stories of the impact of OST on people's lives, which then have an impact on the readers, who might be tempted to try it themselves.
The methods that I used in my dissertation were at the far edges of this revolution. The "organic inquiry" method, also called feminist heuristic phenomenology, was developed at the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology and is taught in several schools now. It was developed in response to the needs of bright, creative scholars, who found that the inquiries about the depths of human experience that they were most passionate about could not be conducted using the methods that they had been taught.
A small group of women professors and scholars met for several months and developed this method, which has power and appropriate rigor and the capacity to document transformative experiences in a way that the reader is moved and invited to engage.
The other method I used in my dissertation, the "indigenous science" method, was developed by an Oneida (Native American) professor and scholar, as a way to build a bridge between the Western social (and biological/physical) sciences and the ways of conducting research that have been developed over millenia in indigenous cultures/communities.
My point is to share that the field of academic research is itself transforming, in ways that may better serve the needs of people who want to study powerful processes like the ones we love.
jeff aitken PhDmount tamalpais, california

Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2009 15:42:00 +0100
From: info at tonnievanderzouwen.nl
Subject: Re: [OSLIST] Open Space and academic research
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU

Hi Harrison, 

For sure, I’m
having fun doing my research. Talking to you and many other people who are
experimenting with Self Organizing systems for High Performance (an interesting
reframing of my Large Scale Interventions for sustainable change, to what
extend do we mean the same?). I really appreciate your sharing of insights and
experiences, the great gift of your books. Actually the experiment is repeated
many times, by many practioners, matching conditions and following procedures (that
is what I call interventions) for high performance results. My point is that it
doesn’t always bring high performance, and that things can go wrong. We
don’t talk about the ones that didn’t produce good results in
publications. To put the cat among the pigeons:  If we want to be taken
seriously in the academic world, maybe the invitation should not only be “repeat
the experiment”, but also “come and review our experiments, what
performance did they bring and why?” Finding out how the power of self
organization can be utilized and assisted  even better or more widely. 

Tonnie

Van: OSLIST
[mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] Namens Harrison Owen

Verzonden: woensdag 2 december 2009 13:26

Aan: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU

Onderwerp: Re: [OSLIST] Open Space and academic research

Hi Tonnie – My experience for the last 25 years is that OS has
been a marvelous natural experiment that I just fell into. My hope would be that
any and all curious people (people with curiosity – which hopefully
includes academicsJ) would have as much fun as I have.
Truthfully, my interest in Open Space is less focused on large group interventions,
indeed any kind of intervention, but rather on the function and power of self
organizing systems and the ways in which we might utilize and assist their
gifts. 

The message of Wave Rider was not that Open Space creates High
Performance (although I think it does), but rather that High Performance is a
function a well performing Self Organizing system. Open Space (for me) became a
critical (but not only) part of the experimental environment in which I
considered all that business. You will notice that I set the book up as a
report on that experiment, detailing the experimental conditions, procedure,
and results to date. The invitation is to run the experiment for yourself. All
the questions you raise are totally valid and should you run the experiment I
am sure you will find your answers – which may or may not accord with the
answers (results) I found. But that is the nature and fun of a good experiment.
So how will you know? Just do it and find out. Have fun.

Harrison

Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Drive

Potomac,
Maryland   20854

Phone 301-365-2093

Skype hhowen

Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com 

Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org

Personal website www.ho-image.com 

OSLIST: To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your
options, view the archives Visit: www.listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html

-----Original
Message-----

From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU] On Behalf Of Tonnie
van der Zouwen

Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 6:13 AM

To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU

Subject: Open Space and academic research

Dear  Harrison, 

Yesterday I was
reading (almost) all emails on this list. Learned a lot again. What I kept
wandering about last evening is your remark about how little attention to OST
is paid so far in academic research and publications. Since I am doing research
on large scale interventions (Success factors and effects and a practical guide
for effective use of LSI)  this triggered me: What research questions would you like to be
answered in academic research?  What would you like OST to be compared with? Then I realized that
touches the question: How to see OST and what is it used for? In your book Wave
rider you give examples of OST as a method for creating high performance
systems. The practitioner in me reacts: Ok, I know it works, let’s do it.
The academic researcher in me sais: He, interesting, how do I know the high
performance system is there? How long will it last? What is the influence of
the length of the meeting? Does it ripple off, why/why not? Et cetera. 

We had two
conferences with researchers, practitioners and clients about my research on
success factors and effects of LSI. Thanks again Harrison for contributing to
the online conference. In the discussions, especially in the live conference on
September 17th,  a wide gap showed between LSI practice and academic tradition. I
think that explains part of the relatively little attention in academic
research. Some practitioners say: “we don’t need evidence from
research, we already know it works”, or “research will never be
able to grasp the magic of ….” . While some  researchers say: “It is all self reported success from
founders and practitioners with an interest in a positive image”, or
“If you can’t conceptualize it you should try harder”.
Moreover, you have to work with sophisticated qualitative research methods to
do justice to complex situations and the richness of an intervention as OST. It
is my opinion most academic institutes still operate in a classic quantitative
or linear research tradition. They don’t want to burn their hands on what
they think wooly stuff, or they simply don’t know how to inquire complex
interventions. 

Another problem
with finding articles on  research on OST is that the phenomenon is labeled with different
names. On the level of OST as a large group intervention, or as an interactive
method for change more literature is available. But you don’t see OST in
the title. I gathered a long list of references, so if you are interested let
me know. 

Luckily, there
are also practitioners and researchers who see possibilities and added value in
academic research. Especially those who combine both activities.  

What would you
want from research?

Tonnie

  Drs. Tonnie van der Zouwen MCM 

  Beneluxlaan
  66

  5251 LE Vlijmen 

  The Netherlands

  Tel.:

  Mobile:

  E-mail:

  Internet:

  +31 73 - 51 11 600

  + 31 6 - 50 69 79 82 

  info at tonnievanderzouwen.nl

  www.tonnievanderzouwen.com

  www.largescaleinterventions.com 

*
* ==========================================================
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 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
Windows 7: Unclutter your desktop. Learn more.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/videos-tours.aspx?h=7sec&slideid=1&media=aero-shake-7second&listid=1&stop=1&ocid=PID24727::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WWL_WIN_7secdemo:122009
*
*
==========================================================
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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openspacetech.org/pipermail/oslist-openspacetech.org/attachments/20091202/4f23e5c6/attachment-0016.htm>