a way forward?

Fri Nov 20 11:51:41 PST 2009

more from birgitt williams' chapter in tales from open space, from her list
of "key ingredients", in the spirit of finding deeper understanding AND
nitty-gritty technical moves for getting on with our work, on the web and in
the world:
*
...here is what I believe the key ingredients are to sustaining the new and
ever renewing after an Open Space event.
*

*Language. We found that many assumptions/miscommunications occurred because
we didn't take the time to teach one another our "language." Most notable
were differences in language of senior staff who kept referring to the
global picture, supervisory staff who dealt with meeting goals and
objectives, and front-line staff who talked about what faced them minute by
minute. We all still are passionate about different things based on our
role, but we've tried to teach each other our language.*

why did i not pull the plug on the websites last night?  why did i not quit
the list?  it's the same reason that i have not made other major changes in
the site(s) for a couple of years now.  and it has much to do with what
birgitt says about these differences in global vision and minute-to-minute.

it's worth noticing, i think, that when we talk about openspaceworld.org on
the oslist or elsewhere, almost everyone talks about new tools, blogs and
nings and wikis.  i'm a willing participant in those conversations.

AND... there is another conversation that i almost never have with anyone...
it starts out like this:  "...but what will i do with the powerpoint
presentation that laurel doersam contributed before she died?  what will i
do with joelle's (and peggy's) STORIES newsletters?  what about peggy's old,
original ost website hosted at the meta network?  and osonos proceedings
from ten years ago, not all of which are in the form of a simple document.
yes, of course, all these things can be archived on a server out there
forever, but how can they be kept accessible?

*the longer we go on, the more history we create.  i think this history says
as much about who we are as a community and a practice as any of the newest
tools.  if a leader comes to a site like osw and can see that we are looking
out for laurel's presentation and peggy's original site, i think that on
some level that will assure them that we are not slash and burn sorts of
folks.  leaders need to know, and i think we need to show the world, that
open space is not about destroying existing structures and leaders in our
devotion to whatever is new and emergent.
*
to continually bring our history forward gets more and more technically
challenging as time goes on.  there are more and more files and formats to
migrate, or to bury.  there is no perfect solution.  and no perfect
technology.  nor are my technical skills all not that deep.

until some of this stuff was raised in april, i didn't know how,
technically, to make more space in the openspaceworld.org site.  in response
to inquiries from osi-usa, i did some more studying and learned how i could
create whole new spaces, technically they'd be sub-domains, with addresses
like osi-usa.openspaceworld.org ...these spaces would have their own ftp
access, own passwords, and whatever group was using a space like this could
own and manage their stuff totally for themselves and others.

i gulped.  i didn't really want to be in the website business in the first
place, and this was deeper still.

since osi-usa was the only group i knew of that was actively thinking about
developing something new, i shared this new option with them.  i thought we
might learn our way into how to manage such an arrangement together, then
offer it to everyone else.  obviously, we haven't pursued this option yet,
but the offer still stands.

kaliya, i didn't offer this option to you, individually, because i'd already
tried to follow up with you on these things and i took your short or non-
replies as an indication that you'd moved on to other things.  when you have
taken your complaints to the list, or to osi-usa board members, rather than
to me personally, it makes it harder for me to get to know you better and
learn to trust you as a working partner.  in april, the conversation started
because osi-usa emailed me and asked me to comment on what you'd sent to
them.  because they brought the question to me, i made my offer of new
working space to them.  at that time they were the ones talking about
creating a site for themselves.

if you want to develop these new things, i am glad to provide hosting space
under the openspaceworld.org umbrella, in one or more subdomains.  you can
have your own space(s), own password(s), ftp access.  all of the history
that is osw can continue on it's merry terrible way and your new functions
will benefit reap whatever benefits might accrue from being part of the
highly-ranked main site.  but more than that, once your stuff is up and
running, ways to connect our history with our future might be easier for
both of us to see.

if harrison is committed to hanging around oslist for the duration, i guess
my favorite place to rest in all of this is in the design of the main home
page of osw.  the 22 langauges (21 plus farsi coming soon) matter to me.
the links to other sites like world map and os-online and ning, too.  that
page is where i'd like to continue to be able to play.  everyting behind
that, blog, wikis, resources, videos, laurel's presentation, and the like --
as long as i know it's to be well cared for, i would gladly give all of that
up to the new system.  i just want to be able to continue to take a leading
role in shaping that one front page, cuz i get such a charge out of adding
another link, another big chunk of space opening, like adding links to
research and ning this week.

please give me a call if you want to explore any of this together.

m

--

Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates

http://www.michaelherman.com
http://www.ronanparktrail.com
http://www.chicagoconservationcorps.org
http://www.openspaceworld.org

312-280-7838 (mobile)

*
*
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