a way forward?

Sat Nov 21 16:15:20 PST 2009

First, a copyedit:  I am a member of the Open Space Institute/US (OSI/US)
board.  Our name is OSI/US. . . remember when Xerox tried to stop people
from referring to photocopies as xeroxes because they wanted to protect
their 'ownership' of the name 'xerox, i.e. they didnot want 'xerox' to enter
the popular lexicon. . . At our recent, three-day, face-to-face OSI/US board
retreat (stay tuned folks. . . we did lots of great work and will be sharing
more with this list and the Open Space Ning as time goes by. . ), we
realized that we would like people in the worldwide OS community to stop
using the 'A' . . We are OSI/US.

I would like openspaceworld.org to belong to one or more of the Open Space
Institutes instead of to someone individually. Would you be willing to pass
the baton of ownership?  I am talking individually. I have not discussed
this in any conversation, online or otherwise. . .but as I have watched the
oslist discussions. . . and I see Harrison's recalcitrance to supporting
OS's online evolution -- which is is wholly free to do -- Harrison, like
everyone else in OS, lives by the law of two feet --  I think many on this
list give Harrison unacknowledge rank and privilege. . his word can appear,
to many, as dictums and pronouncements . . . and the power and respect he
has earned tends to block the OS community, I believe, from seeing new
possibilites. . . we all kinds get mired in an almost cult of honoring
Harrison's pronounements. . . I wish he would be more open to the evolution
of OS . . but he is entitled to his opinions, of course. . .

anyway. . . it occurred to me that maybe the existing Open Space Institutes
could form an NGO and the NGO could take over responsibility for the
website. . .

Harrison's insistence that the oslist is the best way only means it is the
best way for him. And I am pretty sure Harrison would agree that he is not
to be followed unquestionable like a god or icon.  We collectively invent
and re-event this experiment in OS . . refusing to consider moving beyond
this list reminds me that twenty years ago, every single person I knew said
they would never get a cell phone.  Insisting that the oslist is the only
way and the best way, esp. coming from the most powerful voice on this list,
Harrison, is, culturally, very narrowminded.

On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 11:51 AM, Michael Herman
<michael at michaelherman.com>wrote:

> 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.orgon 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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-- 
Love rays,
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. . . the great and incalculable grace of love, which says, with Augustine,
"I want you to be," without being able to give any particular reason for
such supreme and unsurpassable affirmation.  -- Hannah Arendt

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