Other Personal Reflections on WOSonOS 2010 in Berlin (long and final)

Tue May 18 14:48:27 PDT 2010

Dear friends,

Following my previous mail, I would like to compare what happened at OSonOS
2000 with what happened at WOSonOS 2010, both in Berlin. I will try to give
attention to some "facts" but, of course, my feelings,
sensations and learnings are also present. This is my last mail of this
series.

1) The facilities 

OSonOS 2000 took place in a residential
training facility, with a very large hall, a very large room where 300
people could be accommodated in two (also very large) concentric circles, with
the rooms for breakout sessions separated, clearly identified, and large enough
for the expected people. (To have a taste of it, you may see some
pictures of OSonOS 2000 at: http://www.openspaceworld.org/cgi/wiki.cgi?OSonOS8Pics).The fact that it was residential, and the majority of the participants were staying
there, allowed for butterfly encounters at any hour, including in the middle of
the night (two or more people with insomnia or jet leg). The meals where all
good, substantial and varied and allowed for emergent (the contrary of planned)
group forming and dialogue. Only the last morning, fully dedicated to
the discussion of "where will next OSonOS take place?", was in a
room that didn't a allowed for a circle, but an almost rectangular
"circle". But the closing circle, in the afternoon, was again in the
main room. MMP told me that this facility is now only dedicated to the training
of civil servants (if I understood well), but not available anymore for rental.
Due to the fact that the main room was really big, reports from the sessions
could be placed inside it.

On the contrary, people
attending WOSonOS were separated in at least 4 hotels and many homes graciously
offered by organizers and other participants from Berlin (Jutta Weimar did
a great job as Chief Housing Officer!) The event himself took place
in a beautiful old Church, reconverted to "Business", that would be
great for an OST session with less than 80, or perhaps 100 people, but never
170, with very small spaces for breakout sessions, insufficient space for the
meals, and only one toilet for men open and another for women, which is clearly
not enough for 170 people, many of which had travelled from far away, with
different cultures and meal's habits and could have difficulties to adapt to
the type of food provided. The food was very similar in the two lunches, clearly
not adapted to different tastes or dietary restrictions. In the main session
room there were four concentric circles, with a very small open space at the center and people in the last two rows
could only see the back of the heads of the people in the two central circles
(it reminded me of a classical class room, only that in circle). With no more
space in the interior, reports were posted outside the main room. (You
can see photos of the event, made by Gerardo de Luzenberger, in the main page
of the NING site or at http://openspaceworld.ning.com/photo/photo/list.
Registration is needed but there is no fee and the questions you will be asked
are only to avoid spammers.) 

2) The opening    

The opening of OSonOS 2000 was
done by Harrison Owen, in English, intertwined with Michael M Pannwitz, in
German. I have been told that MMP did a real opening and not only a translation,
but, not knowing German, I am not able to confirm. But it was a solid, magnificent,
"four hands" opening. They were both good in their tone and twist. Great! 

The opening of WOSonOS 2010
was of the worst opening that I ever attended. The facilitator said (if I
understood well) that she never attended a WOSonOS before, was probably nervous
in the first day, by facing some very experienced people (which I understand
very well...) and, during the opening, never found the correct tone to address
simultaneously experienced Open Spacers and complete novices. She presented the
principles, but forgot to present the law, then referred the animals - that,
with no previous reference to the Law, were not understandable by novices. Later
presented the Bulletin Board and the post its with time and space, where the
breakout spaces were marked with symbols (not numbers or letters), and without
a map of the Church with those spaces placed, which was not available
at the opening, but only when the topics were being presented and some
"spaces" already chosen. The two upper spaces had no conditions at
all. The idea of spaces marked with "graphics", that may seem
"interesting", was IMHO completely confusing, as no order can be
established (it must be because of it that, in all countries that I know, cars
are identified by numbers and letters and not by graphic symbols). Naming the
spaces by symbols was one more thing to do - the exact
opposite of one more thing not to do. I am not
saying anything negative about the capacities of the facilitator, that are
probably excellent in a different context - only about her performance at this
opening. After such opening she could not, of course, hold the space, but their
following interventions were better, until everything collapsed in the last
morning (see below).

In the evening news, some
people manifested their discomfort, and others approached me asking "This is
the "marvelous" OST I came to see?"," What I am doing here,
when I have a lot to do elsewhere?", "can I go back and be refunded?" 

3) The schedule

The schedule for OSonOS 2000
was fluid - or so I felt, maybe because there were more time, and the
facilities I have mentioned. One could rest or butterfly freely.

The schedule of WOSonOS 2010
was "rigidly defined", with almost no time for coffee breaks, only
one hour for lunch (that was normally only half of that, as sessions occupied
more time then allotted in the "regulations"), with no conditions for
real socialization during the breaks. Where is the "energy of the coffee breaks",
when people came to there at different times, and there is no time for people
to speak during those periods? (they had just the time to say "Hello",
unless they had decided both not to attend the next session). 

In the first overall plan presented,
for the last day, there were two hours provided for "Action Planning"
(is Action Planning justified at an OSonOS, were there is no theme?), only one
hour for the closing circle (not enough, of course, even if some people had
already leaved), and no provision of
time to discuss "where will WOSonOS go in the two following years?".
Having that been told to the organizers in the first evening news, at least by
two people, no arrangements were made to
allocate time to that discussion, which obliged Brendan to propose a new
session (that was combined with another I had previously proposed with the
World wide OSIs - or similar organizations - where some did not care to send at
least one member, namely Germany, France and Italy) to make a pre-discussion of
that subject, but the decision has been delayed to the final day, because
almost everyone felt it should take place by the all circle, as it normally
happens. 

Indeed, the plan for the last
morning has been changed by the organization, but IMHO it has been changed for worse, with "Reading the Book of Proceedings"
transformed in "Reading the Wall of Proceedings, a new, not initially
planned, 20mns session of reflection, in the beginning, after morning
announcements, first individually (but I am a grown up already and I don't need
to be commanded to make a personal
reflection in 10 minutes) and then "in pairs" (is this OST?). And
only 10 minutes were allotted to the discussion of "where to go for the
two following WOSonOS?", presented like "10H50-12H00 -
Announcing Future WOSonOS" as if it was only hearing the results of a decision
taken in a breakout session, instead of having invitations and a decision taken
by all the participants: 10 minutes to hear invitations and made a
decision is quite interesting - were the organizers joking or did they not want a decision to be made?

And, when Thomas insisted that
this matter should be discussed before we left the room, there was still an
observation about the "need to respect the schedule". But of course, "when
it's over, it's over" as an evident corollary (that, btw, was stressed in
one post) that "When it is not over, it is not over".  

Then that discussion took half
an hour (and continued during the closing circle as for many it was not clear if
the decision had already been taken or not). And the closing circle was a real
mess, with people changing places, people leaving for some moments to get food
(because they were angry), and some not coming back, people stand up out of the
circle and the impossibility to "turn out" as I have already
commented.

4) Remarks

I don't understand why all
this happened. MMP has the experience we all recognize and many of the other
organizers are also very experienced, and I am sure they worked a lot, as that
was clear in their faces. Maybe that made some of them lack the clarity of
judgment for what, for them, were probably last minute changes, imposed by some
heretic people.

What went wrong? Or it is only
in my head that something is wrong and the "reality" (whichever that
is, is "all right"? If someone can give me some enlightenment I will
feel obliged. 

And it was not all bad, of
course. 

A lot of sessions were
marvelous and, as usual, one had to make choices about what to attend and what
not. And many contacts were great both in the sessions and in the evenings, as
far as I have been told by many participants.

5) Provisional Conclusions

I don't know exactly all that
happened and why it happened, but for me OSonOS 2000 was great, magical, and I
left it full of energy and projects (to help create a multilingual
openspaceworld.org site, for instance).

And, for me, WOSonOS 2010 was
not that, and I left Berlin with a lot less energy than when I arrived. And
now, having the work of a lost week to try to recover (multiplied by two, as we
were two) I feel sad and in need to say all this, to finally let it go, and return to what I have to
do now. I must inform all of you that I will have very little time to read any
other mails from the list until, with luck, the next weekend.

6) CODA

But all the things I have
decided to do will still be done, namely:

a) co-maintaining and co-developing
the OST NING site with Lisa and Shufang, to allow for discussions in many
languages; 
b) nurture the OSI Portugal
and make it strong in the local plan and make it more engaged in the world wide
OST movement,
c) help to make OST move South
(first to South America and later, when possible, to Africa) and more inclusive 
d) eventually, go to WOSonOS
2013, to invite WOSonOS to take place in Portugal in 2015(in the coast near
Lisbon or in the beautiful Islands of Azores) are still in my plans.

I may be sad right now, but it
is not easy to make me give up of my values and the things that have meaning
for me - the things for which I feel passion, tempered with responsibility. You
may bet on that!  

Best regards

Artur 

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