Personal Reflections on WOSonOS 2010 in Berlin

Barry Owen barryo at comcast.net
Tue May 18 08:06:16 PDT 2010


Artur,

I, for one, absolutely LOVE it that you ask questions.

I consider myself to be a "Purist" or "fundamentalist" when it comes to Open
Space, and my experience is that the less I do as a "facilitator" the better
the outcome.

and so I continue to work myself into and then out of jobs :-)

Best,

b

On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 12:45 AM, Artur Silva <arturfsilva at yahoo.com> wrote:

>   Dear Open Spacers:
>
>
>
> Following the OSonOS in Berlin 2000, I sent to this list some mails about
> my personal reflections on that event (that may be seen in the Archives,
> after 22/Oct/2000), that have created some different threads of
> conversation, and invited some changes in the OST community, the first one
> being the transformation of the "opensapeceword.org site", that was until
> then only in English, in a much more international site, in many languages,
> the first ones being the Iberian (Portuguese and Spanish:
> http://www.openspaceworld.org/cgi/iberia.cgi? ), the Swedish, the French
> (with a translation of Michael Herman's Introduction to OST to French, made
> by Véronique and myself - http://www.openspaceworld.org/french/index.html),
> the German, later followed by many others.
>
>
>
> This year again (but with less free time and at a more spaced rhythm), I
> will try to do the same kind of reflections. I will begin with what I said
> in the closing circle at Berlin 2010. Please note that I have not taken any
> notes, before or afterwards, so this will not be the exact words, bur only a
> later tentative for reconstruction, that I made in the plains back home,
> probably as I had not received the Book of Proceedings that I would prefer
> to read in these flights and not the next time I will have some free time
> for it - probably not before one month from now. So, taking some time of my
> normal sleep time, here it follows:
>
>
>
> First, I would like to say that the most important things that I will take
> from WOSonOS 2010, in Berlin, apart from some sessions I have participated
> in, is the fact that I met again people that I had not seen for 10 years;
> that I finally had the possibility of seeing for the first time many people
> that I already knew from the OSLIST but could not put a face to the name
> (some of which, btw, I considered already as friends); and some others who's
> faces I knew already from the OST NING site but I had never met in person
> which I did now - only to conclude that, in many cases, I could not relate
> the person to the picture because many photos - including mine - are 5 or 10
> years old... And, of course, I made here new friends... I am sorry that I
> could not spend more time with all of you in the evenings and nights but,
> after 5 o'clock, I was too tired of trying to speak and understand English,
> had some 20-40 professional mails that needed immediate attention and, for
> health reasons of my wife, was obliged to choose restaurants that allowed
> for a strict diet to compensate from the food during the day...
>
>
>
> Second, some of you heard me say in the closing circle of Berlin 2000, and
> later repeat and clarify in many posts to the OSLIST, that the 8th OSonOS
> has been kind of magical to me. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about
> Berlin 2010. Many, many reasons contribute to that, that I will not refer
> here, as we are already out of time and it is not the correct moment and
> place, but I will refer only one that relates only with myself: no one can,
> in relation to anything, have twice a "first experience"...
>
>
>
> Third and last, I have hesitated in referring this, but I feel compelled to
> talk about it here and now. I will put this as questions and not answers but
> they are questions that I think we must address in the near future, maybe in
> Chile or even before that. I wonder if we are not missing the point of
> OSonOS and confounding things that are not mixable. First this meeting is
> called "Open Space on Open Space" and not "Open Space on Large Intervention
> Methods". And, using the words that Peggy Holman wrote in her contribution
> to the "Festscgrift" (or something like that...), that in the original "call
> for texts" was called "A present for Harrison" and later renamed "25 years
> of Open Space", OST has "simplicity of design" and shall not be confounded,
> as I saw here too often, with other methodologies where, in my opinion, the
> "facilitator" facilitates too much, disempowering the participants. On the
> other hand, and using again Peggy's words, OST comes from "generosity of
> spirit", as it was declared by Harrison as "everyone's birthright", that
> cannot be copyrighted or trademarked. But I saw here some confusion and even
> advertisement of other methods that, as they are trademarked, are not
> anymore IMHO part of OST.
>
>
>
> Please don't get me wrong: I have nothing against those other methods, that
> are legitimate and may have their own fields of application and respective
> Communities of Practice. I only wonder and question if they must be
> contemplated in OSonOS as if they were "OST". I have the questions - not the
> answers. Maybe we can take a position about that in the near future.
>
>
>
> Best regards
>
>
>
> Artur
>
>
>
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