[OSList] 답장: Re: Knowledge sharing open space?

[Nancy White]

I was  reading the responses, nodding in agreement, and then realized I am
sensing something that is different from "session notes" when I first
responded.  I asked myself, "why are you sensing the need for this in some
circumstances." And I read the responses again and a few things are starting
to bubble up. (Perhaps not make sense yet.)

Often in the OSes that I'm in, people come together who are not often
together. Rarely of the same organization, tribe, town, whatever. Often they
are in the rhythm of stress, hurry, sense of overwhelm. This is where more
than one day is so important (and yet, alas, still rare.) The slowing down a
bit. Breathing. So the final circle is a breath, a chance to reflect. Not
rush off. Not about the "to do list" that emerges, but taking a moment if it
feels right to take a peek at the whole(s) that emerged during the open
space. And not just in a purely analytical mode.

When we are rushed, it is harder to listen. (Hm, I realize the term "harder"
implies judgement. Maybe I should say it creates one way of listening??)  To
see. To sense. To make space for what comes from a session, from
bumblebeeing or butterflying, or even reading notes. (I agree, too, that
notes are an interesting thing. For me, the value has always been in the act
of making them, not in consuming them!)

The term "line of sight" is something I learned from Lisa Kimball
(Metanetwork, GroupJazz, Plexus). In her early work with online groups the
thing she noticed that often was missing was the ability to see each other
"out of the corner of our eyes" to get a sense of how what we as individuals
were doing/experiencing related to what others in the group were
experiencing. My favorite principle of online work is "designed for a group,
experienced by an individual in front of a computer." (one of my online
"compasses") Lisa suggested that it was worth the effort to share a little
bit so that we could build more line of sight - especially for groups with
intentional goals etc (like teams.) Tom Erickson at IBM research has also
done some really cool things with line of sight - and has a lovely metaphor:
"Door with a window"
http://hornbeam.cs.ucl.ac.uk/philip/reinvent06/presentations/CHI-2006-TomErickson.pdf

So it strikes me that in OS, we sometimes have terrific line of sight across
a whole OS in how we mingle and remix, how we share over coffee and in the
opening and closing circles. Session notes are "line of sight" tools.  Even
the marketplace wall is a terrific example of line of sight. It is built
into much of the fabric of OS. "Windows" are built into OS. But in some
contexts it is like we have lots of blinds on the windows - mostly from what
we bring into the room. That's the context where I have sensed and found
some diverse harvesting and weaving practices to have been useful. (And yes,
I admit, initially these made a lot of work for me until I realized that I
didn't have to do it, or if I did, it was because I found value in creating
a graphic capture to help ME listen better!!! LOL)

 So a shared reflective harvest/weaving may simply be the closing circle. I
can recall in my cellular memory how that felt in some OSes - like the
puzzle pieces falling into place. Or that a door was opened and it was time
to walk through it.

It may be a collage made before, during and after a shared dinner. It may be
people going up to a wall of paper and drawing or having others draw some
evocative piece of their session on a wall and then start seeing across the
sessions - not from the sense of a list of what was talked about, but those
evocative moments. In an OS a long time a go (Practice of Piece on Whidbey
Island) we made a collage that gave me more than an informational line of
sight, but an emotive/emotional one. We did a graphic capture at the Nexus
open space in Ohio a number of years back (I can dig up pictures of all of
these if anyone is interested.) What these visual weavings did for me was
not about the CONTENT of the KNOWLEDGE we shared, but evocative triggers
that helped me "see" that content in a new light. To remember it as I looked
at the images in a way that was different from my intellectual review of
notes. Does that make sense?

Just like we know so well in knowledge "management" that you can't dump all
we know into a database and voila, knowledge sharing.  There is something in
the experience that opens us to new ideas, allows us to take them in and, in
good time, pass them along. The  visual weavings or harvests have offered me
something useful in doing that. They are not formal constructs. They can
only be "planned" insofar as the materials are present (pen, paper,
recycling pile?) and space is offered for the harvest to emerge. In working
with scientists and international development folks, I know that some small
proportion will roundly reject this fuzzy bunny capture. But for others,
they take pictures. They print the pictures out and put them over their desk
and in the halls of their teams. They remember the day in a way that keeps
"what happened" fresh and relevant for as long as that is useful. They are
not action plans or to do lists. Something about the visual.

This idea that "there is something about the visual" has been emerging in my
work for some time. So perhaps this is me just learning more about the
visual, and not so much about Open Space. :-) But Dickey's post just brought
me out of the woodwork, for whatever reason.

Waving

Nancy
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