[OSList] Line of sight

Koos de Heer koos at auryn.nl
Sun Apr 10 11:18:28 PDT 2011


Hi Nancy,

Cool stuff! I especially like this part, because it ties in to a 
presentation that I am preparing at the moment:

At 17:15 10-4-2011, Nancy White wrote:
>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 presentation is about the use of on-line tools in projects and 
other change initiatives in organizations. I noticed that some 
organizations have policies that limit the use of on-line 
communication tools (chat, yammer etc.) to strictly business topics. 
In those policies, anything private is more or less censored out or 
strongly discouraged. I also noticed that in these cases, the use of 
the on-line tools is less successful (it is used less and it is 
viewed as not as much fun) and it tends to be viewed as contributing 
less to the success of the project. I think that this also has to do 
with line-of-sight. It looks as if people need the chit-chat or the 
casual side-step to find out where the other person is on an 
emotional level. That is the thing that builds trust and 
understanding. And that is why Open Space works so well while we do 
not restrict the topics or conversations at all. Maybe I am moving 
too fast and connecting things too easily, but I do think there is 
something of value here.

Thanks for bringing this up!

Warm greetings from a sunny Utrecht, where it looks as if we are 
going to have a beautiful sunset shortly.

Koos




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