[OSList] OST - Open Systems Thinking

Mon Dec 12 16:13:53 PST 2011

Dear Michael,
Would you say we are at a point then, to do away with OST as a meeting
method altogether? And just recognize what takes place as part of life? I
believe you would agree that God/Goddess/Creator created the open space of
life for us to find our ways, our paths, and make our choices and actions.

I smile that in all your mails to me, you speak about your witness of self
organizing. I continue to believe and witness that there is more than this
going on, and in order to understand it is important to expand the now,
expand consciousness, indeed shift consciousness, and a whole new world
appears...beyond self organizing.

Some years ago, 1995 I think, there was a great gathering of some of us at
the invitation of Anne Stadler and Harrison Owen who participated in a five
day OST meeting which Harrison and Anne co-facilitated. I cannot remember
all who were there, although I do remember Peggy and Neil Holman, and John
Perkins, and of course Denish. The purpose of the five days was to explore
'Expanding Our Now'. Surreal experiences happened. Those of us who gathered
discovered it was difficult to explain the experience to anyone else, our
now got expanded, and there was no point of return. I am not sure that we
self organized so much as we turned to mush, one big loving puddle of it. Of
course, before we got to that point, a pumpkin had been smashed in order of
Lord Shiva, and various and sundry other things occurred. I recall defending
the pumpkin, and then Harrison stepping in to sacrifice himself instead of
the pumpkin...I remember having to make a choice. I think you can get the
picture. Way beyond self organization when you get into the now so deeply.
And indeed, OST is a quick way to get there...to the NOW. I would not have
liked it to have less structure than the OST so carefully held by Anne and
Harrison to make sure we all made it through in one piece.

Sent with a big hug,
Birgitt
Ps. I am happy for your joyous experiences and to hear about them.

-----Original Message-----
From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Michael M
Pannwitz
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 6:43 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] OST - Open Systems Thinking

Dear Birgitt,
yep, its good to be clear on OST as a method and in general in how words 
and language are being used, definitely a life long learning journey for me.

In this spirit, I keep reminding myself that while OST might have 
started as an ingenious two-martine (lets be clear on this also, that it 
is a gin martini done New York style) meeting facilitation method...
I now know that there are a number of side effects (the stuff we are 
reminded to watch out for when taking a medicine) that make it clear to 
me, that it is actually only incidentally a decent meeting facilitation 
method but in essence a neat and simple (of course, not easy) way to 
expand time and space for the force of selforganisation to do its stuff. 
In that, it is unique and well seperate from all other meeting 
facilitation methods.
In fact, I find it increasingly easier for me to not call it 
"facilitation" (in German, there is a word that seems to fit the mode of 
what in english is the "facilitator" much better, Begleiter...sometimes 
"witness" has been suggested).

I witnessed this again at our second "Spirit of Christmas" gathering on 
the street of our neighborhood. An invitation went out stating beginning 
time and the date plus a few other things such as "bring something home 
made to eat plus glass, fork...Someone had designed a beautiful 
invitation, others hand-delivered it to every home inviting all family 
members and friends,  a couple of kids put up signs (as they had seen 
others do the year before) creating a "safe" space (all cars chose to 
bypass our gathering)... well, it was a blast and, as last year, a whole 
bunch of ideas (no issues were posted and there was no design for action 
planning) popped up in the dozens of small groups forming and 
reforming... phone sessions are taking place, people meet at the corner, 
emails are bounced back and forth...
(a relatively safe space, a yearning for deeper neighborhood, a mix of 
very different people of which some had had contact but others not, kids 
that got adults involved in play and fun....)
And still, hardly anyone "sees" what is happening. People wonder why it 
works so well and are amazed how a vastly diverse and luscious buffet 
appears without any master mind organizing it... they actually are 
looking for those that made it happen.....

Greetings from Berlin
mmp

On 12.12.2011 17:46, Birgitt Williams wrote:
> Looking deeper into the website, Artur, it is not at all clear who these
> people with OST (Open Systems Thinking) are. What they have at one point
> in their documents, however, is an article by Emery about Open Systems
> Thinking with reference that it is OST. I find this odd because Emery,
> also a highly regarded thought leader in organizational development, is
> well aware of OST as Open Space Technology.
>
> Ah well. As Harrison says, OST is not trademarked. However, all of his
> books including Open Space Technology are copyrighted (also a legal
> designation). And despite the copyrighting, it is not worth defending as
> OST is out there sufficiently in the world as Open Space Technology
already.
>
> One reason that I am such a stickler about using 'Open Space Technology'
> rather than the shortened form 'Open Space' is that there is even more
> confusion about 'Open Space' as applied to this meeting method since
> Open Space as a term was used long before OST came along.especially in
> architecture and landscape architecture. I think that the more we all
> are careful about mentioning 'Open Space Technology', the more that
> there is a common recognition of a fabulous meeting facilitation method.
>
> Birgitt
>
> *From:*oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
> [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] *On Behalf Of *Harrison
Owen
> *Sent:* Monday, December 12, 2011 10:45 AM
> *To:* 'Artur Silva'; 'World wide Open Space Technology email list'
> *Subject:* Re: [OSList] OST - Open Systems Thinking
>
> Never heard of them. Thank God I never patented or trademarked OST. Just
> imagine all the trouble I would be in defending the indefensible - or
> something. Much more fun just to give it all away. And you certainly
> meet incredibly interesting people J
>
> ho
>
> Harrison Owen
>
> 7808 River Falls Dr.
>
> Potomac, MD 20854
>
> USA
>
> 189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)
>
> Camden, Maine 20854
>
> Phone 301-365-2093
>
> (summer) 207-763-3261
>
> www.openspaceworld.com
>
> www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
>
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of
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>
> *From:*oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
> [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] *On Behalf Of *Artur Silva
> *Sent:* Monday, December 12, 2011 9:52 AM
> *To:* OSLIST New Adress
> *Subject:* [OSList] OST - Open Systems Thinking
>
> Hi:
>
> Have any of you ever heard about this?
>
> *OST - OPEN SYSTEMS THINKING <http://www.thelightonthehill.com/>:*
>
> *http://www.thelightonthehill.com/*
>
> Interesting...
>
> Regards
>
> Artur
>
>
>
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-- 
Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany
++49-30-772 8000
mmpanne at boscop.org	www.boscop.org

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