[OSList] Looking for earliest reference to term [Holding the Space]

[Dan Mezick]

Hello Friends,

I am writing a book this summer. It refers to Open Space in some detail.

I do believe OST is an important tool for building a world. (see below)

I am looking for the earliest known reference to the term [holding the 
space] for a book I am writing this summer.

I am seeking your help.

Harrison says the term appears in the Users Guide, but he and I are not 
able to locate the actual page number today, for various reasons.

I know the User Guide does hold this term (as Harrison says) but I do 
not the location.

I am unsure if the User Guide book holds the earliest known reference.

I wonder if you know of any earlier references to this term, in any 
other books, and are willing to post this information.

I am thanking you for any help you may provide.




Here is something to think about, from Jim McCarthy, author of SOFTWARE 
FOR YOUR HEAD and the Core Protocols:

ON WORLD BUILDING (Page 290, describing the "Far Vision" protocol)

You work hard, burn out, and wonder why you bother.

You always play a role in creating the future, whether you choose to
manage that role or not. Perhaps it is true of you that you can see no
greater purpose to your work than supplying your own material needs
and those of your company. Without purpose, you have a random
effect on the future. That is, the world that results from your efforts
is an accidental world.

Your team’s FarVision must answer this question:

What kind of world are you building?

The initial answers to this question are not always satisfying,
because you don’t usually think of your daily activities as world
building. When suddenly faced with such a question, you feel
unprepared. You might avoid a direct answer. You might ask for clarification
of the question. You might try to “talk away” the emptiness
of your preliminary answer. Regardless of the response triggered by
this query, there is real value in asking and answering the question,
because it focuses the mind on the larger opportunities available.


If you are unable to directly and unself-consciously answer this
question, you may want to examine why you don’t see the significance
of your daily grind. Of course, the question of what kind of
world you are building makes no sense at all unless you accept the
implication that you are, in fact, building a world. Most of the time, of
course, you may not consciously engage in the task of world building.
Nevertheless, your engagement in world building is a simple
truth. You have beliefs. Every day you act on those beliefs. Your
actions have external effects, and ultimately they cause your beliefs
to materialize in the world. In essence, you change the world to look
more like your beliefs. You build a world.


If you really are building a world, and if you are doing so unconsciously,
you literally don’t know what you are doing. While you might
not identify your purpose as “the creation of a world,” having a larger
motivating purpose gives you a frame of reference for choosing alternatives.
It is difficult to see how you can truly meet your daily challenges
unless you bring a sense of purpose to each moment.
Maintaining a broader purpose seems a necessary precondition
of enjoying the highest levels of personal integrity. To have integrity,
your intention, your words, and your actions must be aligned. If you
know what kind of world someone is building, and you are building
the same kind of world, then you can work together on this goal,
with much less noise and wasted effort cluttering the environment
between you.

Like other team qualities, team integrity is the aggregate of the
personal integrities of each team member, enhanced or diminished
however much by the effects of the interpersonal synergy. The
aggregate level of integrity has a positive correlation with desirable
results.

Without a central purpose, an individual or team finds it impossible
to make enlightened choices. Each day you make many choices.
Before doing so, you check the alternatives against your larger purpose
and envision how the alternatives might play out in the world
you want to create. Wise choices, those that promote your world’s
completion at reduced cost or in nearer time frames, are maximally
useful to your purpose.

Even without the context of a larger purpose, you still must
select from alternatives. Without an organizing purpose, however,
your choices will be made according to whim and spontaneous,
sometimes bizarre, and usually inconsistent motives. Inefficiency,
apathy, premature cynicism,6 and failure result when individuals or
teams make product design decisions in this way. The Core, on the
other hand, provides you with a purpose template: to build a world.
Individuals, teams, and institutions have found that the most challenging,
useful, and satisfying task is world building.
Many worlds and many kinds of worlds are possible.