[OSList] deja vu

Wed Nov 16 10:31:11 PST 2011

Dear Julie,

If you are contemplating a singular on line OST event for our global group,
the best option is Gabriela Enders' Open Space Online
http://www.openspace-online.com .

I wish to add a little more on the topic of global organizations and
meetings. I like that you and your colleagues are adept at having meetings
in which some are face to face and others are linked virtually. It is a
testament of your work in and of itself that this is working for you.

For the last eleven years I have steadily explored how to achieve
successful, life nurturing, productive global organizations. The most
passionate for me is the Genuine Contact community of professionals, now in
its eleventh year. With lots of trial and error, staying true to  our own
five core beliefs, and consciously enacting both the  principles of OST and
the  four immutable laws of Spirit of Angeles Arrien, we are now a lot wiser
as a global organization. In 2006, ownership of Genuine Contact expanded to
a co-ownership model, a legal structure was created now housed in Belize for
as much neutrality as we could create, a leadership management team was
formed of nine people from a number of different countries, and our
organization has been guided by the Co-owners, the Leadership Management
Team, and emergent leadership being enacted throughout our global community
when people are inspired to do so. The meetings of all teams, workgroups,
and co-owners take place in an on line environment. We have had a list serve
for eleven years and only now have the good fortune  to have a newly
launched Virtual Home to give us greater opportunities for our sharing and
collaboration. Using group purchasing power, we have ten Elluminate
(Blackboard Collaborate) licenses, an online meeting platform that has
allowed us to do most things that we want to in a meeting. Under the
leadership of Thomas Herrmann, Laura Bolton, Marquis Bureau, Michael
Nothdurft and some others, we now use Whole Person Process Facilitation
(WPPF) as the meeting facilitation platform for all of our meetings, as
adapted for the on line environment. It is highly participatory, with
maximum choice and maximum freedom, yet more structured than OST. We have
had good success, with groups of up to 25, of placing an OST meeting inside
of the WPPF meeting container. I am deeply grateful to all who created this
wonderful way of having our on line meetings and our online workshops. 

My work with clients is almost exclusively with global organizations with
the kind of extraordinary leaders who understand about maximum choice and
maximum freedom to get results. I am not an advocate of self organizing
systems, although I am an advocate of self management within the
organization's givens. Most weeks, I am in at least four global virtual
meetings using the above, with executives, amazing leaders, and with whole
organizations. I am interested in developing their capacity to participate
in well done highly participatory meetings globally, and having shared
experiences that these can facilitate genuine contact, be life nurturing and
highly productive. If you are interested in having discussions about
sustainability of exceptional performance of global organizations who make a
lot of use of on line environments for their meetings, please contact me at
birgitt at dalarinternational.com .

All the best,

Birgitt

tingshaBirgitt Williams

Author Genuine Contact Way

Co-owner of the Genuine Contact program

President and Senior Consultant, 

Dalar International Consultancy, Inc.

www.dalarinternational.com

Note: picture of the bells that have journeyed to numerous countries with me
for twenty-two years as an international consultant. During the closing
circle of every meeting, everyone in the meeting has held these bells. They
have now been held by thousands of people, all doing their part to create
life nurturing conditions for humanity. The bells have also been held in
blessing and in prayer by countless people, who bless all who ever hold
them, with the journey of the bells uniting all of their energies to make a
difference for humanity, one person at a time, one organization at a time,
one business at a time, one community at a time.

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Julie Smith
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 1:35 AM
To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org
Subject: [OSList] deja vu

Dear all ~

It's been a long time!  I've just skimmed through the last several months of
postings and find myself sitting here with a big silly grin.  It's really
amazing how vibrant and alive and connected everyone here still is.  A real
testament to what naturally happens when we self-organize.  :)

Two things bring me back here.  One is that I recently came across a book of
our conversation on the oslistserve that I compiled in 2002.  The book is a
little more than 300 pages and contains the remarkable conversation that
unfolded here in the days from 8-25-01 until 9-27-01.  Really.  We created
over 300 pages of conversation in the span of one month.  We had a lot to
say as we watched the world change on 9-11.  I still count that experience
as one of the highlights of my life.

The name I gave to this compilation is A Partial Diary of the Collective
Buddha.  I included a bit of art to dress it up, put things in order,
cleaned up the formatting and had it coil-bound with a cover to protect it.
I like it a lot.  For me, this book is a treasure.  So much was felt and
shared here, so many of us were so heart-moved.  

I long ago lost track of whatever computer I was using in 2002, so this copy
is pretty much what I have.  But still, I have this.  I wonder if it would
be worthwhile to take what I have back to the copy shop where I could cut
off the binding and scan all the pages into a pdf document that I could then
share.  Is this something anyone is interested in having?  If there is
interest, I will find out more about how to make this available.  Whether
you are interested in the book or not, I look forward to hearing from you!  

The second reason I came back is to learn more about the ways in which Open
Space is being used in virtual space.  I'm pondering an open space event
that serves a global community that doesn't have the capacity to get
together in the same physical room.  We are quite adept, however, at holding
meetings in which we are connected in some combination of face-to-face,
audio, and video conferencing.  I know a bit of this has been done already,
and I'm eager to learn from those who have done it.  Can someone please
point me to who I might connect with about this?  Many thanks!

Much love ~~~~~

Julie

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