[OSList] Peggy plus OST Linkedin Comment

Tue Oct 23 09:51:48 PDT 2012

thanks, lisa... just a couple quick clarifications...

i know osonos hosts are not pre-determined, and was just saying that to
newcomers it might look that way, when we arrive with invitation materials.
 it didn't used to be that way and i was just suggesting that we consider
what is the best way of making that decision.

i think you are right about berlin1 being the first "wosonos" though i
don't think that vancouver or melbourne used that frame.  in berlin, it
made sense as a celebration of our leap across the pond, our expanding in
the world.   again, i want to suggest that this frame might  have outlived
it's usefulness.  yes, when there is one W event a year, people know which
of several osonos events harrison and some "old hands" might show up... but
of course it's not about them.  i'd like us to consider that they are all
simply open space gatherings for the purpose of working on our practice of
open space.  for me, osonos is not about reaching out to "underserved"
areas (whatever that means) or celebrating a number of years, that stuff
happens.  access expands when people do things directly for themselves,
like when john engle brought folks to vancouver and then started the
haitian osonos series.  i agree that all osonos events are equal, all
different, but none better... so i don't understand the continuation of the
world designation.

i appreciate that you have been pulling together notes from hosts along the
way.  in most years, i have called or emailed the new host to offer my
availability to talk about past osonos hosting, as well as offer
openspaceworld.org linking and hosting support.  it's very tricky to have a
legacy captured in a handbook like you've developed, or in a website like
openspaceworld.org for that matter, and still be absolutely at our edge of
emerging.  i don't know what the right way is, but i would really like to
hear from more of us about some of these ways we do things, mostly without
considering as a community what effect we might be having.

in my experience, in osonos and every other os i've ever seen, every little
thing we add creates another large or small edge where we can get caught,
where the flow can eddy and churn and stagnate.  so i'd very much like to
have more conversation about what it is we've added to osonos over the
years, and consider -- without critique of individual faciltators or events
-- but consider as a community what we are and are becoming.

m

--

Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
312-280-7838 (mobile)

http://MichaelHerman.com
http://OpenSpaceWorld.org

On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 11:03 AM, Lisa Heft <lisaheft at openingspace.net>wrote:

> Hi, all.
> I cannot comment on or imagine what Paul feels. He is not here to say so.
> But I welcome that you are sharing, Michael, how you feel.
> Not that you need me to welcome it ;o) but I just wanted to say I
> appreciate your sharing your thoughts and feelings about this.
>
> About hosting OSonOSs and WOSonOSs -
> (and if I recall, Michael M Pannwitz started using the W - wasn't it you,
> MMP? - and it evolved as a common usage term - yes?)
>
> No, choosing a host / location is not pre-determined - if I understand
> your concern about that correctly. And feel free to correct me if I am
> wrong on interpreting your concern there.
>
> On the OSLIST here you've seen me say 'if you are thinking of hosting... /
> if you would like to learn from past hosts ... / if you cannot come to a
> WOSonOS and are thinking of hosting and would like someone to represent
> you...'
> I do this not because i am part of some pre-determined decision but
> because I am one person whose enthusiasm for access and inclusion inspires
> me to invite co-learning and a real welcoming for OSonOSs and WOSonOSs
> shared across the world.
>
> People think of whether their community feels ready to host - or whether
> they want to instead continue growing their OS learning community to grow
> local capacity without also dealing with this other kind of event. The
> WOSonOS or OSonOS being one part of a chain of things happening in their
> region that grow OS capacity.
>
> We (me, others, with and without me) have these conversations all year
> 'round - whoever wonders about it all and wants to share thoughts - on
> OSLIST, one-on-one, in emails, in cafes, and in other places and
> conversations I am not aware of.
>
> And then some either come to an upcoming WOSonOS - or ask for support to
> come - or ask for someone to represent them - when they and their community
> feel ready and / or inspired to do so.
>
> And then someone or someones come - or create something lovely with their
> colleague-representatives who are coming.
> During the WOSonOS it's useful for those thinking of inviting to tell the
> host team so there is time in the program design for however many
> invitations there may be plus the conversation that may follow.
> if more than one group is inviting the WOSonOS - everyone in circle - has
> a conversation about it until they sense with mind and with body which
> invitation to select.
> When my community felt ready we invited - and invited again over three
> consecutive years - because the group did not sense and feel that our time
> was the time... until it was the right time. All good.
>
> For some of those years I could not attend. So as I invite others to do -
> I asked some really creative and brilliant colleagues who were going (I
> love you, Thomas and Eva!) to invite to my country on my behalf.
> In 2003 ('Swenmark') Brian Bainbridge and I had fun inviting the world to
> Goa, India on behalf of Janet Pinto, at her request.
>
> Meanwhile, OSonOSs happened, all over the world, and keep happening.
> As in the UK - several practitioners met at the WOSonOS who were from the
> same region - actually had never known of each other before - and I think
> there's an OSonOS bubbling up there in our near future.
>
> It is not a WOSonOS convening manual, Michael - if what you were referring
> to was the Wisdom from Past Hosts letter I have gathered and grown over the
> years. It is just a collection of thoughts from past host teams that -
> again, as someone inspired to help grow OSonOS learning and community
> around the world - I had some interest and energy to create and to add to
> each year - so that host teams had with them the voices and experience of
> others who have done this particular kind of international co-learning
> experience before them. There are so many lessons-learned about access and
> inclusion - from the way host teams have learned to generate visa
> invitation letters - to flexible pricing on registration, to amazing energy
> behind-the-scenes - to help people of different levels of class, power,
> travel experience, language and OS knowledge join us. And yes - I host an
> OSonOS every year that is much simpler - because I am one person hosting
> for those annual OSonOSs. So I do less. But I will say that most of the
> 'more' things a host team does - and again: most of that is unseen to
> participants - are true passion and lots of amazing ideas and tasks that
> result in diversity, inclusion, and to me, true invitation and welcoming.
> Very exciting.
>
> And personally, as one who does both events - I do count all OSonOSs and
> WOSonOSs as equal. They are all opportunities for a diverse community to
> get together to share some precious face-to-face co-learning. Call them
> what you will - OSonOS, Learning Exchange, WOSonOS. They are all
> opportunities for whoever is near or can get there (sometimes with help,
> sometimes on their own) to learn and share and celebrate. So I do see them
> as equal, and full, no matter what they are called. I am not someone who
> usually counts things. But I always wonder why there aren't more OSonOSs -
> bring them on! They are delicious!
>
> Thank you for this conversation, and for this opportunity to share what my
> own experience has been regarding process and invitation,
>
> Lisa
>
>
> On Oct 23, 2012, at 7:43 AM, Michael Herman wrote:
>
> If the experience is one of desiring a simpler execution of the basic
> practice, then the solution is to offer to host an wosonos for yourself.
>  If, however, you're from the UK, for instance, and the UK has just hosted,
> that means you don't really have a shot at it for at least a few years.
>  Further, if the process of choosing a host/location looks like it's been
> pre-determined (which it often does, based on past comments by various
> participants), then even if somebody like Paul was willing to host and the
> community was willing to stay in the UK for another year, he wouldn't feel
> like he had access to the process anyway.  Finally, if the pre-determined
> processing of the decision, or pre-conversations, about the next invitation
> happen someplace other than in the event, newcomers like Paul are right to
> say they are excluded.
>
> With all these conditions present, it's quite possible that Thomas' three
> ways of using Two Feet only make the situation worse.  When someone comes
> to the conclusion that they are stuck on the outside of the group and the
> best we can say is "Leave if you like," that would seem a recipe for a bad
> feeling -- especially once someone has made some investment to get to this
> event and might feel stuck there for the two days, trying to figure it out.
>
> I'm not trying to put words in Paul's mouth or speak for him... I'm just
> saying that it's possible that the way we invite and welcome and include
> people in wosonos conversations, including the ones about where the next
> event(s) might be held, might be ripe for review.  As we go along, and get
> deeper in our own community practice and accumulate artifacts and habits,
> we start to look a lot like a traditional organization -- in the sense that
> we have an interest in stability, continuation, dependability, and such --
> even as we are supposedly all about emergence and making it up as we go.
>
> Like look at our watch midway through briefing the principle that says
> "whenever it happens is the right time," the more habituated we become in
> our gathering practice, the more we depend on and add to how we do wosonos
> -- (even the W that got added a few years ago, for instance, creates
> scarcity by giving one event some "specialness" above all others that year)
> -- the more we add to our wosonos convening manual, beyond what's in the
> user's guide, the more we are potentially perceived as welcomers who aren't
> being very welcoming.
>
> What if we didn't have any more Wosonos events, for instance, what if we
> just counted ALL osonos events as equal.  We wouldn't necessarily celebrate
> the "20th anniversary" but could celebrate the 20th osonos and the 30th and
> 100th... without giving the one somehow decended from Harrison's original 4
> events at dulles airport any more importance than what lisa does in san
> francisco, john does in haiti, or we've done here in chicago in the past?
>  If all osonos events were allowed to be held as equal, then anyone could
> put one on the map and the only side conversations would be among old
> friends deciding where they might be able to meet up.  And note, too, that
> there's nothing that says that if someone is hosting in australia, i can't
> host an full and equal peer gathering at the very same time, in chicago.
>  neither event needs special W-ing, and anyone can choose between either
> gathering, and be surprised by who shows up, from how far or near.
>
> These are things I've thought about for many years, and found few ripe
> openings to discuss, in part cuz I've not been able to attend osonos
> anywhere for some years.  So I can appreciate how somebody newer to the mix
> might feel frustrated having made an investment to join and then come to
> the conclusion that we're as deep in our habits and rituals as any other
> exclusive organization.  More frustrating because we always seem to say
> otherwise.  Having tried at times from "within" to have these
> conversations, I can appreciate how hard it would feel from apparently "the
> outside."
>
> All of which makes me wonder how many "osonos" events we've really had.
>  What if we did count them up and start numbering the as we go forward, as
> ALL having been descended from the HHO-convened "originals."  And what if
> we agreed that, in the main, the clearly visible and open heart of any
> osonos was a chunk of space and time where it ran "by the book" and if you
> don't see it in the user's guide, then you don't see it in the room,
> either?  Wouldn't have to be the whole event, but there could be a
> distinction between "this is what we do because we're excited, creative
> people and this is what we do because it's the heart of open space
> practice."
>
> What if....?
>
> Michael
>
>
>
>
>
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