[OSList] Peggy plus OST Linkedin Comment
Phelim McDermott
phelim at mac.com
Tue Oct 23 10:39:02 PDT 2012
Dear Michael and Chris,
Three days after doing WOSonOS on the wednesday I stepped back in the saddle and played the Comedy Store.. Over the years I am well used to telling jokes to comics. Just for the record I can assure you it's much easier than opening space to the spacenics!
:)
Phelim x
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On 23 Oct 2012, at 18:26, Michael Herman <michael at michaelherman.com> wrote:
>
>
> --
>
> Michael Herman
> Michael Herman Associates
> 312-280-7838 (mobile)
>
> http://MichaelHerman.com
> http://OpenSpaceWorld.org
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>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 11:45 AM, Phelim McDermott <phelim at mac.com> wrote:
>> Some thoughts Michael,
>>
>>
>> On 23 Oct 2012, at 15:43, Michael Herman <michael at michaelherman.com> wrote:
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>>>
>>> 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."
>>
>> In this discussion it would really help me if people were really clear about when they are making generalised suggestions or clear criticisms of WOSonOS 2012. (I'm not sure here if this is directed at our event. ) As those who weren't there could think WOSonOS 2012 twelve was an event which had lots of extraneous stuff added to the Open space part of the event. For those not there I want to make it very clear. There was nothing at the event which is not in the handbook perhaps the wall made of scotch/sellotape as we know this was a solution to the site, the principles being in more than one language and the break out spaces being animal pictures as we couldn't stick things on the floor.
>
> sorry for the confusion, phelim... i have absolutely no comment about wosonos 2012 specifically... never imagined anything i was saying could be read that way cuz i wasn't there. everything i'm suggesting here is all about all of osonos history and practice -- and all for the purpose of asking what should happen next... not trying to fix or change anything past.
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> i don't know what happened in london, don't think anything negative or critical of your work there on the event, and like chris says, i count you among the relative short list of brave souls who's told jokes to comics. maybe the trickiness of your task is better captured by calling it "doing magic in front of magicians." the hands need to be VERY quick, indeed!
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> --------------------------------
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>>> 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.
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>> Knowing what it is like on the UK scene I would say the solution is to offer an osonos now that WOSonOS has happened. This is certainly more possible after this years event. I doubt it would have been an immediately sustainable event or as attended if we hadn't been able to publicise it as a world event. Most of our support and income actually came from international streams. As it is we have not covered our costs by a considerable amount. If it had been an OSonOS I do not believe we w2ould have had the international; diversity we had.
>
> this is what i mean about the W making a difference, in that suggests to potential participants that this one is special. i think this has underlying reliance on and encouragement of some people being more valuable than others. i understand that this helps pay the bills, but the other solution is to make the event so simple that it can't possibly lose money.
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>>> 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.
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>> I think you now have a much better shot at running a successful OSonOS after what we did and I think there has been talk about this in sessions about the UK community.
>
> yes... a better shot at running an osonos perhaps, but not Wosonos... which is but once a year and keeps moving... so follow-ons are stuck with the budget concerns you mentioned first. my question is why do we need to twist ourselves up to make some events more special, more expensive, and more than a simple osonos?
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> ------------------
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>>> 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.
>>
>> Everyone has access to the process of opening some space. If he wants he could communicate with the people who had a UK OS session and talked about further UK events.
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> i'm not so interested in UK and Paul. I'm thinking about our worldwide community practice. I was just trying to explain the dynamic.
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>>> 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.
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>> It was made very clear at the event that if people were considering hosting they would be supported to do so. The "predetermined" element or eperception could be that if you are thinking of doing it a TWO YEAR prep time is definitely helpful and so it could look like people who have been thinking about it for a while know something you don't.
>
> i continue to be baffled by why it would take two years to prepare for the simplest meeting that could possibly work. osonos takes but a few hours to organize, really... it's all the other agendas, like expanding practice in underserved areas and growing local practice groups that take all the time. i just wonder if it's best and most effective for these various missions to travel in the same gathering. of course they'll never be inseparable, but collegial learning, practice evangelization, and local practice group development is a lot for one event to do. that's not what osonos was, it's what it's become... but i don't think we chose this consciously. that's why i'd like us to reflect on it a bit... yes it is what's happening, to some extent, but is it what we want?
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>>> 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.
>>
>> No one has said leave if you like in fact I think people have encouraged Paul to engage in a conversation about his thoughts and I continue to do so. Please encourage him to join this discussion here via linkedin and facebook where he has been posting his blogs.
>>
>> During the process of putting together WOSonOS 2012 we were very open in making a number of invitations to be involved in helping us putting the event on. We held two, two day open space events which the UK OS community were invited to. During that process which definitely was not easy some people joined us and supported us.. others fell away. I also communicated to Paul before the event about how we were organising things and offered to meet him. That didn't happen.
>
> as i was asked to be part of the florida group, i responded directly to paul's postings by email. i've not heard anything back from him. i also invited him to be part of the conversation for florida. but again, it's not about paul. my point about "leaving" was in response to thomas' three options, the last of which was "you can leave". which is true enough, but i'm saying not perhaps very satisfying in some cases.
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>>> 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.
>>
>> Likewise I'm not sure what Paul is thinking either. I have invited him to join us on this list as I think Artur did as well. I do know that Paul was interested in opening the space for WOSonOS in his own style which is to do it in 2 and a half minutes. So I imagine he would think my introduction went on a bit! (I must do some work on that).
>
> two and a half minutes is pretty short! i'm curious but not very excited about what that would look like!
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> -------------------------
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>>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> I mentioned in my opening the importance of not seeing an OST event as something special and that "Wherever it happens is the right place" is a useful reminder of this to me about this.
>>
>>> 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.
>> This was suggested by Paul at WOSonOS as one less thing to do. That we perhaps shouldn't do WOSonOS again. A part of me thinks.. It would certainly save a lot of work and stress. Another part says thats a bit like saying maybe it would be better if we didn't have any more parties! Maybe when it's over its over.
>
> i guess i'm suggesting that we do one less thing... one less letter... drop the W... when we started our globetrotting, we called it that to notice that it was something bigger... now we could just tally up the number of osonos events and number of cities or countries and simply report and celebrate that. i don't think osonos is over, but i'd like to think that it could be even bigger and more expansive and more connected/connecting if we could drop the specialness of one annual event (like dropping the specialness of keynote speakers, i think, and everybody listening to all the same stuff), if we could invite more and more simple breakouts around the world. more parties, not less!
>
> ----------------------------
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>>> 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."
>>
>> Sometimes people are on the outside because they feel excluded and sometimes they enjoy "the outsider" role. It has some useful things to say. This is an interesting topic to discuss in relation to the Law of Two Feet.
>
> absolutely. and... if outside exists at all. hence my "apparently".
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> ----------------------
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>>>
>>>
>>> What if....?
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>> Yep what if?
>
> that's what i want to find out! <grin>
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>
>>
>>
>>> Michael
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Michael Herman
>>> Michael Herman Associates
>>> 312-280-7838 (mobile)
>>>
>>> http://MichaelHerman.com
>>> http://OpenSpaceWorld.org
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 3:11 AM, Thomas Herrmann <thomas at openspaceconsulting.com> wrote:
>>>> I think the Law is about action too. You can act in three ways
>>>>
>>>> 1. Mental movement (try to change yourself, focus and be fully present, maybe you are missing something important here) – thanks Jan-Erik for this perspective during NOSonOS in august!
>>>>
>>>> 2. “Intervention” into what you don’t enjoy, for example if you find the break out group too large – say it!
>>>>
>>>> 3. Leave and go somewhere else.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>>
>>>> Thomas Herrmann
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Från: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] För Chris Corrigan
>>>> Skickat: den 23 oktober 2012 07:13
>>>> Till: World wide Open Space Technology email list
>>>> Kopia: World wide Open Space Technology email list
>>>> Ämne: Re: [OSList] Peggy plus OST Linkedin Comment
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Koos...for me the law of two feet is about passion and responsibility. If you care about something, take care of it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Paul may have felt that he was "taking care of it" when he produced his critiques of the event in London. Possibly. But my experience is that many people are comfortable just being in their passion about something - sometimes just ranting - and fail to join in, support, improve, help out or otherwise make a responsibility based offering to the situation at hand. While i appreciate criticism and am perfectly capable of wrestling with ideas - and in this case I even pointed out that there is much merit in Paul's observations - I nevertheless would invite consideration of the fact that if someone is sitting through an open space event and not offering responsibility, that the criticism has the feeling of being sniping from the sidelines while failing to take up the invitation at hand and it's hard to work with that. That is all.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> A some level, love it or leave is also always an option, but that isn't what I'm talking about here. I'm looking for a more nuanced response from a practitioner that is clearly very familiar with the dynamics of Open Space and self organization and wondering what he did at the event to use his own power to create the experience he was looking for.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> He may have done something, but as I read it, he stayed for whole thing and then wrote a fairly detailed critique of the whole experience.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So. Hmmmmm.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Chris
>>>>
>>>> ---
>>>>
>>>> CHRIS CORRIGAN
>>>>
>>>> http://www.chriscorrigan.com
>>>>
>>>> +1 604 947 9236
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2012-10-21, at 3:22 AM, Koos de Heer <koos at auryn.nl> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Chris,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I am not sure I understand what you mean when you say that the law of two feet applies. If it means as much as "This is Open Space, love it or leave it," I feel compelled to say that I don't support that.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Of course I can walk out of a session if I am feeling that I am neither learning nor contributing. But if I have the idea that the Open Space gathering as a whole could use improvements in the way it is run, referring to the law of two feet can become a way to evade a discussion that needs to take place. It can take place at a later date, which is what is happening now and that is fine.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Koos
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Op 20 okt. 2012 om 21:23 heeft Chris Corrigan <chris.corrigan at gmail.com> het volgende geschreven:
>>>>
>>>> The critique in the article is fine. And the subsequent link Phelim sent along is fine too. Paul's tone is a bit jarring and his argument isn't helped by making a lot of generalized statements. Also he critiques WOSonOS in a way that makes it hard to separate his critique if the event from a critique of the team, even though he later clarifies that he wasn't critiquing the facilitator. It's tricky to make a forceful and powerful critique without it seeming personal.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> My response to these posts is that Paul is right in substance. In general my take in things is that the Law of Two Feet applies. If you are not learning or contributing find some way or some where that you can. That's what makes things better. Obviously expecting others to change the way the way a process seems too dependant on them is rational madness.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Chris
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> CHRIS CORRIGAN
>>>>
>>>> Harvest Moon Consultants
>>>>
>>>> www.chriscorrigan.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Art of Hosting - Participatory Leadership and Social Collaboration, Bowen Island, BC
>>>>
>>>> November 12-15 2012
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Art of Hosting in Faith Based Communities, Salt Lake City, Utah
>>>>
>>>> November 28th - December 1, 2012
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2012-10-20, at 5:09 AM, "alan at alanhalford.com.au" <alan at alanhalford.com.au> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Just spent a delicious three days co-learning with Peggy Holman here in Perth then I read this -
>>>>
>>>> So, what's possible now?
>>>>
>>>> http://rationalmadness.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/the-tragic-re-imprisonment-of-open-space/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> take care out there
>>>>
>>>> alan
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> www.alanhalford.com.au
>>>> 0421 475 252
>>>> skype: alanhalford
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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