[OSList] Fwd: Announcing The 23rd Annual Systems Thinking In Action Conference!

Thu Aug 8 02:15:33 PDT 2013

Harrison: 

I fully agree with your statement that (part of) what I wrote is"
like a pathologist reporting the conditions of dead of the University" ;-) 

And, in a short period - some more months - I will be in a
situation where I will do that much more often and clearly…

But I also mentioned that most of other conferences and events, in
companies and even civic movements, have exactly the same conditions. So we are
not only talking about the death of the University, but about the death of a
highly engrained human paradigm (the 2 century old industrial and capitalist paradigm).
And this implies, to use the term I have used here many years ago, a metanoic
process.

OST and other OST-like
ways of meeting (like unconfences in general) will have an important role. Why do you think that I am still on this list, after 15 years, and have not
departed to other more teachable and certifiable (and, hence, sellable) ways,
be them more or less genuine or will accept that doing OST is as good as other
arts of hosting?

Regards from a sunny hot morning in Lisbon

Artur 

________________________________
 From: Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net>
To: 'Artur Silva' <arturfsilva at yahoo.com>; 'World wide Open Space Technology email list' <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, August 7, 2013 9:38 PM
Subject: RE: [OSList] Fwd: Announcing The 23rd Annual Systems Thinking In	Action	Conference!

Artur You are wonderful. I guess I have said that before, but I’ll say it again! And – I couldn’t help but smile as I read your note. I know that you were being very serious... but as I read along I couldn’t help but think that major parts of what you wrote might be found a few years hence carved on a monument to Academe, acknowledging its passing from the scene. Then I smiled again when I thought that actually what you wrote read much more like a Pathologist’s report detailing the causes and conditions of death. From where I sit, real learning, real knowledge generation absolutely requires space... the kind of space created by deep questions combined with the presence to  sit with those questions and savor the non-knowing. All the rest is pretty trivial.

Truth be told, Open Space Technology is Academe’s worst nightmare. It highlights the worst failures, and even more catastrophic, good old OST actually “works” despite the fact that it contravenes essentially all the practices and principles of “accepted academic theory.” Just about as popular as a Skunk at a Garden Party...

Thanks for the smiles!!

Harrison

Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Dr.
Potomac, MD 20854
USA

189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)
Camden, Maine 04843

Phone 301-365-2093
(summer)  207-763-3261

www.openspaceworld.com 
www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
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From:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Artur Silva
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2013 1:14 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Fwd: Announcing The 23rd Annual Systems Thinking In Action Conference!

Hi Peggy and all:

Thanks for sharing the announcement, Peggy, and the fact that it sounded odd to you. It doesn't sound odd to me ;-)

Let me explain why. And explain also why some comments on your post sounded odd to me...

Please get your favorite drink for this time of the day (or night) as this will take a while.

1. Some years ago took place in my campus of my University a (more or less) annual conference of the "College of Computer Engineering" of the "Portuguese Engineers Association" (Ordem dos Engenheiros - OE). I have been invited to conduct a big part of the one and an half day event in OST. I was even made a member of the Organizing Committee (OC) for that purpose. It must be said that, in the mentioned College, the members are in their large majority academics and not (real) computer engineering professionals. The idea was to profit from the fact that the event was held at an University and with a friendly methodology to try to have students and young engineers to joint the event and the OE. But with the composition of the college board (5 academics and one professional) I could not convince the OC to do all the event in OST and had to accept that the first morning was composed of presentations. In a first moment 3 presentations were though but than it
 came to 6 because "if we invite the University of XXX, we also have to invite someone from the University of YYY... You know that game.

6 presentations by Professors in one morning is something that will never interest young professionals, so the attendants were mainly Professors and their students - and some old professionals too. Myself I attended two presentations and then went for a nap in my office. Anyhow, the dynamics of the all event was already corrupted. The OST event (one afternoon followed by one morning) was considered a success, but I was not very happy (there are photos of the event at the NING).

2. On the other hand, during the years I have attended a lot of professional, academic and civic conferences and meetings and it is always the same. In each part, 3 or 4 presentations by "specialist" (that almost never respected the schedule) and a very small amount of time for dialog (indeed questions and answers) that shrinks with the retard of each presenter and, in some cases, ends up not existing at all.

What is normally planed for each 1,5 hour session is three 20 minutes presentations followed by 30 minutes questions or debates but it seems that both organizers and speakers have "horror of emptiness” (the void) – “and, what will happen, if no one asks a question?”, so they fill the void with more words.

The interesting part is that those organizers and presenters are often the ones that say that we now live in a "knowledge society", and that "all problems being complex, we need interdisciplinary thinking", but then forget that people more knowledgeable than the presenter are often in the audience, and often a multidisciplinary audience is in front of them.  

3. Many unconference methods have appeared in the last years, the majority of them having some similarities with OST, and at least respecting the OS spirit, if not the letter of OST. When we compare this with the traditional conferences the unconferences are, indeed, much more OPEN than the traditional ones.

4. I remember reading Harrison, more that once, tell us that he anticipates a future where no one will talk anymore about open space technology, because open space will be the normal way of doing meetings and conferences. I also believe in that. But I am almost sure that those unconferences will be something that the elders will say that "it is similar to OST, but it is not OST" or even "it is not even similar to OST". And that is true and, for one, I am glad with that. As any other living thing, OST will evolve in the Universal Open Space (or the void) and it will become something different. If it is more open and less controlled by some authorities (political, academic, or OST-ortodoxes), than I will be happy with that.

5. Indeed I am planning to propose in the near future to some civic and professional organizations, to stop doing conferences, and begin doing unconferences with a model that is similar to the one that Peggy mentioned. People can prepare papers and or presentations but there is no guaranty that they will be accepted. There will not be a revision by their peers (that often have lobby relations between them - and, from the references in each paper, one can almost always discover where a paper comes from), but will be decided "by the crowd" in an "OS way": a circle, a bulletin board, sessions announced and the ones choosen will take place - and lets go to work. The speakers will be allowed to make a short presentation (15 to 20 minutes is more than enough - and, by large, much more than enough when the presentation is boring) and, in each hour, the rest of the time is for real dialog between the participants, the presenter having no special role in that.

6. I have not yet come out with a division of time like the one of this Conference (18+42+30) - and I am not even convinced that an "action period" is justified in all cases - but I know from experience that if one says to a presenter that he/she may have 20 minutes he/she thinks that it means “not more that 30 minutes” and will often continue speaking until someone call him/her to order. If we say that he has 18 minutes it means that he is less than 19 minutes - and that makes a big difference! I like that.

Regards

Artur

________________________________

From:Peggy Holman <peggy at peggyholman.com>
To: Open Listserv <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, August 6, 2013 8:26 PM
Subject: [OSList] Fwd: Announcing The 23rd Annual Systems Thinking In Action Conference!

I'm curious if anyone from the OS community is involved with STIA.  They're references to Open Space sure sound odd to me:
	* Open Space: Most of the speakers and topics will be selected by the attendees using Open Space technology.
> 
>	* Truly Open Space: STIA 2013 sessions will be truly open - 18 minutes of presentation followed by 42 minutes of Q&A and discussion, followed by 30 minutes of action. Remember 18+42+30!     

Speakers:
>Contact us at stia2013 at stiatemenos.com to register interest and participate in the Open Space speaker / topic selection.     

_________________________________
Peggy Holman
peggy at peggyholman.com
Twitter: @peggyholman

15347 SE 49th Place
Bellevue, WA  98006
425-746-6274
www.peggyholman.com
www.journalismthatmatters.org

Enjoy the award winning Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity

"An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get burnt, is to become 
the fire".
  -- Drew Dellinger

Peggy

Begin forwarded message:

From: Siraj Sirajuddin <siraj at stiatemenos.com>
Subject: Announcing The 23rd Annual Systems Thinking In Action Conference!
Date: August 6, 2013 11:12:27 AM PDT
To: peggy at opencirclecompany.com
Reply-To: siraj at stiatemenos.com

Not rendering correctly? View this email as a web page here.   

Hi Peggy,

Announcing The 23rd Annual Systems Thinking In Action Conference!

Dear friends of STIA,

Greetings!  I am honored to inform you that Temenos, LLC has acquired the assets and title of the conference we all know well as Systems Thinking in Action. I am humbled, and will strive to be a diligent steward of our community as we continue the path of building our work together.  I look forward to receiving guidance from you during this journey.

I have a simple vision for this conference …"accessibility for everyone, everywhere."
Toward that vision, I am pleased to announce the 23rd Annual Systems Thinking In Action ® Conference, to be held at The National Conference Center (NCC) in the Washington DC Metro Area, November 14th-16th, 2013. The conference theme for this year is "STIA Mashup - Systems Thinking + Temenos + Individuation + Agility."

The STIA 2013 conference will be a container of experiments, planned to test our hypothesis about how to create conferences that are vibrant, useful and sustainable for our communities.

	* Temenos: STIA 2013 will be a fully residential conference and all attendees, speakers and sponsors will be part of a deep, community-building experience that will result in the creation of a compelled shared vision for the STIA community.  This vision will be presented during the conference closing.

	* Moving Keynotes: STIA 2013 will showcase some of the most prestigious and memorable keynote speakers that have engaged previous STIA audiences. Cliff Kayserhas graciously offered to be our opening Keynote speaker! (His powerful speech and poetry recital moved attendees of 2012)!

	* STIA Mashup: STIA 2013 will feature a creative mixture of tracks / sessions from knowledge areas that surround, enhance and complement Systems Thinking. “STIA Mashup = Systems Thinking + Temenos + Individuation + Agility”.

	* Accessible Pricing: The STIA 2013 registration fee will be $99 for the first month only to enable anyone to participate! (There is an additional $800 residential fee which is inclusive of lodging and meals for all registrants.)

	* Open Space: Most of the speakers and topics will be selected by the attendees using Open Space technology.

	* Truly Open Space: STIA 2013 sessions will be truly open - 18 minutes of presentation followed by 42 minutes of Q&A and discussion, followed by 30 minutes of action. Remember 18+42+30!

	* Breathing Space: STIA 2013 will have a sustainable pace. We will have a 30 minute break between each session for debriefing and relaxation.  There will be no need to rush between sessions and meeting rooms. This conference will promote the enjoyment of networking and afford attendees the time to take in the outside nature.

	* Open Pre-Conferences: All participants are welcome to create, market and facilitate Pre-Conference Workshops, Events, Seminars, and Labs, keeping in mind the agreement of a $99 registration fee per participant.  

Attendee Registration

HURRY! The first registration wave of Early Bird Pricing for $99 is now open and will last only through August 30.  Please register here STIA 2013 registration.  All special requests will be considered for meals and lodging and should be referred to our conference planner, Michelle at michelle at chaseav.com who will do her best to accommodate your needs.

Speakers:
Contact us at stia2013 at stiatemenos.com to register interest and participate in the Open Space speaker / topic selection. You may also reach out to our Conference Planner, Michelle Dosa at michelle at chaseav.com to share your ideas.  Michelle will be your main point of contact once you are confirmed as a guest speaker.  Compensation is limited, consisting of waived registration and residential fee inclusive of lodging and meals. If you would like to read more about Open Space Conferencing, please refer to this wikipedia page link.  

Sponsors / Partners:
Please contact us at stia2013 at stiatemenos.com to discuss unique sponsorship arrangements for this amazing and dynamic conference. We will not “template” sponsor packages, thus each sponsorship consideration is viewed as a unique arrangement with us to maximize attendee - sponsor engagement and value.

Calling all future STIA hosts:
I am inspired by the format of TED, where I see very few global events organized by the organization and most of the action is local / regional by the licensees of TED.  It would bring me great joy to see an STIA event in every country of the world! If you are interested in organizing a local STIA event, please reach out to me personally, to share your hypothesis about a useful conference in your community, and to discuss which experiments you would like to run on behalf of your community.

Thank you very much and I look forward to seeing you at STIA 2013!

My very best,

Siraj Sirajuddin
Founder, Temenos LLC
Member, Society for Organizational Learning
Temenos, LLC.
1934 Old Gallows Road, Ste 350
Vienna VA 22182
Email: siraj at stiatemenos.com

Conference Planner
Michelle Dosa
Chase Productions, LLC
michelle at chaseav.com
www.chaseaudiovisual.com

#STIA2013 

Temenos, LLC   1934 Old Gallows Road    Vienna  VA   22182   USA 

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