[OSList] Certification?

Thu Aug 8 16:36:02 PDT 2013

Jeff – as a sometime perpetrator and totally confused (certifiable) I can
attest that if at any point I were to intimate that I actually knew what I
was doing, that would be a significant error. However I feel quite
comfortable in my not-knowing if only because the “process” (OST) is not
something I “do.” Under the best of circumstances my contribution is to
invite folks to do what they already know how to do – to be what they
already are. It always works, and it works even better when I get out of the
way. 

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 Jeff Aitken
Sent: Thursday, August 08, 2013 7:17 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Certification?

having been trained by the motley lot who dreamed up this stuff, i can
attest that even that great privilege does not mean that i know much or
should be let near the folks in your organization.

jeff.

On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 3:53 PM, Peggy Holman <peggy at peggyholman.com> wrote:

To be certified confused
where do I sign up? 

Chris -- thanks for your decidedly clear and unconfused comments on
certification.  

I seem to recall in some past conversation that rather than certification,
lineage is alternative to the client conundrum of who am I hiring?  To be
trained by the creator, or by someone who trained with creator, on down the
line seems to have worked for a variety of practice traditions through the
ages.

Still no guarantee, as Chris noted below.

appreciatively,

Peggy 

On Aug 8, 2013, at 10:35 AM, Chris Corrigan <chris at chriscorrigan.com> wrote:

Ohh I love this topic too, because as we go on and on it becomes clearer and
clearer to me that Harrison's original idea (which predated Open Source) was
sheer genius.  There is an expression in english: "Closing the barn doors
after the horse has left."  It's too late to certify people in Open Space
Technology, and thank God! 

You simply cannot certify people as a way to protect the brand and the
reason is simple.

Certification is based on an industrial quality assurance model  In other
words, every product leaving the factory is guaranteed to work the way we
say it is going to work.  If it doesn't you can have your money back and
we'll give you a new one that works.  Every product can be tested before it
leaves the factory to be sure it works reliably,

You simply cannot do that with facilitators.  No amount of certification
will guarantee that a client will get what they want every single time.  And
a facilitator taking a single training in Open Space or some other method
will by definition NOT be perfect leaving the factory.  You need to develop
a practice, and even still there are contexts and situations that will
challenge and surprise you.  "Be Prepared to Be Surprised" is the only
certification I can reliably give to anyone that has trained with me.  We
are not engineers, architects or doctors.  We are people whose skill is in
responding well to myriad and changing contexts.

The International Association of Facilitators went down this route.  I have
seen some horrible facilitation done by people who are certified by the IAF.
So much so that I have no faith in that certification as standing for
anything.  It is a worthy idea but it simply cannot be implemented.

Open Space is a brand like brainstorming is a brand, like using markers and
flipcharts is a brand, like parliamentary procedure is a brand.  In a few
more decades, with any luck, the world will have forgotten where it all came
from and it will just become a basic operating system of groups.  In the
last 10 years that prospect has really come on as people have stolen, mashed
up, mixed together, modified and redesigned Open Space Technology.
Participatory process is becoming an acceptable way of doing things, and
will only become more so.  Most conference goers for example are now able to
report on conference evaluations that they would have rather had a world
cafe or an Open Space than a keynote address.  I see it all the time.  There
is a fluency in the world with this method and others.

I fundamentally distrust anyone who makes a concerted effort to certify Open
Space.  If Harrison Owen, the guy that put it all down on paper, refuses to
do it for excellent reasons, then I wonder what gives anyone else the right
to do it.  

And for me that is a terrific example of how to steward something that
really has an impact in the world.  Offer it up and let it go and only
defend it from those that would try to own it.  Thankfully Open Space
Technology I think is at a place in the world where it defies ownership.
Anyone who tries it will simply be laughed off the stage.  

Chris

On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 9:29 AM, Kári Gunnarsson <kari.gunnarsson at simnet.is>
wrote:

I love the Certification dialogue and I think that the recurrence of
the dialogue is necessary. As I have looked around of things that
trace there roots to open space or give the impression to be similar
is some way. Some of these processes have the Certification hierarchy
protecting the Quality of the Brand and the revenues steaming from the
property that the brand name is.

The hierarchy of the Certification process associated with Brand names
is a way to close space and create tension witch in turn will fuel the
flow of cash from the people that can pay, excluding the people that
can not. It is an exercise in creating a closed system to fuel a
business plan. And naturally, any start up consultancy offering some
tools will need some flow of cash to pay the phone bill.

When I was at Wosonon in Berlin back in 2010, I head one participant
saying. "You always have the clients that you deserve".

By knowing that the space for clients is well open and the law of
mobility is active from them is perhaps a little scary. This scare can
be remedied by letting go of the outcome and commit time to prepare to
be of more benefit for my future clients.

Here I have opened up many lines of thoughts that stay with me when I
think about this topic. What I would like to have written down is some
sort of vision on how to go about using the open space as a central
idea and core philosophy in a practise.

On Certification, my vote would go for "no central Certification", but
I don't mind that various offspring's of Open Space go ahead and
create there own brand name with the associated cash flow headaches
and salaried sales staff of Certification trainings in there bid to
get a bought with a handsome cash out from lager companies.

That said, I would like to see more people get interested in the
"boring" methought of meeting, working and begin together called open
space.

By the way, I am bored to tears by people hearing about open space and
begin pissed off by the way open office layout (also called open space
in my country) has been ruining there work experiences.

This is starting to be a long rant, Ill stop now.

With the breeze from Iceland
Kári

On 8 August 2013 14:50, Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net> wrote:
> Certification (whatever that might mean) seems to be a perennial topic. I
> suppose that is understandable, but for myself it is a horrible idea. My
> reasons are several. First of all it is too much work. The thought of
> developing the criteria, programs, and even worse, “protecting the brand”
is
> totally exhausting. We’d have to have certifiers to certify the certifiers
> and so on ad infinitum. Second reason – Open Space seems to be taking care
> of itself. When folks come on with “A little Open Space,” “Sort of Open
> Space,” “Modified Open Space,” ... the participants (increasingly)
> understand that they aren’t getting the genuine article—and say so. I
recall
> one instance where a large gentleman stood up in the middle of the
“program”
> and loudly proclaimed, “This sure ain’t Open Space! I’m out of here.” And
he
> walked. I guess you could call that “Market Certification.” Best of all
---
> it works all by itself. One more thing not to do!!
>
>
>
> 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 <http://www.openspaceworld.com/> 
>
> www.ho-image.com <http://www.ho-image.com/>  (Personal Website)
>
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of
OSLIST
> Go to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org
>
>
>
>

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--
Kári Gunnarsson
kari.gunnarsson at simnet.is
gsm: +354 8645189 <tel:%2B354%208645189> 
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-- 

---

CHRIS CORRIGAN
Facilitation - Training - Process Design
Open Space Technology - Art of Hosting

http://www.chriscorrigan.com <http://www.chriscorrigan.com/> 

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