[OSList] inquiry OS

Harrison Owen hhowen at verizon.net
Mon Mar 4 12:58:27 PST 2013


Celia - the next message I read after yours came from a person who is (I
believe) currently on OSLIST, but has yet to make an appearance. which he
promises to do. I think it could have some relevance to our discussion and
never putting too much stock in coincidence (synchronicity will do!), I
thought to pass it along. Actually my motives are totally ulterior. If the
author is listening I hope he will emerge from the shadows.J

 

"My best guess is that XXX Organization (working in Western Africa - my
addition, ho) has done better than 20,000 open space events as an
organization, from small groups in weekly village meetings to as many as a
few hundred in attendance in full OPOS events. We have had communities fail
to achieve the outcomes they agreed to in OS, I would say, I think that
about 5 out of 7 become sustainable, but all of the initial events seem to
work in terms of the event process, I can't think of one that didn't."

 

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

 

 <x-msg://63/www.openspaceworld.com%20> www.openspaceworld.com 

 <x-msg://63/www.ho-image.com%20> 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 Celia Bray CEO
Omni One
Sent: Monday, March 04, 2013 3:39 PM
To: 'World wide Open Space Technology email list'
Subject: Re: [OSList] inquiry OS

 

Thanks so much for your feedback. To answer your questions so far. 

 

1)      Participation was voluntary, although the culture in Kenya is that
people expect to get a payment to attend forums, so some of them were
misinformed and may have come for the expected money. This is a culture
started by foreign aid and is now endemic. The first thing people ask if
there is a forum is 'how much money will I get' to attend. While the money
thing makes true motivation for attending cloudy, there were some that did
know there was no financial gain for attending. 

2)      The theme was peace in the community and it was 2 days before the
elections in Kenya. The theme was relevant and something that a lot of
people were directly effected by from the post election violence in the 2007
elections. So relevance was there but that does not mean it is something
that people are passionate about. 

3)      It was an open community forum, not within an intact system.

4)      I noticed also that people stayed in their small clusters of people
they knew. They did not mix or move around to work with other people. Not
sure what that was about or how normal that is. 

5)      Kenya has an education system where children are told what to think
and what to do. It is not a culture that naturally lends itself to people
making their own decisions and breaking out of the usual tribe. 

6)      Another observation is that people seem to finish their discussions
very quickly and merge sessions so that they cover all the topics in one or
2 sessions, leaving the later sessions as a blank space where there is
nothing to discuss. It feels like there is a very superficial discussion of
topics rather then getting into the heart of it. In a forum of 100 people,
to cover all the topics in a couple of sessions is a surprise to me. 

 

Any further ideas would be much appreciated. I am a westerner working in
Kenya, so culturally I am still learning a lot. I know I am missing
something important. I think it is helpful to draw my attention to the
question of passion. It does feel like passion is missing, and also the
hunger to get to the bottom of things is missing. 

 

Peace

 

Celia Bray

CEO

Omni One Ltd

Peace, Enterprise and Community Development

P  +254 735 191 344

E  celia.bray at omni-one-consulting.com

W www.omni-one-consulting.com

OmniC84a-A08aT06a-Z

'The best way to predict the future is to create it' Peter Druker

 

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Christine
Whitney Sanchez
Sent: Monday, 4 March 2013 7:08 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] inquiry OS

 

Celia,

 

Adding to Harrison's and Chris's questions about invitation and voluntary
participation, I wonder whether the participants are working together on
something and truly understand the process and benefits of
cross-pollination?   Are you working with public forums or within an intact
system?  

 

And I wonder if it might be counter cultural (within the system or in the
larger culture) in some way?  

 

Thanks for bringing the discussion to the list.  I love a good mystery!

 

Warm wishes from the air from Phoenix to DC,

 

Christine

 

On Mar 4, 2013, at 10:35 AM, Chris Corrigan <chris.corrigan at gmail.com>
wrote:

 

Agreed.sounds like a passion deficit.  In my experience, when people are
gathered to discuss an issue that just burns within them, OST meetings fly.
We are never bored by immediate need!

 

My advice in the pre-meetings with your sponsor is to ask - "Why do we need
to hold this meeting?  What is happening that makes this meeting important
for everyone who will attend?"  From there, your invitation process should
be to reach all of those for whom this issue matters greatly.  The key is
not in doing Open Space, it is in invitation.  If the structure of Open
Space is a fireplace, invitation is the wood and passion is what lights it.
If one of the three is missing, your OST will fizzle (or work anyway, but
with low energy, if you want to put it that way).

 

Chris

 

 

On 2013-03-04, at 9:21 AM, Harrison Owen wrote:

 

Celia - Odd indeed! My first thought is two questions: A) Is participation
totally voluntary, or have the people, in some way or another, been "told"
to come? B) Is the subject (Theme) of the OS something that the people truly
care about? If the answers are No, No - then I am not very surprised with
the results. On the other hand, if the answers are Yes, Yes - this is
definitely weird and worthy of study.

 

ho

 

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 <x-msg://105/www.openspaceworld.com%20> 

www.ho-image.com <x-msg://105/www.ho-image.com%20>  (Personal Website)

To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST
Go to:http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org

 

From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org]On Behalf Of Celia Bray CEO
Omni One
Sent: Monday, March 04, 2013 2:05 PM
To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org
Subject: [OSList] inquiry OS

 

Dear OS community

 

HELP NEEDED.

 

I have been working in Kenya for the last 8 months and facilitated a few
open space forums. I have noticed a pattern developing in my OS forums that
is not great. I am not sure if i am doing something wrong when opening the
space. It seems that when it is time to start session 1, if people don't
have their own topic in session 1 they just sit there. People only really
engage in the topic they put up themselves and sit around being butterflies
for the rest of the forum, complaining they are bored and waiting for their
session. Also, when they have finished their discussions they don't join
other people's group to contribute.

 

It has happened a few times. I wonder if it is normal or if I am missing
something. I do explain that if they are not discussing their topic they can
look at other people's topics and go to other groups, but it seems to not be
heard. It is not just a few, it is many people, sometimes half or more of
the forum are sitting waiting for their topic.

 

Please help me to understand what might be going on or what I might be doing
wrong.

 

Thank you

 

Celia Bray

CEO

Omni One Ltd

Peace, Enterprise and Community Development

P  +254 735 191 344

E  celia.bray at omni-one-consulting.com

W www.omni-one-consulting.com <http://www.omni-one-consulting.com/> 

<image001.jpg>

'The best way to predict the future is to create it' Peter Druker

 

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