[OSList] Conversation with Tricia

Fri Mar 29 15:56:55 PDT 2013

I would not structure it. I couldn’t. I’d just let it grow and add a little fertilizer as needed.

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 

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 Tricia Chirumbole
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2013 5:53 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Conversation with Tricia

Thanks for your thoughts HO and Paul! Yes, I agree on circles and spirals - I am an exceptionally spiraly thinker and liver myself and appreciate this. Probably part of why OS appeals to me is that  people often try to pin me down, line me up, and get me organized! which I don't like!

So, in consideration of these observations, how would you structure a forum for ongoing collaboration among a diverse and distributed community that took into consideration the time/attention constraints of some members, such as investors, as well as the technology access limitations of others, who would benefit from announced/scheduled events?

A big part of the motivation is to encourage a broad array of sectors and participant "types" to  contribute to the discussion "before" ideas are seeded versus somewhere down the line when they typically get involved to review or vet or mentor projects - as well as to have a space where these different types can interact on a more dynamic and level playing field. ...even when there is discrete interaction during conferences or pitch events, it is very top down and not very collaborative - as you all know. 

Another prime motivator is to provide space where open sharing of ideas and cooperative models of executing initiatives is supported....my sneaky hope is that they would emerge in "real" life :)

Does any of that make sense? I just worked this all up rather quickly and my messaging on those points is not very strong. 

Thanks :)

On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 5:16 PM, paul levy <paul at cats3000.net> wrote:

Tricia

I'd also suggest people also go in spirals, they go backwards as well as forwards and they experience past and future too, not only now. It's messy and its wonderful. 

But most of all it is improvisation born of imagination, inspiration and intuition that opens space.

And even space itself is a glorious mystery - it doesn't only open - it also involves, shifts, and dances.

Practically this means that space opens not only for content but also for process. So, improvise by serving the community on the day and in the moment.

Paul 

On Friday, 29 March 2013, Harrison Owen wrote:

Tricia – I think your intentions are superb, but I wonder about the execution. My question comes from spending a lot of time watching a lot of groups seeking to engage their past, present and their future (NOW). My observations may not accord with everybody else’s, but I got what I got. 

The first thing I really “got” is that, even though we all like to think that we as individuals and as groups engage in discussion and exploration in a linear fashion (a first, second, third, etc) in fact we seem to go in circles, or maybe more exactly we do shifting circular search patterns which appear to be quite random. The effect is that it may appear that we do everything all at once, or perhaps you could say, we start anywhere, and go everywhere.

When I think of my own thinking process (as in writing a book) – it is true that there is a page 1 and proceeding. But the thought process is anything but linear sequential. Something initially grabs my attention but where that “thing” actually ends up in the book is anybody’s guess. I suppose that is why some people find mind mapping useful – Personally I don’t if only because my mind seems to outstrip my graphic capabilities, or more probably I am such a dilettante with a very finite attention span that I just keep flitting about. And then there is the fact that some of my best thinking takes place when it doesn’t seem that I am thinking at all. Naps are so rich! And then there is the shower…

All that may be my personal pathology, but I think I see the same thing in all the groups I am witness to. Folks go in circles, and circles in circles, around circles, etc. When things really get rich, it is massively messy – but fun. And mess and fun are two essential ingredients for a seriously creative group, I find. It is also the total antithesis of an “orderly program!” It does seem that a lot of stuff could get lost in the mess or overlooked in the fun, and probably it does. But somehow the really good stuff keep bubbling to the surface and streams of communication move at light speed, and somehow impact just about everybody. The presumption often is that if we don’t write something down (Make the record) it will be lost. I guess there is some truth in that – but the capacity of groups to process massively complex issues in an elegant fashion, at least in terms of the end product (forget how they get there) simply blows me away. And the whole business of “record keeping” by whatever means is only a very small part of that story.

So where am I going with all this? Around in circles, for sure. But there may be a point. Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke! My experience, and I suspect our common experience, in Open Space is that amazingly dysfunctional, cantankerous, angry, disillusioned groups of people can, and often do, achieve truly elegant results. Not always, not everywhere … but personally I have never been really been disappointed provided: The people assembled because they cared to be there to engage an issue or opportunity they cared deeply about. From that point on it was pretty simple. Sit in a circle, create a bulletin board, open a market place, and get out of the way. 

There is a part of me that wishes all this wasn’t true, that it had not been my experience. To the extent that I “created” Open Space I can honestly say that is the last thing I ever intended to do. Yes I have had massive fun and met many great people, but -- it cost me a lot of money and no small amount of professional reputation. Billable hours went out the window, and talking the way I have just been doing is not the sort of thing that gets you a tenured appointment at a leading business school J But I love it!

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%20>  

www.ho-image.com <http://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. <mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org> openspacetech.org <mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org>  [mailto: <mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org> oslist-bounces at lists. <mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org> openspacetech.org <mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org> ] On Behalf Of Tricia Chirumbole
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2013 1:28 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] Electronic Open Space

Thanks Harrison and Michael for the thought-provoking feedback! please send more :)

Awesome story about the work in Nepal Michael! Do you think the AI framework added anything or would you have preferred to stay straight up, no rocks? 

My rationale: This is a rough, scratchy draft of thoughts and I was hoping for ideas! 

The desire is definitely to be open and user-driven, with all but one event being OS and the invitation for groups to branch off and do their thing throughout and offline. 

Use of AI reasoning: I chose an AI design for the first event to help people get in that appreciative mode of thought and set the tone. We are so used to doing things in a certain way and I don't think this perspective emerges as easily for some. 

The first event was also intended to help get everyone up to speed and on the same page in terms of larger trends that everyone may not be aware of and to provide a good launching pad for an Open Space with a primer in shared values and existing assets. 

I do see that shared values is something that comes through in an Open Space, but I was drawn to the very pointed approach of focusing on strengths and values exclusively before delving into what do we do, how do we do it, what's already happening, etc.....I guess alternatively you could turn it into an OS prompt. 

The structured event prompts using the AI "d's", as well as the shared docs, are intended to allow for a flowing pool of participants, where each event may have a different mix, but people can jump in and have a sense of where the flow was going.....it is true that the flow may go faster or slower or in a different direction, so the event prompts may be limiting or inappropriate...will have to think on that - perhaps have the community decide the prompt for the next event after each is completed as well as determine the frequency of the real-time events? I like that better - thoughts? 

that's all i've got for now - any other insights or illustrations are much welcome!!

On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 12:44 PM, Michael Herman <michael at michaelherman.com> wrote:

harrison and tricia, your comments each remind me of some work we did in nepal about ten years ago.  

on my first visit we did half a day of open space with about 20 college students and instructors, followed by a long lunch and some time to talk about why it works.  when i went back a year later, they'd organized a day-long event, for twice as many community organizer, ngo, activist types, to discuss "nepal 2020."  during that day, i talked with as many of the 40+ participants as i could about what it might look like if we did a 4-day model i'd done elsewhere, two days of OS and two days of OS training.  when i went back the next year, i thought that's what we were going to do. 

what happened is that we had something more than 100 folks defy the travel ban imposed by maoist rebels to attend what was billed as the first national conference on peaceful development.  the OS+training plan never saw the light of day.  since something they were calling the nepal AI national network had officially convened the four-day meeting, it was to be OS and AI, and we were do it and train it.  

our four days looked something like the plan tricia posted here, four open spaces, each one of ours was on a different "D" of appreciative inquiry.  the first morning was significantly eaten up by formal welcomings, but the afternoon was all open space.  then next days openend with bits of open space training observations, followed by a new opening and agenda.  the last afternoon was formal closings, presenting results to various government officials.  at night, some did AI training.  so we did and taught os and ai all at once, loosely shaped on tricia's outline, but also rather chaotically as harrison suggests.

there was no formal reporting for this work but i wrote up my story.  http://www.michaelherman.com/cgi/wiki.cgi?NepalConferenceJournal  ...in the beginning, we also set up a simple blog for their work.  it started in english and then dissolved into a number of organizations' websites, mostly in nepali.

as the political turmoil proceeded, the rebels destroyed a 6000-year-old gate in western nepal, to which one of my colleagues (whose house was damaged in the blast) responded "we are starting to organize an open space on how to rebuild the gate."  in the following years, they continued and extended the OS/AI work with more conferences.  when the decade-long rebellion was resolved, the conversation shifted to how they were going to get the 600 members of the newly formed "constituent assembly" legislature together in an OS/AI conference.  to my knowledge, that event never happened, but the main practices seemed to have taken hold and the new government is still in business.

thanks to everyone who's been having and sharing this conversation.

michael

--

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

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

On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 10:50 AM, Harrison Owen <hhowen at verizon.net> wrote:

Tricia – lot of good thinking here, but I can’t help feeling that you that you may just be working a little too hard. J I understand the pressures to describe a program (series of progressive/linked activities). Funders, etc like all that. But two things come to mind, or at least pop out of my experience. 

1st No program ever ran the way it was “supposed to,” albeit a great deal of effort usually goes into trying, and then, after the fact, making it seem like everything “worked according to the plan.” 

2nd Detailed Programs tend to take on a life of their own, regardless of what the emergent systems and the environment surrounding them are actually doing. It is called confusing the map with the territory – and is usually very frustrating and painful.

The alternative? You might be surprised when I suggest – Just open space for anybody who cares about, “development of feasible social enterprises” and then support the emergent system as it grows (or not). That system will have its own internal resources and rhythms which cannot be known in advance, but as they emerge all can be supported with cheerleading and/or a little help as required. 

When you start with The Program, as opposed to emerging system, you almost inevitably get it wrong. For example, by adding bells and whistles which may be wonderful in themselves, but really just consume time, space, and energy accomplishing tasks that the system will create alternate ways of a

-- 

Tricia Chirumbole
US: +1-571-232-0942
Skype: tricia.chirumbole

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-- 
Tricia Chirumbole
US: +1-571-232-0942
Skype: tricia.chirumbole

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