[OSList] WOSonOS 2014/2015/2016 invitations

Ben Roberts ben.roberts at charter.net
Mon May 20 12:38:25 PDT 2013


I'm curious what David meant when he suggested that our process was not
representative of Open Space, and have copied him on this reply in case he
would like to weigh in, as I don't believe he is on the list serve.

For me, it was a prime example of self-organizing, so while we may not havve
"done" OS to have the conversation, the spirit of OS was very much alive.
And in that conversation, the group discussed all the issues and questions
raised in this thread, e.g. having more than one WOSonOS in a year, asking
what sort of "voting" we were going to use, asking if we felt it was
important to make the decision in that room and much more. And I'd say we
got clear "answers" to all those questions, usually right away.

Personally I found it stressful because I had a plane to catch, wanted to
stay for the entire closing circle and also have time for some good-byes.
Instead, because it took more time than "allotted," I left with the closing
circle about 95% complete, which wasn't so bad.  And, had I used my smart
phone to check on the status of my flight (can you tell I'm not a
Millenial?!), I would have found that it was delayed 35 minutes and I could
have stayed to the very end.  Lessons on many levels!

One thing that was interesting for me about the process was how
uncomfortable I felt suggesting that we should try to bring it to a close.
My sense is that I was far from alone in that discomfort, and that even
folks who were not under time pressure might have been censoring themselves.
This speaks perhaps to a set of unexamined social agreements around making
sure we have thought through every single possible dimension of something
before moving into a decision-making phase in order to "honor the group" and
avoid being hierarchical. I would like to suggeswt that this tendency might
not always serve us. As I tweeted, quoting words I heard Erwin Chemerinsky
speak many years ago, "all decisions are made based on 'insufficient'
information."

A clear preference did emerge in the room and once we accepted a process for
discerning it, we were done. Perhaps, my point above notwithstanding, we
waited to mvoe into a process of taking the temperature of the room until we
all knew inuitively that something had coalesced. Seeing that display (I
would estimate about 80% of the room standing on the Serbia side of the
carpet), Gerard, who was acting as a proxy for Spain, more or less
immediately accepted Serbia's invite on their behalf. I felt completely
satisfied that we had honored everyone, and was surprised by David's comment
to the contrary in the closing. I also think we made an excellent choice for
many reasons. Not that I would have had any problem with Spain either (as I
expect was the case for most people in the room, and that may also have been
a source of our slowness).

One final note about Harrison's questioning of the decision being made by
the people in the room (and here I thought he was the one assuring us we
were the right people!).  In fact, it was not just us.  Not only were other
people particpating virtually, but one of the prospective hosts wasn't there
himself (Ian from Spain).  What struck me, as I made clear in speaking to
the circle at the time, was that Ian could have done any number of things to
make his invitation more compelling had he wanted to. He could have Skyped
directly into the room--something I had let the OS-list know was possible on
several occassions over the previous days.  He could have written a letter
for Gerard to read. He could have recorded a video, as the Chinese group did
to offer their 2015 invite, etc. etc. The fact that he apparently chose not
to do anything like that (and that his proxy, Gerard, seemed rather
ambivalent about the whole thing himself) stood in stark contrast to the
passion and energy that Jasmina was communicating.  That made it a no
brainer for me, once I let go of my fear of "making the wrong choice."

So all in all, I would say that what happened was the only thing that could
have (fancy that!) and that it was a valuable and thought-provoking
experience on multiple levels.

Peace,
Ben Roberts


-----Original Message-----
From: oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of Kári Gunnarsson
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 1:31 PM
To: World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] WOSonOS 2014/2015/2016 invitations

Invitations full of wonder. Perhaps we have the chart in front of the horse.

I do not see the invitations to next years wosonos as some resolution from
our current discussions, but more of a invitation to continue the
celebration of our common growth from the years past and future.

Is it essential to do the next years invitations at the end of the event, we
could just as easily do it at the beginning and use the Open Space to work
with our hopes and sorrows where we can sleep on it and open more discussion
in the morning news of the second day if needed.




--
Kári Gunnarsson
kari at openspace.is
gsm: +354 8645189
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