[OSList] Fw: Open Space and Research

[ANNE BENNETT]

Hi John, Thanks for the balancing archetype, all very fair. Perhaps in either case there are prior questions emerging about where the impluse begins for a piece of work, perceptions of 'owner' of the inquiry and how that feeds its way into the locus of an authentically open space where all have that ownership for the duration, the way the values and intentions then get realised, etc. (also maybe we have a sidebar about national contexts, I have had more professional, business-like enocunters with the consultancy teams working out of academia, UK's institutions being very hybrid cultures and economy-driven these days...)


________________________________
 From: john watkins <johnw536 at mac.com>
To: ANNE BENNETT <anne.bennett8ac at btinternet.com>; World wide Open Space Technology email list <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, 9 October 2013, 16:08
Subject: Re: [OSList] Open Space and Research
  


I'm US. I think an equally strong argument could be made that university folk have pragmatic concerns and cultural norms that are more aligned with tenure and publication than helping an outside organization with its own questions and its own pragmatic concerns. At least that has been my experience. They are often unprepared to support the real work of a non-academic institution in many ways (type of research, means of engaging people collaboratively, timeliness of reporting, type of products, language, capacity to be situated within decision-making processes, degree to which their research has "catalytic validity," etc.).

Sent from John's iPhone

On Oct 9, 2013, at 2:10 AM, ANNE BENNETT <anne.bennett8ac at btinternet.com> wrote:


I agree the 'researcher' role is never 'non-participant' even s/he believes they are. However, I would support (from a UK perspective at least) the involvement of the higher education sector over the consulting one - the economics of it and one of the primary products/motive of learning for its own sake are likely to be at least espoused and so can be put to test - as  consultant of 30 years I greatly value the roots of policy and pratice that set out in academia, however commercialised that environment has to be these days. Wonder if John is US, Oz or elsewhere? Might make a difference
> 
>
>________________________________
> From: john watkins <johnw536 at mac.com>
>To: World wide Open Space Technology email list <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> 
>Sent: Wednesday, 9 October 2013, 6:24
>Subject: Re: [OSList] Open Space and Research
>  
>
>I don't know why you would need a university researcher to do this work. Plenty of consulting organizations do really high quality ethnographic research for organizational change initiatives. Some of us were trained in graduate school in ethnographic research as a change strategy, even ways to use it collaboratively with
 people in open space like settings to study their own organizations for the purpose of improvement. 
>
>Sent from John's iPhone
>
>On Oct 8, 2013, at 6:06 PM, Michael Wood <michael.wood at uwa.edu.au> wrote:
>
>> Is anyone aware of Open Space being used to support Social Sciences Qualitative Research  in organisations?  I have an organisation that wants to work on a particular question (how to attract and retrain 'older' workers) and they want to work with a University to doing some evidenced based internal research on this question. It seems to me that the Sponsor could open up a space on the question with the university researcher being part of the circle (with me facilitating the Open Space). As well as dealing with any action plans that emerge from the day, the university researcher could then sit down with
 the Sponsor after the event
 and do some systematic analysis of the Book of the Proceedings to identify emergent themes and then decide how to design further research as required by the Sponsor. In effect the Open Space would be a broad brush 'step 1' in the research design. Of course all the normal conditions of Open Space would be encouraged - voluntary participation and as 
>mu
>> ch diversity in the room as possible. 
>> 
>> Anyone been involved in a project like this, particularly in the Health Care industry, collaborating with a university researcher?
>> 
>> Michael Wood
>> Perth, Western Australia
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