[OSList] When did you first hear about OST?

[Harold Shinsato via OSList]

Such awesome stories. Much gratitude, and may the powerful stories to 
continue to emerge. I'm in!

1. when did you first hear about os or ost?

Short answer: May 2007. Long answer: I first about OST from the 
wonderful Kaliya Hamlin who was hired to conduct a sideline "barcamp" in 
San Francisco at Moscone Center for the annual (huge) JavaOne conference 
in May of 2007. The only reason I was drawn to that was because 
something really struck a cord in me when I heard read on the web in 
2007 what was happening at FooCamp (a watered down version of OST), 
which would be hard to experience as only 250 a year get invites. When I 
heard that BarCamp's were a copy of FooCamp and something anyone could 
conduct, I got quite excited about offering one in Montana. And a few 
other influential people in the tech community in Montana were also 
interested and had heard about BarCamp and supported my intention. But 
the JavaOne sideline 'barcamp' was pretty much a glorious failure. Out 
of 10-20 thousand participants, only 10 showed up for our BarCamp and 
only stayed for an hour (despite one of the handful of lead conference 
organizers showing up saying he thought all tech conferences would 
eventually be in this kind of format). Kaliya did a small "barcamp" 
anyway and she told me about the real stuff, Open Space Technology. 
Kaliya was conducting her Internet Identity Workshop less than an hour 
south in Mountain View the following week, and when I showed up there 
Kaliya introduced me to Lisa Heft who offered me a short slideshow on 
how OST was used around the world in very diverse and powerful 
environments. I took Lisa's workshop December 2007, facilitated my first 
OST the month after at SAP in San Jose, CA, and my first "BarCamp" in 
Missoula in April of 2008 - but I did full force OST. No watering down. 
Have been hooked ever since.

2. what was the hook?  how did you notice it might have value?

That's a long story - but the short version is I had had such a mind 
blowing experience of seeing self-organization in effect (before I had 
any words for it) - in 1996 at my first National Rainbow Gathering where 
15-30K people camp for a week offering all kinds of things and feeding 
everyone as well without any official leadership. Also, my experience 
taking improv classes 1995-1998 offered the same kind of urging towards 
the emergent. And then hearing about self-direction and self-organizing 
in Agile Software Development in 2001. And finally, Jim and Michele 
McCarthy's bootcamp for me in 2002 also offered a huge level of 
self-direction and self-organization. I just *knew* it was the right 
direction. And Open Space had such a simple process and a beautiful 
invitation that let me feel like I or anyone could do it. The principles 
were already built in to our humanity. Anyone can play.

3. when did you notice that you'd started letting it inform how you live?

Hmm, I'd say with confidence that I started let OST inform how I live 
well before I even heard about OST. See the story above. And what I find 
is that Open Space is so amazing that it keeps teaching me as I continue 
to practice.

4. what has happened since then?  what difference does it seem to make?

OST has made such a difference for me and so much has happened, more 
than I can imagine writing. Short answer, it has totally changed my life 
for the better. Ten facilitations under my belt since 2008. Participated 
in 2-3 times as many, several I think will go down in the history books 
like the 3 WOSonOS events in 2010, 2012, 2013, "Leadership in a 
Self-Organizing World" and "Scrum Beyond Software". Serving on the Open 
Space Institute board and helping keep the OSLIST alive on the cheap by 
finding us free hosting. Leaving my day job this year and getting to 
face Open Space with even deeper commitment and intentionality for Open 
Space being my real life work.

I'm so grateful to Harrison, the early pioneers; for the many incredibly 
transformative relationships as well as getting to participate in the 
lively OSLIST with all of you. Blessings!

-- 
Harold Shinsato
harold at shinsato.com <mailto:harold at shinsato.com>
http://shinsato.com
twitter: @hajush <http://twitter.com/hajush>
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