[OSList] Interdisciplinary Research dreaming

[Michael Wood via OSList]

A few years ago I was invited by a learning and development company to facilitate a weekend of Open Space for the whole company, on the question of 'New Business Development ideas for..'x' company'.

It was an incredibly creative and fun weekend in which many ideas were floated and talked about. Towards the end, one or two key ideas distilled out, which the group was willing to put further time into and which the company directors thoughts was a viable business proposition to invest more time in. The idea went on to make millions of dollars for the company. The directors were pretty happy about the return on investment from taking their entire staff away for two days.

What would happen if someone in a university were to sponsor an interdisciplinary dreaming day on 'new research possibilities', which enabled people to float out their wackiest and most exciting emergent ideas (one's which perhaps are just a 'flicker')  - and allow the miracle of self organisation to enable cross disciplinary conversation to occur (poets asking questions of engineers (and visa versa); business school leaders asking questions of marine biologists (and visa versa).

Is anyone aware of this having happened in any university in the world? If so, can you refer me to the person who organised it or facilitated it. I've love to have a conversation with them.


Michael Wood

Univerisity of Western Australia


 michael.wood at uwa.edu.au