[OSList] Interdisciplinary Research dreaming

Tue Oct 6 08:41:43 PDT 2015

Michael
Yes, despite reservations it has been done.  As facilitator for a multi discipline team we involved community's across a whole river catchment and an irrigation area that generates over a billion dollars a year.  The process followed open space principles and the visible procedure was the development of scenarios.  These scenarios created possible drivers, possible, interactions across the community including research to explore possible consequences.  The principle outcome was a community skilled in the art of dialogue and open to all possibilities including that there may be multiple best actions.

The reality was that it perturbed the research community who very quickly identified with the possibilities of cutting edge (high profile, high profit, highly desirable) research.  This went hand in hand with those who's concern was the development of healthy and sustainable communities including the arts (yes poetry, stories and pictures were all pat of the outputs).

The project cost about $5 million and ran for four years.  The stakeholders were well pleased with their investment and the community has developed their own form of "organisation" to sustain their journey.  At the same time the establishment wanted to control the process, without success.  Independent evaluation and Peer review summarised the project as exemplar and leading the way in effective community development.

The bis issue has been that the success has intimidating for some and like most self organising systems it retreated  back to the safe zone when pressured.   This whole process Tok place while there was an 80% downturn in participants in the principle industry Dairy!

Yes it has been done, very successfully.  The system behind has arranged itself in a totally new way without the need for me the hold the helm.

Please try, success is just mm away!

The postscript is that one minor sponsor asked me to run a session to explore opportunities for his company to invest in research over a five year period.  The outcome was that some researches got involved and really put in on the day, others opposed the openness and diversity. Result, the nay Sayers did not get invited to the second round where actual projects were evaluated.   This sponsor asked me "What is wrong with these people, can't they see the opportunity?"  My response was that it is their choice and their future and just let them go.  One person who was in a position of control "outside the workshop" wanted to stop the process as it was "out of control" (his control) the whole workshop community responded by asking him to sit down and get on with the tasks at hand. Self organising self control.

Regards
Rob

> On 6 Oct 2015, at 8:53 am, Harrison Owen via OSList <oslist at lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:
> 
> Michael ... I think it is a superb idea, and to the best of my knowledge, it
> has never been done. But I pretty sure there isn't a university on the
> planet that would have the guts to try it. I would love to be proved wrong,
> but in the meantime it seems to me that every person in the world has a
> superb opportunity. At a time of their choosing, and a place of their
> comfort, they may open the space for sharing and caring about something of
> importance. I think that is called Learning. Were universities to do more of
> it...
> 
> Harrison
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: OSList [mailto:oslist-bounces at lists.openspacetech.org] On Behalf Of
> Michael Wood via OSList
> Sent: Monday, October 05, 2015 10:42 PM
> To: oslist at lists.openspacetech.org
> Subject: [OSList] Interdisciplinary Research dreaming
> 
> 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 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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