<html><div>>Is conveneing a session whilst facilitating the event
abandoning (albeit </div>
<div>>temporarily) the role of space holder. Is it confusing for the
participants? </div>
<div>> I have seen Harrison doing it although that was at an OS on OS
for </div>
<div>>facilitators.....ANy responses?</div>
<br>
<div>>Andrea.</div>
<div>*****************************************************************</div>
<div>I rather suspect that we are in a territory susceptible to no one
right answer. It is very clear to me that the facilitator assumes what I
can only call a "sacred trust" to hold the space for all
participants, and so Joe's comments are quite to the point. This is
particularly true when it is a first time experience of a group in
Open Space. But as the group moves from the status of
"first-timers" to "old hands," my experience is that
the situation changes a bit. There is in fact a learning curve, and
groups do become more proficient in the subtle arts of Open Space
navigation -- which I take to be a very good thing. For the next stop is
Open Space "mentality" and eventually, I suspect, Open Space
Organization.</div>
<br>
<div>For me, Open Space Organization is the brass ring. Get that one and
you really have something. And Open Space Organization is not about using
Open Space Technology every day (or whatever) -- it is a fundamental
shift in the understanding or what it means to be organized, and who
"we" are anyhow. The only word that captures this shift
for me is Transformation. </div>
<br>
<div>This shift is less about "doing Open Space" that a
recognition that all of life is Open Space, and the sole contribution of
Open Space Technology is to allow us to perceive what is already there.
Nothing new, nothing added -- just what's there. </div>
<br>
<div>If we replace the words "Open Space" with
"self-organizing system" -- or in the words of Stuart Kauffman
from the Santa Fe Institute, a Complex Adaptive System -- things
may be a little clearer. For me there is no such thing as a NON-self
organizing system. There are just a number of people who think (I believe
erroneously) they did the organizing. The sticking point is control and
the hope that we might have it in some absolute or total manner. I
believe the world is showing us our error, and Open Space Technology
enables us to see that the loss of control is not such a terrible
thing.</div>
<br>
<div>So -- to bring all this to something like an end -- I suspect the
day will come in many organizations when having an Open Space Facilitator
is about as useful as teats on a boar, as a good friend from Kansas used
to say. As for Open Space Technology, I believe the sooner it disappears
the better. </div>
<br>
<div>Harrison </div>
<br>
<br>
<div align="center">
Harrison Owen <br>
7808 River Falls Drive <br>
Potomac, MD 20854 USA <br>
301-469-9269 (phone) <br>
301-983-9314 (fax) <br>
email owen@tmn.com<br>
Website
<a href="http://www.tmn.com/~owen" eudora="autourl">http://www.tmn.com/~owen</a><br>
Open Space Institute website<br>
<a href="http://www.tmn.com/openspace" eudora="autourl">http://www.tmn.com/openspace</a></html>