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<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 07:46:13
-0500<br>
To: bjpeters@amug.org<br>
From: Harrison Owen <owenhh@mindspring.com><br>
Subject: Re: Open Space a la carte (long)<br>
<br>
At 04:34 PM 12/10/00 -0700, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Have the originators of the cafe
process published any books or articles<br>
that would provide "how to" information as Harrison's User's
Guide does?</blockquote><br>
I gather that Alan has linked with the Cafe Website -- and if you want to
go to the "horse's mouth, try Juanita Brown
<JuanitaBrn@aol.com>. Juanita is an old friend who does marvelous
work, and as near as I can figure out, Cafe came out of an evening Soiree
at her abode. Folks just started doing it as sort of a party game, and
then discovered that they were doing something useful. I guess that is
the way most folks discover useful things. It is indeed fun, and compared
to whole mess of other ways of getting people engaged in fruitful
conversation, it comes out close to the top. <br>
<br>
Having said all that, my personal experience with Cafe has been that it
is frustrating and restrictive. Just about the time the conversation
really got good, the facilitator was saying "change
tables." I must also confess to a degree of annoyance --
brought on I am sure by my irascible nature. Somewhere in the middle of
the affair, I found myself saying (to my self thank God) "I really
don't need some facilitator telling me when I should start or stop a
conversation -- and with whom I should converse." I guess I felt it
was quite manipulative (although nicely) and to some degree demeaning.
But I am sure that is just me.<br>
<br>
At a slightly deeper lever -- I couldn't help but feel that if we were
going to spend all that time -- why not just open the space and get on
with it. There was nothing (at a substantive level) that happened in Cafe
that doesn't almost immediately happen in Open Space -- but more to the
point -- there is masses of stuff that happens in Open Space that never
has a chance to get started in Cafe...<br>
<br>
The Old Curmudgeon <br>
<br>
<br>
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<div align="center">
Harrison Owen<br>
7808 River Falls Drive<br>
Potomac, MD 20854 USA<br>
phone 301-469-9269<br>
fax 301-983-9314<br>
website
<a href="http://www.mindspring.com/~owenhh" eudora="autourl">www.mindspring.com/~owenhh</a><br>
Open Space Institute website
<a href="http://www.openspaceworld.org/" eudora="autourl">www.openspaceworld.org</a></blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Harrison Owen<br>
7808 River Falls Drive<br>
Potomac, MD 20854 USA<br>
phone 301-469-9269<br>
fax 301-983-9314<br>
website
<a href="http://www.mindspring.com/~owenhh" eudora="autourl">www.mindspring.com/~owenhh</a><br>
Open Space Institute website
<a href="http://www.openspaceworld.org/" eudora="autourl">www.openspaceworld.org</a><br>
</div>
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