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<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial>Dear Harrison and
Michael,</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial>On my recent visit to
Germany to have the privilege of working with two groups of people learning how
to work with Open Space Technology and the Conscious Open Space Organization,
your 2108 person OST meeting was, as anticipated, a subject of great interest in
the groups. Fortunately we had the blessing of having Erich Kolenaty amongst us
for the one group and he treated us to the slide show of the event. This was of
course excellent, and made even more interesting by Erich's comments so that we
could understand the event a little more from the "design" perspective.
</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial>The group raised a number
of questions that we hope we can do some learning from you about.
</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial>1. The next time, would you
have had participants announce their topics or would you have left the
announcing part out? What happened to the energy when this part took so long
(about two hours?)?</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial>2. The next time, would you
limit the number of topics as you did this time. Your agenda wall with its very
clear organization for topics was interesting but it is my understanding
that you planned for 160 topics but many more were generated and there was
no planned way to deal with them. It didn't look like the agenda wall left any
room for the "unplanned". And yet, maybe limiting the topics was
necessary.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial>3. The next time, would you
have used cushions on the floor as you did to accomodate the number of people.
We thought that there was probably a lot of discomfort esp when we became aware
of how long people had to be in their seats for the agenda
building.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial>4. The handwritten reports
and then enlarged by photocopying for posting seemed to work. Do you recommend
this to others? Any glitches? How was the actual book of proceedings
created?</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial>5. Could one of you have
facilitated this meeting on your own or did it really require the two of you to
"open" and then "hold" the space. What was your reflection about it being so
much male energy in the facilitation--two men opening the space instead of one
male and one female? Did you feel that sharing the opening of the space was a
positive effect on your own energy or did co-facilitating deflect some of your
energy to your partner?</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial>6. What is the real
advantage in a large OST meeting such as this one? What was accomplished that
could be cited as tangible results? Would it have been better to break the
large group into smaller ie:600 person simultaneous OST meetings? Would that
have been better for the participants. We noted in the pictures that some of the
breakout groups had hundreds of participants and we were imagining that it would
not be very fulfilling---but Erich pointed out that likely these in fact were
like classes continuing on with masters from the "constellation work" so they
were not meant to be really interactive.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial>7. In what circumstances
would you recommend such a large OST meeting and what could the client expect to
achieve?</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial>Well, that is it for the
questions that I said that I would bring to you,</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial>Thanks for helping us with
understanding this better. Again, we think it is a very valuable teaching
story.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT
face=Arial>Blessings,</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial>Birgitt</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=870354301-12062003></SPAN><FONT face=Tahoma size=2><SPAN
class=870354301-12062003><FONT face=Arial
size=3> </FONT></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Tahoma size=2><SPAN
class=870354301-12062003> </SPAN>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B>
OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]<B>On Behalf Of </B>Erich
Kolenaty<BR><B>Sent:</B> Monday, May 12, 2003 4:30 AM<BR><B>To:</B>
OSLIST@LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: AW: 2108 -- Remember the
Number<BR><BR></DIV></FONT>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV><FONT face=arial color=#0000ff size=2></FONT><FONT face=arial
color=#000080 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>Hi all!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000080 size=2>Harrison wrote</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>There is never a point to making people uncomfortable. And for sure if
the resources (chairs, flip charts etc) are available, certainly they should
be used. But as you noted above -- very little of all that is
<I>essential</I>. My questions are always -- What is possible? and What is
appropriate ? And I know from long experience (sorry for the "elder"
statement) that the people will not only survive -- but thrive. There is
another consideration: The more you do for somebody, the less they have to do
for themselves. I am by no means advocating being hard-nosed and nasty, but I
have often noted that adversity is often the mother of invention. Adversity
can even heighten and sharpen the experience. </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2>And here we are close together
again: </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2>It is very important to be aware
what is really <EM>essential</EM>. To know what to to keep carrefully in,
anyway. Würzburg for example showed, that it is <EM>not esssential</EM> to
provide chairs for this kind of folks. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2>My philosophie from my work as
trainer-trainer always was "Never do, what people can do by themselves".
Sounds a little bit like your formula, isn't it?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2>But we know, that one of the
conditions of self-organization is a "nutrient enviroment". And here we come
again to the question what is possible and appropriate in a certain context.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2>For sure it <EM>would not been
appropriate</EM> to skip, for example, the catering supply for 2108,
though in my opinion catering is not essential to Open Space. People
would have survived one day without food easily, maybe a little uncomfortable,
but would have survived.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2>So what is appropriate? It is
appropriate to leave the comfortzone and bring in challenges to stimulate
people to move by themselves. But </FONT><FONT face=Arial
color=#800080 size=2>I would not support a philosophy of slimming down to
nothing, without looking at the circumstances</FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2>Erich</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#800080 size=2></FONT> </DIV>* *
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