Thanks Anne...I so enjoy the stories of our beginnings, and in the
telling, and receiving, find myself learning something new and renewing
my own commitment to learn.<br>
<br>
Every community has its Elders, the people who have walked that ground
long before us and who can guide us in our own travels. I
consider you to be one of the fine teaching Elders of the OS community,
and it's great to read this piece of our practice community's history.<br>
<br>
Chris<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 8/16/05, <b class="gmail_sendername">anne stadler</b> <<a href="mailto:annestad@comcast.net">annestad@comcast.net</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
<br>
Hello everyone. I have a couple of stories to offer re. the
beginnings of Open Space Technology and the forms it has taken.
AND there is a whole issue of At Work published by Berrett Kohler
in 1997 (which I believe can be accessed on their website archives??)
which I put together that has a number of stories in it re. the
application of OST in a variety of venues as well. <br>
<br>
</font></font><font face="Lucida Grande"><h3>1. My entry into Open Space: <br>
</h3><font size="4"><b>Goa India. l989. Ft. Aguada Beach Hotel: the conference: The Business of Business is Learning<br>
</b><br>
My Goa experience was a lesson in following what had heart and meaning
for me and then going with the flow. To begin with, it was a
conference for <b>invited </b>business
people—and I was a television producer (not a manager nor an executive)
at the NBC affiliate in Seattle, WA. But when I learned
about it from Dee Dickinson, a friend who was invited, I knew it was
for me! The business of Television was about learning what is
going on in the community and telling the stories-- and TV's informal
culture was definitely a learning culture! <br>
<br>
When I made it known I'd like to attend, everything fell into place
with ease: a welcome from Harrison Owen and V.S. Mahesh who were
organizing the event, my rooms at the Taj Hotels in Bombay and Fort
Aguada; an airplane ticket to Goa. <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">As the event began,
and we introduced ourselves, I felt shy. People were asking me
what I was doing there. Was I going to do a television story on
the conference? I knew that was not why I was there. I wondered myself
why I had come all this way to meet people I didn't know at a
conference to which I wasn't (initially) invited. So, my story of
OST's beginnings is a typical OST "Welcome the Stranger!" experience!<br>
<br>
V.S. Mahesh, Vice President for Human Resources of the Taj Hotel Group,
began our open space gathering by lighting an oil lamp which was placed
in the center of a lovely mandela of flower petals. He told a story
about the King's goldsmith. When the goldsmith was summoned to accept
an award from the King for the beautiful objects he made, he told the
King, "I cannot take this award, my lord. Please give it to God.
I am only an opening for His light to come into the world."
And he reminded us to keep this in mind as we did our work
together. To me, lighting the lamp, and telling this story was
the opening to Spirit which made that gathering such a profound and
creative encounter. <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">Harrison Owen began
our practical interactions by explaining a sign on which were stated a
few organizing principles hand-written in his back-slanting prep school
printing style. After wondering if he was serious, I realized
that the form we were using to organize ourselves was simple—almost
kindergarten-like-- and empowering. It was a pattern I recognized. I
had seen it time and again in my seventeen years of television
story-telling. These were the essentials people use to self-organize
when they take care of what they really care about. I felt "Okay.
What we're doing makes sense to me".<br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">Then I realized that
one of the four principles Owen had posted up on the wall was "Whoever
comes are the right people." So I felt reassured:
even if I didn't know anyone, didn't "fit" the profile of those
invited, I was one of the right people. <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">And one more
reassurance came when the marketplace started to emerge up on the wall.
Roger Harrison invited people to come to a session titled: "Work
is Love Made Visible: What would it look like if workplaces reflected
that?" "Ah", I thought. " I'm in the right place. At KING-TV's
40th Anniversary Party, Ancil Payne, our CEO, had told us that this was
what the founder, Mrs. Bullitt, believed. I guess I've been
working in something like that at KING. So I AM in the right
place!"<br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">As I experienced the
three days, I realized that Open Space--the form we were using for
self-organizing-- was profoundly grounded in familiar human patterns
which foster creativity and community. <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">I noticed that taking
responsibility for what had heart and meaning (going to Goa), and
learning by opening to Spirit (meditating each day, noticing what made
me uncomfortable and embracing that, trusting I was in the right
place)-- was what powered my full participation and contributed to the
evolution of the whole. And we did evolve. Leadership
and form emerged at Goa itself, and afterward—and that is what is so
fascinating. <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">At the "Business of
Business is Learning" conference, we had all the elements of what some
years later emerged as an organizational network: the Open Space
Institutes. We were an international group. Our meetings
happened in two different locations: Goa, India and then at Coolfont
,West Virginia. We used Open Space Technology to self-organize. Our
communication's technology included video and computers. In Goa,
I took responsibility for over-seeing a couple of videographers so we
got some video of the proceedings there. We had Internet hookup
thanks to Metanet and the Taj Hotel. Unfortunately the Indian
telephone system wasn't good enough to help us upload our proceedings.
One of the artifacts to come out of the Goa meeting was a very funny
jingle someone composed about the Goa telephones. (It's now lost to
posterity, thanks to the inadequacies of the phone system!) But
computers were present and Frank Burns from Metanet helped us
sign in and post our offerings. At Coolfont, West Virginia we did
better. The proceedings were recorded on Metanet, an on-line
conversation followed, and a Report was issued. <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">After the Goa and
Coolfont gatherings, I was still working as a television producer.
I was practicing Angeles Arrien's Four Fold Way and I was
enthralled by Open Space as a complementary means of facilitating
collective action. So my question to myself was: How do I now take
responsibility for what has heart and meaning for me? The answer:
I am really jazzed about Open Space Technology. And what should I do
about that? Find out how it works in other environments, then
tell that story on video. <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">I discovered that
Harrison Owen wasn't yet using Open Space in his corporate consulting
practice. So I couldn't actually find out how Open Space worked
by telling his consulting story. But we realized that we could
tell the story of open space at Goa and Coolfont. We made a
video: Learning in Open Space. That video and the pamphlet which
accompanied it was the first exposition of Open Space Technology. <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande"> All
the elements of the practice of emergence were right there in the
production of that video. From start to finish it was a gift exchange.
I knew what it took to do quality work in video production. And
we didn't have enough ready cash. So, we itemized what we needed.
We assumed abundance. And then we invited gifts and help. I
had video from Goa—a gift from the Taj Hotel Group. I asked my
free-lance colleagues, Hal Calbom and Phil Davies, if I could use their
editing environment to transfer the parts I might want to use, and
later on to do some editing. I got more videotape from friends at
KING-5 News who liberated some of their recycled tapes. Another
television Producer/Writer/Director, David Samuelson, was interested in
my tale of the Goa gathering. So he helped me shoot more video at
Coolfont, in return for which I helped him do a shoot in Washington DC
afterward. Then Harrison came out to Seattle in early December and
stayed with me while we did a script and shot the rest of the video we
needed.<br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande"> Our
production was a matter of taking responsibility for the gifts you
bring and sharing them. My son, Aaron was just starting his
professional life as a videographer, so he volunteered to be our
shooter and editor. We sat around our dining room table and
outlined the shooting script, then I lined up locations and Harrison
wrote the script. We shot at KING and other locations around
Seattle. David Samuelson directed the shoots. And Jerilyn
Brusseau, a local baker and café owner, (the inventor of Cinnabon!),
loaned us her van and off we went for three days of shooting. We
called ourselves Cinnamon TV, because she put a pan of cinnamon rolls
in the van to sustain us! <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">Goa, Coolfont and that
video helped to launch Harrison into his public life as the originator
of Open Space Technology. As for me, I emerged out of television
work and into the practice of opening space for the emergence of
sustainable leadership and community. By the start of 1990, I'd left
television and begun my third professional focus as a consultant--using
OST, Appreciative Inquiry and Dialogue as my principal tools. <br>
<br>
My experience of the evolution of OST told me that OST was rooted in a
gift exchange. It was itself a gift exchange, fostering the
experience of community, however transitory. And it must be
shared as such.<br>
</font></font><font face="Lucida Grande"><h3> <br>
</h3><font size="4">What I notice about my initial conscious experience of emergence: <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">Three things were essential:<br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">**Opening to Spirit—the transpersonal level—not simply to the material level of being.<br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">**Taking responsibility for what has heart and meaning and trusting whatever happens. <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">**Acting on my intention to OPEN to the unknown, trusting my capacity for learning and co-creation.<br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">Open Space as a
collective technology puts together those three elements. So the
practice of opening space–as an inner discipline and as a collective
activity—became the foundation of my personal spiritual life with a
work focus on how groups learn and evolve appropriate form. I
would describe it as "work is love made visible". <br>
<br>
<br>
</font></font><font face="Lucida Grande"></font><h3><font face="Lucida Grande">2. My story of OSI<br>
</font></h3><font face="Lucida Grande"><font size="4"><br>
The story of OSI is basically the story of an open
space organization. In the late-1990s, Harrison Owen were having
conversations about Open Space Technology having some sort of "base".
Initially, that seemed to look like a place—an Institute-- where
Harrison and others would pool their resources, write books, do
research and educate people. It would also be a site for networking the
increasing number of people who were showing up to do Open Space
facilitation in the world. At that time, we imagined it housed in
Seattle. Harrison would move there and the OSI would support his
work. That was our initial imagining. But whatever form it took,
between us, we agreed to hold the space for the evolution of OSI.<br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande"> So we
convened a group in Seattle to organize a non-profit OSI. That group
included Peggy and Neil Holman, Mark Jones, Lee Hartwell, Paul
Gleiberman. Bill Hanson, a lawyer friend, contributed legal support and
we created the non-profit entity. A similar entity was being
created in Canada. We acknowledged our partnership with the Canadian
OSI, and with their agreement imagined ourselves as the OSI of the US
holding the intention of creating the means for the world OSI to show
up. <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande"> Under the
leadership of Peggy Holman, and people who volunteer from various OSIs,
an appropriate form for the world OSI has emerged. OSI is largely
a virtual entity, governed by a self-selected board for whom such
service has heart and meaning. Their meetings are conducted primarily
by phone and e-mail. Once a year they meet face to face during the
annual Open Space on Open Space gathering.<br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">
As soon as the existence of the OSI was
announced, a ListServe was immediately offered by a colleague at Boise
State University. It has grown to more than a thousand members.
Various people have offered on-line support and facilitation for
OSI websites and other communication. There it is—the essence of
community, a gift exchange, exists right at the heart of the OST
network. <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"> <br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande">OSI
has been a clear lesson of how emergence of form is facilitated by
opening space: identifying intention, convening a circle of interested
people, sharing gifts, and welcoming whoever and whatever shows up.<br>
<br>
Love to all, Anne Stadler<br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font><font size="4"><font face="Lucida Grande"> <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font>
*
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><br>CHRIS CORRIGAN<br>Consultation - Facilitation<br>Open Space Technology<br><br>Weblog: <a href="http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot">http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot
</a><br>Site: <a href="http://www.chriscorrigan.com">http://www.chriscorrigan.com</a>