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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Paul – it ain’t Dogma – just experience. If the experience changes, change the story. And that is what we are – Story Tellers. And the Tale has yet to be fully told. One thing I am absolutely clear about. We didn’t invent it. And certainly I didn’t invent it. Been going on for 14.7 billion years, and we are just catching up – just barely. Wherever it happens is the right place. We just have to keep out eyes open. And Be prepared to be surprised. I will be the first to cheer the departure of Open Space Technology. It is, and always has been in my mind a “half-way technology.” Something we do until we can easily and openly do the real thing. Which paradoxically is nothing new and nothing strange. Just what we do, and what we are. So relax Paul... the story is just getting started....<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Harrison<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Harrison Owen<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>7808 River Falls Dr.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Potomac, MD 20854<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>USA<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Camden, Maine 04843<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Phone 301-365-2093<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>(summer) 207-763-3261<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><a href="www.openspaceworld.com%20"><span style='color:blue'>www.openspaceworld.com</span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><a href="www.ho-image.com%20"><span style='color:blue'>www.ho-image.com</span></a> (Personal Website)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Consolas;color:#1F497D'>To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of OSLIST Go to:<a href="http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org"><span style='color:blue'>http://lists.openspacetech.org/listinfo.cgi/oslist-openspacetech.org</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> oslist-bounces@lists.openspacetech.org [mailto:oslist-bounces@lists.openspacetech.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>paul levy<br><b>Sent:</b> Friday, August 09, 2013 7:23 PM<br><b>To:</b> World wide Open Space Technology email list<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [OSList] Certification?<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The problem, dear colleagues, is that if you fix this as dogma...<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>For me it all comes down to this:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>· 5 Conditions of Use<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>· A few logistics<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>· Circle<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>· 5 Principles<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>· Law of 2 feet<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>· Be Prepared to be Surprised<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>· Trust the People<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>... Then you have killed the space for change. What Harrison calls (also dogmatically) "the genuine article" sets up a tragic polarity between genuine or NOT genuine.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>George W Bush did the same in the Iraq war: "Either you are with us or you are against us"<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Harrison will take this "genuine article" dogma to his grave. Shame. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Certification even arises at all because of this false dogma. It has drawn it in by becoming a blueprint. Oh dear.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>There is no genuine article other than what we create in the moment of need and service. If we rediscover Open Space in the same format 25,000 times then it still isn't a rule or a dogma of genuineness. It simply the beauty if what it is. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>It's an act of beautiful magic, renewed and new in the emerging now.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Stop with the minimum lists already!<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Burn the user guide. Just for the hell of it. Forget it all. Then go to work. Watch the circle form. Watch open space technology escape again, breathing better and fresher - possibly in the same form, possible it might surprise you.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>Paul <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Friday, 9 August 2013, Suzanne Daigle wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><div><p><b>Certification</b>, it keeps coming up and most likely it will keep coming up as more and more people experience Open Space. <o:p></o:p></p><p>My story is that perhaps if there had been certification in 2009, I might not have jumped in as I did, recklessly and blissfully. In that first 12 to 16 months, I committed to one Open Space a month. And oh my, it was the best training ground ever. I know I botched it up many times, forgetting to say something, not being as clear in my instructions or worse, feeling so darn nervous with that dark shadow of control and desire for a predictable outcome still in my being. Funny thing is; I can confidently assert that it didn’t make a darn bit of difference. The space opened and people found each other and soon forgot the facilitator was ever there, except at the close and then only for a brief minute or two. It was again their turn to speak.<o:p></o:p></p><p>In the weeks and months preceding WOSonOS 2013, a big gang of Millennials got to experience Open Space. It rocked their world as it had rocked mine and they are now running with it. Early on, one USFSP student couldn’t wait to integrate it into one of his study groups. What happened is probably nothing like Open Space. As he tells it, he arrived late, explained it in a rush and somehow students got it, whatever version of Open Space that might have been. Today that same guy is eating and sleeping Open Space; he invented stuff for the newsroom at WOSonOS and keeps making plans on how he and others will be bringing Open Space to student government and community. He is not alone; others are just as ignited.<o:p></o:p></p><p>For me it all comes down to this: <o:p></o:p></p><p><span style='font-family:Symbol'>·</span><span style='font-size:7.0pt'> </span>5 Conditions of Use<o:p></o:p></p><p><span style='font-family:Symbol'>·</span><span style='font-size:7.0pt'> </span>A few logistics <o:p></o:p></p><p><span style='font-family:Symbol'>·</span><span style='font-size:7.0pt'> </span>Circle<o:p></o:p></p><p><span style='font-family:Symbol'>·</span><span style='font-size:7.0pt'> </span>5 Principles<o:p></o:p></p><p><span style='font-family:Symbol'>·</span><span style='font-size:7.0pt'> </span>Law of 2 feet<o:p></o:p></p><p><span style='font-family:Symbol'>·</span><span style='font-size:7.0pt'> </span>Be Prepared to be Surprised<o:p></o:p></p><p><span style='font-family:Symbol'>·</span><span style='font-size:7.0pt'> </span>Trust the People<o:p></o:p></p><p>The simplicity of it all still astounds!<o:p></o:p></p><p>An invitation to see life and be in life, with all its beauty, awe and wonder! Infinite and indescribable!<o:p></o:p></p><p>Timeless in the awareness it has created in me, how it has enriched my life with others, in the doing and not doing. <o:p></o:p></p><p>From clarity to confusion, from knowing to not knowing, from joy to sadness, hope and despair…it’s all there like breathing in and breathing out. <o:p></o:p></p><p>Oh the twist of fate, the serendipity that led me to Open Space or Open Space to me! It was not even a real Open Space, just enough to spark something that made me long to know more. <o:p></o:p></p><p>How grateful I am to have met OS. How appreciative to have stood on the shoulders of giants who came before me and who are here in this community. And how much I want others and everyone to “experience” it too; however they experience it, wherever it leads them!<o:p></o:p></p><p>In the spirit of “one less thing to do” that is embodied in Open Space, it is where I believe we find that 1% sweet spot that ignites it all: the individual and collective “passion” and “responsibility” that leads to the life cycles of high performance that is in nature everywhere around us. By opening space and doing less, we are clearing the space for what matters most.<o:p></o:p></p><p>How can we certify that? It does not even really exist. It’s just life. <o:p></o:p></p><p>This is what the “certification conversation” inspired in me as I felt the knots in my stomach, the old confusions surfacing, and the feeling of so much to do that I’m not doing, so much more to know that I don’t know. The “not good enough story” that struggles to re-emerge poked its ugly head out. <o:p></o:p></p><p>So I had to reground myself once again, to the sheer simplicity of Open Space.<o:p></o:p></p><p>Am I “being” this way yet? Heck no! But maybe by reminding myself a bit more every day and speaking it out loud, I will do less and say less (on that I have a long way to go). When there is pain in the world, it is awfully difficult to believe that doing less is for the best. <o:p></o:p></p><p>I’ll take a glass of Pinot Noir now if there’s any left. <o:p></o:p></p><p>Suzanne<o:p></o:p></p><p> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>On Fri, Aug 9, 2013 at 1:37 PM, Chris Corrigan <<a href="mailto:chris.corrigan@gmail.com">chris.corrigan@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Hiya ,Chris!<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>I have no trouble with givens as a practice. I learned that from Birgitt too although these days i talk about it as working in context. For me it is all part of setting the container for the work. In the Art of Hosting workshops many of us do we spend a lot of time on design, reasoning that the methods are simple actually but understanding the pre and post meeting work, working with the context and setting and holding a container for cocreation are essential to good work getting done. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>I have no problem with people receiving certificates for attending workshops but one simply can't guarantee performance with certification in this field. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Pass the wine. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>C<br><br>-- <o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>CHRIS CORRIGAN<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Harvest Moon Consultants<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://www.chriscorrigan.com" target="_blank">www.chriscorrigan.com</a><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><a href="http://aohrivendell.withtank.com/" target="_blank"><b>Art of Hosting - Participatory Leadership and Social Collaboration</b>, Bowen Island, BC</a> <a href="x-apple-data-detectors://5">November 11-14,2013</a><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div><div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><br>On 2013-08-09, at 12:48 AM, "<a href="mailto:eiwor@gatewayc.com">eiwor@gatewayc.com</a>" <<a href="mailto:eiwor@gatewayc.com">eiwor@gatewayc.com</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>Dear Chris I agree about all you said, especially about the givens. I would even dare to say that the prework and the discussion there is what opens the space. What I do at the beginning of an OST meeting is ritual, also important but still ritual. <br>Thanks for your story.<br>Eiwor<br><br>Skickat från min HTC<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'>----- Reply message -----<br>Från: "Chris Weaver" <<a href="mailto:chrisgweaver13@gmail.com">chrisgweaver13@gmail.com</a>><br>Till: "World wide Open Space Technology email list" <<a href="mailto:oslist@lists.openspacetech.org">oslist@lists.openspacetech.</a><a href="mailto:oslist@lists.openspacetech.org">org</a>><br>Rubrik: [OSList] Certification?<br>Datum: fre, aug 9, 2013 06:45<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>Greetings All,<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Ah, I can't resist jumping in to stir the pot. It is an honor to join a thread peopled by so many folks whom I respect (and appreciate and love) so much. I invite you to settle in for rather a long story, which may, at some point, have something to do with "certification."<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>After learning of Open Space in Anne Stadler's kitchen, I walked around as a newbie at the OSonOS in Monterrey (the one fifteen years ago, from which Harrison was unexpectedly absent, due to a nasty flu, I believe), with my jaw hanging open to meet so many bold and brilliant facilitators (I remember especially Michael P, Alan Stewart, Brian Bainbridge, Roxy, and Birgitt Bolton) sharing stories that I sweetly strove to wrap my head at least half-way around.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>For a few years I engaged actively on the OSLIST as I began to facilitate some OST meetings (without even "finishing the book," as I recall) in the Seattle school where I worked as a teacher. In 1999 I landed here in North Carolina, where I attended my first OST workshop as part of the Genuine Contact Program with Birgitt (Bolton) Williams who had recently landed a few hours away.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Now I will say that I have an assumption only that at around that time there was something of a "falling out" between Birgitt and her work and the work of some other OS facilitators. I do not know, nor need to know, the details. But I do know that there are some points of practice that have generated some heated passion in the community and that I think are worthy of putting on the storytelling table. (I know that there is not supposed to be a table, but I suddenly imagine myself with Jeff, Chris, Peggy, Harrison, Michael in a pub somewhere with a rough wooden table, on which I am happily uncorking a bottle of pinot noir.)<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>When I completed the Genuine Contact "Working with OST" workshop, I received a certificate, but not a certification. (The distinction is important because there was no intention on the workshop leader's part to evaluate my "competence" in any way.) Based on my participation in the four-day experience, I could, if I cho<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div><p class=MsoNormal>Suzanne Daigle<br>NuFocus Strategic Group<br><a href="x-apple-data-detectors://12/0">7159 Victoria Circle</a><br><a href="x-apple-data-detectors://12/0">University Park, FL 34201</a><br>FL <a href="tel:941-359-8877">941-359-8877</a>; <br>CT <a href="tel:203-722-2009">203-722-2009</a><br><a href="http://www.nufocusgroup.com" target="_blank">www.nufocusgroup.com</a><br><a href="javascript:_e(%7b%7d,%20'cvml',%20's.daigle@nufocusgroup.com');" target="_blank">s.daigle@nufocusgroup.com</a><br>twitter @suzannedaigle<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></body></html>