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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body bgcolor=white 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'>Harold – Conversation surely continues! Never fear!! And I surely hear what you are saying, but as I commented to Dan in a private note – “Never fear Dan. I think I do understand. As an old gamer, having used both the theory and practice extensively in the ‘70’s for the development of health care policy and programs, I am profoundly aware of the power and the possibilities. As I used to say in those ancient days – Gaming allows us to do in pretend time what is impossible or illegal to do in real time. Covers a lot of bases and gets a lot done. That said, I would never use gaming when I could play for real. I just went for it. I think that may be the source of my discomfort when “game” is attached to OS. As far as I am concerned – when in Open Space, we are “going for it for real.” It ain’t a game.<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'>Your use of the words and concepts certainly make sense given the context and the community you are addressing (Agile, Scrum, etc.) But I am just not sure that they translate well into a broader and different community. I have and certainly can be very wrong, but I’ve always found that when in Rome a little Latin will do </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Wingdings;color:#1F497D'>J</span><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'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>My real point is that when seeking to help us understand what Dan is all about (and it is a marvelous project), his phrasing may not be the most felicitous. Then again my difficulty may well be an advanced case of hardening of the neuronal pathways. Happens </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Wingdings;color:#1F497D'>J</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Wingdings;color:#1F497D'>J</span><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'><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'><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'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><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></div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><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";color:windowtext'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";color:windowtext'> Harold Shinsato [mailto:harold@shinsato.com] <br><b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, October 09, 2013 9:29 AM<br><b>To:</b> World wide Open Space Technology email list<br><b>Cc:</b> Harrison Owen<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [OSList] The OST Game<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>Harrison,<br><br>Ok, I'll take your word from previous posts that I won't be in trouble if I risk going up against you again - or maybe it's just a hope that this thread won't be shut down due to misunderstandings.<br><br>The statement "OST is a game" actually doesn't work for me so much because it uncomfortably reduces all the ideas and philosophy (and practice) of OST into a word that unfortunately has for many negative connotations. But perhaps I'll invite thinking about OST *as* a game instead. Perhaps that can help prevent cognitive dissonance and allow for this conversation to continue.<br><br>My understanding of the word game as used by Daniel Mezick and others comes from game theory - and could open up many benefits.<br><br>The briefest way I think to hope to keep this particular door open for those in this community who might find the word game unpleasant would be to suggest the book "Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility" by James P. Carse. Mr. Carse actually is a professor of history and literature of religion - and his thinking in that book is very poetic and beautiful. And it reminds me much of Open Space thinking - and I won't even attempt to dive into his thesis any more than to look at what I think sums up the thinking being the final sentence in the book. "There is only one infinite game."<br><br>The bigger game of Open Space is the game of life - the unending story - the "one infinite game". And an OST meeting or conference is a finite game which seems to open up an experience of the infinite game in a beautiful way. And yet, there's still value in seeing the finite game aspects of OST in that context.<br><br>Alas, perhaps this attempt will be futile. But I hold out hope that others won't be discouraged from this perspective on OST as a game and it's benefits.<br><br> Harold<br><br>On 10/7/13 1:25 PM, Harrison Owen wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Dan – Using the word, “game” as you do, I guess it sort of works with OS, but I do confess a certain feeling of cognitive dissonance, which I suspect may be shared by some of my colleagues. In any event, it certainly would not be a word I would use. But that doesn’t mean a great deal. However, when you say, “Leaders choose to play OST. Or not,” I do feel called upon to say something like... Oh Yes? </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Some people refer to the “Game of Life,” but it is scarcely a game you choose to play (or not). Not playing is called suicide, I think, and while some people do make that choice it is not a choice that most folks would considered good, useful, or positive. It is more like canceling all choices. Out of the Game, so to speak.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I feel rather the same way about OS, and for all the same reasons. OS for me is not a process we choose to do or not do – quite simply it is what we are -- Self organizing, and OS is only an invitation to be ourselves fully and purposefully. We can chose to be ourselves with distinction, despair, or something in between -- but so long as we remain on the planet in some viable form, we got no choice. We are what we are, what we are. Put a little differently, OS is not something new and different, it is just a small name change for what has been around for quite a while: life. I guess you can call it a game, but somehow that seems to miss some of the nuances.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Harrison </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p></blockquote><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>-- <br>Harold Shinsato<br><a href="mailto:harold@shinsato.com">harold@shinsato.com</a><br><a href="http://shinsato.com">http://shinsato.com</a><br>twitter: <a href="http://twitter.com/hajush">@hajush</a><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></body></html>