Yesterday I convened a session on our greatest “ahas” about the Open Space world over the last year…here is a selection from my report: We discussed several things we have noticed over the past year or so that have been major “ahas” for us both as seasoned and new Open Space Technology facilitators. These insights fell into three broad categories. First, it is clear that there is an increasing familiarity with OST and an increasing demand for the process. Furthermore it seems that groups that are using the process are going very deep and using it in very …
San Francisco OSonOS 2008 has begun with Lisa Heft opening up space in a beautiful building at San Francisco’s Presidio this morning for 120 of us from more than 15 countries to get into what Open Space is all about. This is my third worldwide OSonOS and I love these gatherings because I get to hang around with people for three days that I don;t have to explain myself to! That, I think may be a good working definition of a community of practice. THis one is different for me as I am here with my whole family, …
San Francisco, CA, USA The annual world Open Space on Open Space is upon us, and I am here with the whole family in San Francisco in anticipation of two and half days of meeting with friends old and new. Tonight Harrison Owen was here making a brief appearance to launch the 3rd Edition of the Open Space Technology User’s Guide, which has been updated with several stories and tweaks to the process that the community has evolved since the last edition, published in the 1990s. It was good to see Harrison again, although ever so briefly, as he was …
Robert Paterson is doing some interesting work these days: KETC, a client of mine, the Public TV Channel in St Louis, has been chosen by CPB to test how well a public TV station can be in Convening the wide community of its city to come together and help each other cope with a giant crisis. Here is a link to the background.I am writing today to offer up an early report. This week we held the first on air/web town hall meeting. For the first time St Louisans could see that they were not alone. The room was full …
As Marc’s conversation has unfolded at teh OSLIST, he dropped this lovely analogy about holding space into the mix today. Here’s what he does when people ask him why they pay him: Usually I then refer to my memories living in West Africa. We mostly had a night watchman in our garden (in many ways the reason was also to give another person a job). They were always there, sitting under a tree, brewing tea and they were great to have a chat with – they knew everything that happened in the neighbourhood! But they never actually did something. …