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:<\/p>\n
We discussed several things we have noticed over the past year or so that have been major \u201cahas\u201d\u009d for us both as seasoned and new Open Space Technology facilitators. \u00a0 These insights fell into three broad categories.<\/p>\n
First, it is clear that there is an increasing familiarity with OST and an increasing demand for the process. \u00a0 Furthermore it seems that groups that are using the process are going very deep and using it in very sophisticated ways. \u00a0 As facilitators we are finding less and less need to \u201csell\u201d\u009d people on the idea of the process. \u00a0 This was attributed to a number of factors including the fact that society in general is learning and practicing a lot more of relationship working. \u00a0 Information technology has transformed to relationship technology and collaboration and interactivity has woven its way into many aspects of daily life. \u00a0 Mobility, interactivity, collaboration and tolerance for chaos have become more mainstream. \u00a0 As a result, we are learning more and more about the need to be more tolerant with chaos, as we have been perfected real time course corrections. \u00a0 Wikipedia is a mainstream example now of the power of collaborative technology and this has raised the bar for face to face meeting and collaborative work.<\/p>\n
As facilitators we are learning more and more to be collaborative in all stages of the Open Space process, from invitation, to hosting, to harvesting and sustaining results. \u00a0 We are becoming more and more comfortable with the role of creating difficulty and chaos in order to help groups and organizations find new levels of innovation and collaboration. \u00a0 More of us are finding ourselves playing the archetypal role of The Fool in our work.<\/p>\n
A third and very interesting development is noting the mental health benefits of participants experiencing greater integration as a result of being in active community experiences. \u00a0 Open Space seems to not only produce high quality results but also high quality relationships that results in deeper and deeper ways of being and deeper experiences of individual and collective wholeness.<\/p>\n