Sometimes people hear about Open Space and wonder how it can work, with nobody “in charge” of what’s going on. But then again…

…The economy is non-linear, and no one is in charge. There was a famous statement by a Soviet official during Glasnost in the 1970’s. The Soviets were beginning to tour the United States and couldn’t believe that the houses were real, that the workers actually had cars. The Soviet official who was in charge of bread production for Moscow was said to have asked the mayor of New York where the man was who was in charge of bread production for the city of New York. The mayor responded, “No one is in charge of bread production for the city of New York.” The key thing about our Western economy is that nobody is in charge of it, no one giving orders, no one planning, and so far things have mainly been OK.

From Gregg Easterbrook as reported at WorldChanging.org, in response to the question about what our most important tool might be for creating bright green cities.

noneck writes a “How did we get here?” for Rootscamp:

Around the beginning of August 2005, a group of progressive technologists modified the long standing exclusivity of the invitation only hacker event “Foocamp,” and started planning Barcamp. Armed with a venue to host two days of free flowing and open conversations, Barcamps circled the globe and spread the meme of Open Space Technology. They have since evolved to meet particular needs in Govcamp, Podcamp, Artcamp, Copycamp, Drupalcamp, and in September 2006, the New Organizing Institute (NOI) and Emerging Progressives decided to grow their institutional knowledge and foster a 2006 political debrief; Rootscampwas born.

I’m not sure how unconventional OST is anymore, but Stephen Citron writes in his rant Conferences without the Conferring are a Con:

Similarly, conferences could raise their game by allowing all present to participate, contribute, express themselves and be listened to. Some have already taken this delegate focus to extremes, with unconventional and bold “unconferences” and “open space technology”. These are group sessions that run without prior agenda or speakers, and look to the delegates to create content on the fly.

Steve Pashley has a great post Engaging with Local Communities about using Open Space Technology, including Open Space Online. He notes that the NHS (Britain’s National Health Service?) has used face to face OST meetings “engage with stakeholders” in a one-off way without democratizing the organization. He proposes the online version as a possible on-going tool to push change further.

On April 7, 2007, there will be an Open Space Technology event to write the charter for the Black Rock Federal Credit Union, serving the Burning Man community.

This from Harrison Owen today on the OSLIST…

You may remember that last year Michael Pannwitz and I had the privilege of Opening Space for the Congress of Imams and Rabbis in Seville. The occasion, as I reported, was more than a little exciting and definitely not according to whatever “Plan” I might have had. That said, the gathering was also profoundly moving and powerful for the two of us and, we believed, the participants as well – at least that is what we saw, and they said. Now almost a year later it was very nice to receive a note from an advisor to the King of Jordan and sometime Ambassador to the UN, which said in part,” It was wonderful in Seville and the great role you played changed the entire atmosphere, into what turned out lively, warm and cordial.”

Had the event been only another community/corporate gathering, the words would have seemed nice but not particularly significant. But that event was filled with virtually every conflict and tension imaginable – and at points seemed quite ready to fly into a million pieces. The shift from catastrophe (as some were calling it) into “lively, warm and cordial” was, to put it mildly, mind blowing, and confirmed once again, if confirmation was needed that opening space for peace can be very effective. And of course, the real heroes were not Michael, me or Open Space. The people did it all by themselves, as usual. Once they had the space to become what they already were – a vibrant self-organizing system searching for peace with themselves and their world, nothing else was needed.

As we sit at the edge of 2007 watching the so called “world powers/leaders” going in circles, seeking to control events and the lives of others with disastrous results, I find the experience of Seville to be nothing short of uplifting. To be sure we could all blow it this time around, but there is an alternative. It is also true, I think, that we in this funny little online community have a lot of work to do.

For the longer story of what happened in Seville, see here and here.

Seamus (Shay) McInerney begins his 5-7 minute description of OST this way:

Open Space Technology is not so much a technology as a technique and it’s not so much a technique as an experience.
more

Alexander Kjerulf reviewed Harrison Owen’s Open Space Technology back in 2003 and just included it in his list of books about happiness at work. He calls OST:

the most insanely efficient and fun meeting form I have ever tried.

A colleague and friend to many of us in the Open Space practitioners community, Laurel Doersam, passed away on October 23rd from ovarian cancer. She was the co-host of the 2001 OSonOS in Vancouver BC. From Lisa Heft:

The fabulous Laurel Doersam died the morning of October 23, 2006 after a graceful, fierce, shifting, always surprising, full of miracles, surrounded by love, dancing the dance of each moment battle with ovarian cancer since 2001.

She died the way she lived – sharing spirit, breath, and community, surrounded by loved ones.

Take a moment if you like, to read Laurel’s daughter Chelsea’s last several writings on the blog she had set up to share the news during these recent transitions. Bring a tissue, as your eyes may become as full as your heart as you read Chelsea’s eloquent reflections.

Our condolences to her family and friends around the world.

Chris Corrigan offers the heart of years of practicing and listening and living in Open Space, in the form of a book he has written that expresses the wisdom of the Taoist classic, the Tao Te Ching, in the language and sensibility of Open Space.

In some ways this book chronicles the essence of my own emergent practice of Open Space. In looking over it one more time, I realized that almost everything I know about Open Space is somehow distilled into these chapters.

Using a Creative Commons license, Chris is making this loving gift of deep insight freely available for download, here.

Beautiful!

easily amazed: Opening Space and Deepening Connection
# I breathe. I listen to my breath. I allow my breath to guide me. I follow.
# I value myself and I value others.
# I explore new techniques and organically arising processes for listening to and connecting with my internal experience.
# I love others… through loving others I am introduced to a variety of aspects of myself.
# I play with children. Listen to their world and allow myself to follow the mystery of their engagement with life.
# I trust my felt sense and my experience of now.
# I follow my passions. I take responsibility for what I love.

A question was raised recently in an OSLIST conversation about the “next generation” of Open Space. Gabriela Ender, founder of the OpenSpace-Online virtual conferencing facility, offered a beautiful response:

Next generation of OST? Why? The gift and the power of OST its exactly this beautiful easiness. When we want to enable and support selforganization – we have to be role models for “less is more”. I think, we facilitators facilitating OST not for us. We do it for the people.

My question would not be “next generation OST”, but rather next generation of consciousness. Consciousness in terms of how to include the elegance of OST into ongoing or planned communication or transformation processes, the consciousness of how to combine complementary methods and resources within in a longer term process (also offline and online), and also consciousness in terms of what is our role as consultants/facilitators, if we work with OST.

If we step into the shoes of the people, we do not need a next generation OST, we need humility for the miracles of OST and a personal dinner demand for quality regarding well designed participatory architectures.

For me, OST has nothing to do with trends. It simply touches the heart of people and because it gives official permission for selforganization. For me its all about “back to the roots and forward to higher consciousness”. I deeply believe and feel, its all just the beginning – based on millions of evolutionary open space years.

Harrison Owen had a nice response to this, as well.

Chris Corrigan and I have been using the words “Inviting Leadership” to describe this evolution, but we’ll save that story and link for another day.

They Do Things Differently There was the theme of a day for Customers, Testers and Developers Learning Each Others’ Languages — A French-English Open Space forum …hosted by the XP (eXtreme Programming) Day Montreal 2006 conference.

Deborah Hartmann has posted the invitation, photos of proceedings, and some other bits about this program, in the OpenSpaceWorld.NET wiki workspace. Way to go Deborah!

Elwin Guild recently posted to the OSLIST a report from an OSonOS by the Sea conversation about Opening Space in Conflict. Four case studies were presented as examples of a wide variety of conflict instances where Elwin has used OST:

1. [A] consulting contract with a small and defective office within the U.S. Dept of Interior. This was a two-day “team building” workshop that was in reality a “set-up” to eliminate/terminate one of the office employees. The new boss felt this person was an obstructionist and determined to cause trouble for him.

2. A 2 1/2 day OST for an International Consulting firm that just underwent a senior management coup d’etat in order to launch a “global” marketing strategy.

3. A series of four 2 1/2 day OSTs each with 30 participants representing Croat, Serb and Bosnian Muslim NGO leaders in equal numbers (10). The objective was to find improved management strategies for post-war operations.

4. The surrender of the Communist National Dairy Union to the Bulgarian
Dairy Association during a 2 1/2 day OST with 253 participants.

Elwin’s notes about how each one turned out can be read here in the OSLIST Achives.

I often describe Open Space as a “practice in invitation.” At the center of every invitation is a theme, in the same way that at the center of every meeting/circle is a purpose. The theme is the clearest possible statement of the purpose. Here’s a bit of what OST originator Harrison Owen had to say recently, when asked about “good themes for Opening Space…”

…I doubt that there is any such thing as a “generic good theme.” But I have found that there are some general criteria:

• Short — anything more than a half dozen words is usually too long.
• Always stated as a question — questions open space. Statements close it.
• In the language of the people — every organization or group of people has its own special language and code words. The theme should be stated in that language/words. This is
  one reason why a great theme for one group will automatically be a dud for
  another.
• Cuts to the heart of the matter — there is a place for diplomatic statement, but not here. Verbal obfuscation rarely arouses passion — and you want a lot of passion.

A really good theme will be so specific to that group that others will simply not notice it, or if noticed, then not inspired [by it]. Read the full OSLIST posting…

Once you have a theme that fits like this, the rest of the invitation is usually a slam dunk. Just tell them where and when to show up!

Great stuff from Chris Corrigan about learning to converse

1. Be present.
2. Have a good question.
3. Use a listening piece.
4. Work with mates.
5. Harvest.
6. Be wise.

John Engle shares with the OSlist how at the opening of group work, he often invites groups to rest at ease if silence happens, waiting for what the silence might bring:

“I ask that we see silence as a friend during our time together whether we’re in small groups or in this large group. If silence comes, let’s not feel like we need to chase it away, remembering that frequently, it’s the nudgings of silence that bring into being ideas and voices which would’ve otherwise remained unspoken.”

Gabriella Ender, the creator of OpenSpace-Online sends news that her software has been nominated for a Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics award. The nomination text states:

Germany’s “do-it-yourself” OpenSpace-Online E- Participation Real-Time Methodology is a powerful philosophy that has the potential to become one of the most earth shifting Internet meeting and conferencing methods in society, politics, education and other fields. OpenSpace-Online was developed by Change Facilitator Gabriela Ender and her team in Germany (1999-2002). The easy to use innovation enables fast collaboration, knowledge-sharing, problem solving and results-oriented dialogs about urgent topics for small and large groups in real-time without ’human’ online moderators. During the virtual-led and structured working process all participants are equal. It also bridges value-gaps between online and offline collaboration / participation in a wonderful unique way.

You can vote for Gabriella’s contribution at the awards site.

Singapore-based Nigel Seys-Phillips, reported on the OSLIST on his contribution to a World Bank Asian initiative to connect with marginalized people:

…an amazing meeting in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, with some 150 street children from the horrendous circumstances of working for a living on the Phnom Penh city garbage dump – a literal mountain of fetid rubbish where garbage trucks arrive every few minutes to dump their waste directly onto this pile. The children made a living scrabbling for anything sellable the moment the back was opened, running in front of the bulldozer set to plough it down. Plastic, material, glass, food – anything sellable that might make them up to US$1 per day if they were truly lucky.

…Taken in by an astounding NGO “Pour Un Sourire D’Enfant” they now work at school six days a week. They are fed three simple nutritious meals a day, given uniforms and books, and educated towards a career and a productive life.

…We tackled the theme: “A better future for us – the Issues and Opportunities” And within the two days allowed we posted 110 topics. We reviewed, discussed and documented 92 of them and prioritized to 10, for which we created action points.

…these are street children from approximately 12-18 years old, but major topics prioritized included:

• Corruption and how to reduce it in Cambodia
• How to develop the economy in Cambodia to give us greater work opportunities
• How to export more products made in Cambodia
• How to limit illegal immigration so Cambodians aren’t disadvantaged
• How to use the results of the Khmer Rouge trials to benefit the people of Cambodia

These, and the way the children came at them, are a great tribute to the power of Open Space and its ability to genuinely achieve openness and safety for those who would otherwise not have a voice.

The World Bank OST “road show” continues to Mongolia, Laos, Timor, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Philippines and Thailand, and we hope to be able to train others to take the programme deeper into these countries.

A hearty thanks to Nigel for this work, and to Brian Bainbridge and Viv McWaters for their initiating work.

This is just about the coolest bit of OS documentation I have ever seen. There are words about this event at Johnnie Moore’s Weblog, but this is the cool part, posted at YouTube… Open Space in 30 seconds, time-lapse video of his one-day event at the BBC.

…are posted here. This was the 14th annual Open Space on Open Space (OSonOS) international gathering of OS practitioners. Regional OSonOS events are upcoming in Ukraine, Maine, North Carolina and elsewhere… listed here.

John Engle sends photos from the Open Space on Open Space in Haiti last month. Next year’s 6th Annual Haiti OSonOS will be June 28 – July 1, 2007. Email John Engle for details.

Ralph Copleman, an OS veteran who’s been around since OS started, posted this bit of brilliance to the OSLIST today:

Here’s what I think about trying to do it all in one day…

I don’t bother trying to get proceedings printed, let alone distributed and reviewed. That’s for later. I operate out of the belief that one day is not enough to truly explore the territory (the “issues and opportunities”) plus come to conclusion about priorities plus formulate action plans. You can do it, but it will not, in my experience, have much sticking power. And the larger the group, the more challenging it is to make the energy last.

So I open space, hold the space, close the space.

The latter, for me, requires about 20 minutes (not counting a closing circle, which I always do in one form or another, sometimes abbreviated to one word or phrase per person).

1. Ask people what themes came up repeatedly regardless of topic or session. Ask someone to note these on flip charts.
2. Keep going until everyone who wishes has a chance to mention the theme they noticed.
3. Take the resultant flip charts, spread them on the floor, ask people to mark their favorites. Might be three, five, seven, etc. Depends on the size of the group and the number of items on the chart. Count them up if there’s time. Certainly count them up if you’ll be moving on to action planning the next day. Otherwise, simply promise the info will be available shortly in written form (after the coordinators pull it together and send it out).

(Where did I learn to do it this way? I do not remember, but I think from Harrison. Is it in the book?)

Simple, fast, everyone’s involved, no fancy footwork on my part. I can think of a thousand group dynamics issues and eventualities that I have not covered by doing things this way. My conviction is few if any of them really matter. Dealing with them, I have learned from finally acknowledging feedback I could not hear for years, was more about my needs than the client’s.

Organizations of all types may be better served if we open the space W I D E and let lots of air and light in than if we merely crack a window for a brief time in the name of completing the entire exercise in a short period.