In a message dated 1/21/99 9:05:44 AM Pacific Standard Time, dferr...@placer.ca.gov writes:
<< One of the things that caught my attention most in the whole Open Space meme is that self-organizing systems don't need a facilitator to organize them. >> But they often need someone to assume the responsibility for "creating and holding the space" so that a new category of self-orgaizing forces can exert their influence. Having said that I should say that I can't think of a human system that isn't self-orgainzing. Machiavelli said a long time ago that " changing organizations is the hardest thing in the world" . ( I may have misquoted him slightly, but that is basically what he said.) Those forces of homeostatsis in a system are about self organization. To me it is not a question of whether a system is self-orgainzing, it is a question of what it is self orgainzing around, and whether is has the systemic flexibility to reorganize in response to environmental change. Joe