Dear Michael (Herman) I thank you for your repsonse to my inquiries about the wiki site at www.openspaceworld.net . I respect that you do not want to continue this conversation here, and yet it it the OS list that has been a community to me for 6 years and it is where I choose to reply to you. If I understand you correctly, you have suggested that the wiki site is like an OST meeting, you have stated the theme: an Open Space for OST practitioners and their projects and you have stated that the givens can be sorted out by participating within the wiki site the same as you would have your participants sort out the givens within an OST meeting.
My inquiries on this list came to you because my first response to your invitation was great excitement, the desire to assist you and the others involved with this endeavour, the play and this part of the growth of OST. However, I believe in managing my energy so that I am in a state of joy as much as possible. And so, I sought clarification about what it is that I am being invited into. When I facilitate OST meetings, I too work with my clients to get the theme right. AND I work with them BEFORE the meeting to get the core givens "out on the table" and not in the realm of implicit assumptions. I do this so that people can make an informed decision about what they are consenting to participate in and to contribute their precious life force energy to. I think informed consent is important. And so, I was seeking the theme and the givens from you so that I could make my decision. If my decision was yes, I would work diligently from my life force energy. When I work at something I put a lot of me into it. And so, my choice is to not enter the wiki site (or OST meeting) even for this discussion because in my mind and heart, I have not yet accepted the invitation to be there. So now about the theme. Should I accept the invitation or not based on the theme? The word "practitioners" in the theme says to me that this wiki site (OST meeting) is not for me because I do not see myself as a practitioner. I do not want to be seen by my clients, as someone who is "practicing". They pay me for working with OST, they pay me for having knowledge, doing and being. And so the theme of the meeting with the word "practitioner" stops me from participating. (And in answer to your question, I do not object to this word being use within the site because each person within the site works from what they believe in--I simply struggle with it's use in the theme). When I asked about this, you replied that it is the accepted word in the OST community because it has been around since 1999 and no one has disagreed with it. For me, silence does not mean consent. Nor does it mean consent that this is now how we as facilitators of OST present ourselves to the world. I thought, it would have been more democratic if Michael and those working on these sites that represent the OST community would have listed the "givens" they intend to work with/from and given the community a chance to say, "yes" this is a "given" for us and "no", this is only an assumption made and it is not valid for us in how we want to present ourselves to the world. And then I thought, who is the OST community that would have been the right one to be in on the discussion. And in my mind, that is the community of the OST list. Would we have agreed with -the word practitioner to represent us -that the site be funded by OSI US who might now through the funding be in a position of power with the site that should be representing us all -the greatest weakness in the site which is that anyone in the world who is on the internet can go in and change words and any one of us can find ourselves mis-represented--and maybe even have our mis-represented words quoted in books and have our professional reputations harmed ? The majority on the list may have agreed with all of this, but we were not given the opportunity to express how we wanted to be represented. IF www.openspaceworld.org and .net were private sites, none of the above would be a concern to me. But they are not private sites--they are intended to represent this OST community to the world. Even yesterday, with the posting that Alan Stewart made about the Faciliator's Master Journal site, the journal is about OST and the journal directs its 8,000 readers to www.openspaceworld.org as the way to find out about OST. And so I am wondering Michael if there is still a chance to back this up a bit, get agreement on the theme and the core givens within the OST community, and have a democratic process about these very important websites that you and the others you work with have developed. Blessings to you and to all with whom you make Genuine Contact, Birgitt Birgitt Williams of Dalar International Consultancy www.dalarinternational.com View the calendar for upcoming training in the Organizational Health and Balance series of workshops featuring the Genuine ContactÔ program at http://www.openspacetechnology.com/training.html We invite you to join the Genuine Contact list serve at http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/genuinecontact Contact information for Dalar International Consultancy: Po Box 19373, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA 27619 Raleigh, North Carolina USA Phone: 919-522-7750 Fax: 919-870-6599 As mentors to leaders and organizations we assist you in going beyond what has been before. We provide inspirational and practical “how to” guidance for leaders who want to achieve healthy and balanced organizations to produce exciting, tangible results for the organization and for its people. Our approach is holistic, creating a better future by tapping into ancient wisdom. We believe that Spirit matters and people are precious. We know that organizations incorporating these values have exciting, tangible results including wealth, prosperity, and abundance. These organizations tend to their health and balance on a daily basis. -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu]On Behalf Of Michael Herman Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 7:09 PM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Re: wiki sites hello birgitt... Birgitt Williams wrote: Michael (Herman), I apologize for taking so long to continue this conversation with you. Life happened and today is my first real computer day in weeks. ...this is exactly why i want to have this conversation, to do this work, inside of the wiki space on the website rather than via the oslist. the work we are doing now in the .NET wiki, me and the others who've already joined in, is large and longterm. it's not the kind of thing we can do with occasional oslist postings... we need a place to gather and grow our ongoing plans and reflections, where gaps in attendance don't create gaps in the work. also, no one person actually controls those sites and we need to be watching what happens there so that no vandals or technical troubles do serious damage to them. some of us are visiting this new space daily to notice and extend what is there. this is the nature of this ongoing development work. it takes regular attention and attendance, a continuity that gets lost in the world of email... I wanted to draft a thorough response regarding the conversation that we had about the new www.openspaceworld.net site. your thoroughness and depth of attention would add much to the site, if you would just add to the site... <grin> I notice that you have posted our OS list conversation on that site. For now, I feel that the right place for my posting is on the OS list because it involves our OS list community--and I am fine if you also post it on the website in your questions section. I admire all that you are doing with the websites, your energy and passion, commitment and discipline. I wanted to be very clear about that so that you will hopefully see that where I am coming from is a supportive place. I note your invitations for us to participate in the websites and I would like to do this but first I seek clarity about whether it is the right place for me to commit some of my energy. This e-mail is about seeking that clarity and I will be pleased to have the discussion that helps me to decide. ...and i thnk that the only way to decide if you will participate in the work that is unfolding at .NET is to go there... there is no discussion to be had here... the space at .NET is open. you are welcome there. it is not a conversation, really, there either. it is the development of a working space for practitioners. an unfolding project plan. i think you don't like this word, practitioner, but i don't know what else to call people who are practicing ost. perhaps you prefer 'leaders of open space events and projects.' in any event, the .NET space is a facility for those who are practicing, leading, opening to post the proceedings from their events there. it is a space that community groups and project teams can use to work on their own, local projects. it's a space where those groups can benefit from a free, open and simple online workign space AND where we all can benefit from watching them unfold their work in an ongoing open space way. this space is obviously not appropriate for every group or leader. it is also likely that not all groups will unfold in perfectly beautiful ways. what does happen there will be real, and that should be enough to be interesting. one of the project groups hosted there in the .NET space is the work of maintaining that .NET space. it is in that space that we are working out how .NET works. it is a work in progress and only those who show up there to do the work are going to be able to shape that work. anybody who cares about what our online spaces look like needs to show up there and *work with* other people there to give it shape. the proceedings of any open space session are written by those who actually attend the session. in this case, the session in meeting in the .NET wiki. http://www.openspaceworld.net/wiki.cgi? I also choose to recognize that by being the webmaster for the community Open Space websites, that you are in a position of power. From that position, by shaping the "givens" or what is not negotiable, you have great power in shaping how Open Space Technology is perceived in the world now and into the future. This is neither good nor bad. It simply is power of position added to the power that we all have including power of presence and power of communication. I believe that you will hold and carry out this power of position well, with recognition that many people rely on the reputation of OST for their ongoing business as independent consultants who have focused their business on OST. I know that our participants in OST meetings go through the same thing. They receive an invitation and then they have to make a decision about whether they choose to attend or not. Offering as much information in the invitation as possible is helpful so that they can make an informed choice. And so, I was seeking more information about what I was being invited into. I am not wanting to interupt your opening circle, but wanting to go back to what this is and what it is not so that I can make an informed choice. ...yes, i am the keeper of the .ORG and .NET websites. at least technically, that is. but these sites have always run in open space. from the beginning, i have actively invited everyone to take responsibility for the site and the story. i have perhaps taken most direct responsibility and so i have perhaps had more of what i care about reflected in the site, which is to say that the power i have has come through my own practice of passion bounded by responsiblity. but many other names are there with mine, because many others have posted their own articles, tools, stories and other bits into the old bulletin board and/or the new wiki spaces, in response to my invitations. and everyone gets full credit for what they have contributed. to the extent that there are some pages at .ORG that say what open space *is* then yes, these pages do something to shape that story in the world. that so many people commented on these pages when they were first posted in 1999 (i think), that so many are using these few pages around the world as handouts to clients, and that members of the oslist have chosen to take responsibility for translating them into a dozen languages tells me that they fairly well reflect what we as a worldwide practice community believe OST to be in the world. the invitation to .ORG has been and continues to be this: come post your stories, your contact info, your tools, your links, your training info, etc. so that people everywhere can find you and your OST wisdom. we give you space and access to the world with full credit and attribution and contact potential and you give us the use of your wisdom. the invitation to .NET has been and continues to be this: come and use the space to support your project/community work in OST. post your notes and followup plans and then keep working them out there, with your local partners and participants there for as long as it's useful to you. we'll give you the space to work, you give us the chance to watch you work. within the .NET space, i have begun to document the development of the .ORG space, as one of the projects unfolding in the .NET wiki. i like to think that this is me leading by example, using our online workspace to convene my own workgroup, on an issue that i am passionate about, the maintenance and development of the OSW websites. it is not a small project and not a small responsibility, i think, this ongoing tidying of a space with so many voices and stories accumulated now. it is a project that i think is too big for the oslist... because many on the list do not care to be involved in it, do not have the time or interest in getting to understand the structure and histories of the website stories, are not willing to learn how to edit and organize information in a wiki website, and/or do not have the time or inclination to take direct hands-on responsibility for posting things on the site. i also think that, while it may be interesting to discuss the content and structure of the websites on the list, to invite discussion about the websites in a forum where many participants are not taking direct responsibility for the work of the sites is not consistent with our practice of keeping passion and responsibility closely linked, is not really fair to the many who've worked on the site over the years, and not particularly helpful to us in moving forward. i very much want questions and comments about the site, i've always invited and encouraged and responded to same. i've dealt with them directly in the past, in private emails and these have done much to shape the sites. what i want to do now is take that community conversatoin public, make in accessible to the whole community, AND still continue to invite people to take direct responsibility for their website passions. i have not much interest in talking about the sites with those not willing or able to be directly involved with the community of folks who are personally and collectively learning their way into this piece of online work. it's just too hard for me to do this in any way other than passion bounded by responsibility. and so i don't feel particularly powerful in this position at all, i actually am feeling quite overwhelmed by the amount of attention that i'm bringing to the various inquiries and learnings and experiments that are happening now, IN the wikis that have been set up AND at the same time i am very happy for the company and care that many have and are now bringing to this work. i think we are making an important expansion of community capacity that will be well worth the current stretching for me personally. i'm glad for you and anyone else to join us, but for better or worse, we are gathering at the .NET wiki, not the oslist. what is being done on the wiki sites is NOT a substitute for the OSLIST. i would suggest that the oslist is our big news circle and that the wiki is a place to document smaller breakout sessions being held around the world. whoever comes to our little breakout session is very welcome and is the right people. in any openspace event, we get only the topic and the name(s) of conveners, no givens, no speeches.... it's up to every participant to surf by the sessions they think they are interested in and see what is happening, see if it calls them, see if they want to join that particular piece fo work. law of two feet. or in this case two clicks. everybody's welcome to join us and nobody has to. and the work will continue to be shaped by those who do join us. There are always "givens" or non-negotiables in life, whether we like them or not. Collectives of individuals (organizations) run into real problems when the "givens" are implicit rather than explicit. This leads to the making of assumptions that are not useful. And implicit assumptions, in my experience, lead to the potential for misuse of and misunderstanding of power. This happened to me within the www.openspaceworld.org site which I brought to your attention. The pages that are "read only" shape the tone/philosophy of the site and how it presents OST to the world. ...some .ORG pages are read only because they are too big to be edited directly by any one person. some of them hold together the structure that makes it possible to access LOTS of information by relatively simple and direct paths. the implicit assumption you seem to be making is that I wrote them and invited you to come edit MY writing. i think that this assumption is not quite right. as i've said above and before, the site is the authorship of many. it's just not appropriate to go in and edit that. it's also not right to leave the site totally open so that any individual can push their way to the front of years of collaboration and development and story-sifting. that is why i want to grow a development workgroup. when a workgroup is established and stabilized, then more of the pages can be opened for comment, because the group will be able to monitor and secure the content, balance and maintain access, simplicity clarity, completeness. in the absence of community solution and security, technical solution must suffice, for now at least. what's more, "not-read-only" is REALLY open and i just don't have the time and energy to be the only one defending these pages against vandalism and also to be constantly on call and on the spot to explain why these pages got to be this way. in short, there is much community history in these pages and i'm feeling some responsibility for passing on that history in an organized, explicit, and deep community way. when we first opened up the whole of the .ORG site for editing, .NET did not yet exist. now that it does, i have shifted my attention to growing that and the workgroup there, so that group can eventually take full and shared responsibility for unfolding the .ORG site. that said, .ORG is by NO means a closed space. there is, plenty of space at .ORG to post story blurbs, contact info, resource tools, articles, links etc.... it's the easiest way to join the work there... just play enough to get your name in teh directory, to post a story or whatever... it's a way to be involved and mentioned and contributing without taking on more responsibility. another implicit assumption seems to be that i am in control of the websites, and i think that's just not the case. if that were true, we would not have 12 languages there and i wouldn't be spending as much time on the whole project as i am. it's really more than i care to deal with. when you show up and want to edit some of these core pages, i want to know who will edit the other eleven. i'm not controlling the content of the site and also not inviting individuals to unilaterally edit community work. these questions you're asking here have been helpful in making this clear. i am grateful and thank you for that. i'm sorry if my previous messages didn't make this community bit clear. i'm also wishing that these questions were originally posted into (and now being answered in) the .NET wiki, where they'd be part of the permanent community record. i don't htink i have energy to put them there just now. over the years, as people have stepped up to do things (ask questions, post languages, etc.), i have stepped up to help them. now i'm really wanting to use the wiki spaces to do that asking, shaping and helping more openly, answering questions only once and making it clearer to everyone where our growing expertise lives, in many bodies and email boxes other than mine. When you invited us to contribute into that site as a wiki site, it appeared that ALL was open to editing and change. And then I ran right into the "givens" that were implied but never clearly stated, because the very pages I wanted to put changes on where the ones that were "read only". You replied saying that this was what gave the site its structure and so it could not be changed except through you. In this circle of people that we are, there are 360 degrees of perspectives of what OST is and how to present it. It is no surprise that my perspective is different than yours. Both are valid. However, one perspective (may be shared by many) is created for the site by structuring the implicit "givens" on that site. I think if it was the site of one individual rather than the community site, this would be fine. But, with a community site (assuming the community is the community on the OS list), I would say that the "givens" should have a chance for conversation and agreement so that the site is truly representative of the community. Maybe you did initiate this discussion to let us help in shaping the givens and I missed it. If so, I apologize for raising this. so i hope this clarifies that the sites are indeed 'community' affairs, community assets and community products, and that the 'community' that is invited to comment on them is the community that actually shows up to take responsibility for building and maintaining those spaces, not just commenting via the OSLIST. the invitation is primarily to add to this body of community work, not try to edit what the community has produced so far. anyone can contribute their stories, articles, contact info, tools, etc... and anyone can join the group that is beginning to learn how to give all of that information primary shape and clear accessibility on the wiki. So now to the www.openspaceworld.net site. I want to participate if it is a place that is in alignment with my energy and I want to support your work. A question for me is, is my perspective about OST and how to work with OST welcome on the site? .NET is not really for talking about OST... it's for using it, doing it, showing it. so i don't think our perspectives about ost are going to matter so much. if you have groups working in os that want to work online after the event, then you can offer them that online working space, same as any other. to the extent that you stay involved iwth them or even if you can do prep work with them online, we will all learn something aobut how you practice. that will be a great gift to all of us, i thnk. Another question for me is will I accept the invitation to participating in the site, when there is something in the invitation that is philisophically different to what I believe in and different to the message I want to give to the world about my work with OST. This took me to asking you why the site focuses on OST "practitioners". In using this on the splash page, there is already a philisophical shaping, an implicit "given". I in no way want to challenge your (or others) personal use of that word for your own business. My challenge arises when this is an implicit given on the community site. I personally do not want to be viewed by my clients as someone who is practicing OST. And so, my question arose for you about the "givens" for the site. Who has set them, what are they, and can they be changed? I know that there are thousands of people in the world involved with OST and only about 300 on this list but the list is what we have as what can be perceived as a community. I recommend that the "givens" for the community Open Space Websites be discussed and decided on on this list. I appreciate your invitation to sort out the "givens" within the wiki site, but that does not seem to be the place to sort out the overarching givens that govern the whole site (those that are already in place). i've discussed this some on the .NET wiki. the site is for practitioners and the projects they will do there and the people they will invite to work on those projects in that space... i know we have some differences in our approaches and languages, but i'm not clear if you object to the word practitioner everywhere or just on the splash page. as i say, i need to take up these questions within the space that has been opened for them where the real work can get done, rather than out in the lobby where many might be lured to offer some passion without taking equivalent responsibility... so i'm glad to have this continue, but let's go inside and post something on the wall, so that those who share our passion for this story can join us and go into this more deeply, and the larger connections that happen on the list can continue as well. we can always bring news of our progress back to this larger circle and invite others to come into the wiki for a second, third, fourth... session. i hope this helps and hope that it will continue to unfold at http://www.openspaceworld.NET/network/wiki.cgi?OpenSpaceWorldNET I think this is such important work that you are leading in Michael, and I see the power in it to deeply affect all who are working with OST now and into the future. I thank you and I hope that you find my contribution here to be helpful. many thanks, michael -- Michael Herman Michael Herman Associates 300 West North Avenue #1105 Chicago IL 60610 USA (312) 280-7838 http://www.michaelherman.com - consulting & publications http://www.globalchicago.net - laboratory & playground http://www.openspaceworld.org - worldwide open space ...inviting organization into movement * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). 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