Speaking of people who are new to open space. Rebecca Wirfs-Brock was
one of the hosts of Agile Open Northwest and had never (knowingly)
participated in an OST event. Rebecca, who hosted entirely on faith
and with a few nervous moments about whether it would really work,
wrote a blog post about her take on the event. I think it provides a
great look at how those who are not on this list experience open space.
http://www.wirfs-brock.com/rebeccasblog.html
Happy Valentine's Eve,
Diana
Diana Larsen
503-288-3550 www.futureworksconsulting.com
www.futureworksconsulting.com/blog
"Agile Retrospectives" Amazon Best Books of 2006!
Top Ten Editors' Picks: computer & internet http://tinyurl.com/ynacvb
Speaking March 13 at QCon in London
http://qcon.infoq.com/qcon/conference/
On Feb 13, 2007, at 1:53 PM, Michael Herman wrote:
two posts caught my eye today. suzanne mentioned finally having
experienced her first open space. then bui was commenting on what
makes it work, admitting along the way that he'd not...
so maybe this is just restating what ralph said so well last week
about "open space".
but i'm going to suggest -- especially to all of the "never-been-in-
it" and "would love to try it someday" folks out there on the list
-- that we have all already been there.
let's start with the law of two feet, which seems to be the core of
everything.
having "been in open space" many times, i can say that it was a
familiar place. the freedom and responsibility are not unlike when
i went away to college. power, possibility. not unlike when i am
solo hiking in the backcountry, bounded by my physical limits, for
sure, but able to go wherever my two feet would take me, to learn
about a territory and contribute to reaching some destination that
i chose for myself.
it's not unlike any vacation where i leave teh computer and phone
at home. not unlike the small space of an airline seat, where my
range might be severely limited, in at least one dimension, but
mind is free to wander and relax as it chooses. not unlike the
time after a resignation but before actually leaving a job.
sleeping in has a certain spacious quality for me, bucking the
pressure of a world that says work starts early. staying up late
has a certain quality. stopping in at churches or rivers or other
quiet places when travelling. sitting at outside cafe's in the
summer time, even better with a sunday newspaper.
in all of these places, there is a quality of being active and
doing nothing. and these are just a few of the examples that come
to mind. so i wonder... where else have you (and probably many
others of us) already been there???
not to mention the four principles, which i often summarize as "how
things work when they really work." what ordinary life conditions
and circumstances might remind you of the states that these lines
remind us about???
as i look outside, there is a raging blizzard here in chicago. my
wife's flight out to a big client meeting was cancelled, at 5am
this morning. suddenly the whole of chicago and a bunch of places
connected by planes and phones and the like are running on
"whenever it starts" or "whenever you can get here" ...is the
right time. i've experienced a similar shift in other storms, like
having my dad in the hospital for heart surgeries, when we actively
take things one day, one moment, at a time. like one step at a
time when hiking.
thinking spatially or kinesthetically for a moment, it seems more
about stacking and scrambling than ladders and climbing.
so i'm wondering if we can say some more about where it is that
we've all already been in open space. where does or has space
already open in life as you're living it?
michaelh
--
Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
300 West North Ave #1105
Chicago IL 60610 USA
phone: 312-280-7838
email: mich...@michaelherman.com
skype: globalchicago
http://www.michaelherman.com
http://www.openspaceworld.org
http://www.chicagoconservationcorps.org * *
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