Dear Birgitt,
yep, its good to be clear on OST as a method and in general in how words
and language are being used, definitely a life long learning journey for me.
In this spirit, I keep reminding myself that while OST might have
started as an ingenious two-martine (lets be clear on this also, that it
is a gin martini done New York style) meeting facilitation method...
I now know that there are a number of side effects (the stuff we are
reminded to watch out for when taking a medicine) that make it clear to
me, that it is actually only incidentally a decent meeting facilitation
method but in essence a neat and simple (of course, not easy) way to
expand time and space for the force of selforganisation to do its stuff.
In that, it is unique and well seperate from all other meeting
facilitation methods.
In fact, I find it increasingly easier for me to not call it
"facilitation" (in German, there is a word that seems to fit the mode of
what in english is the "facilitator" much better, Begleiter...sometimes
"witness" has been suggested).
I witnessed this again at our second "Spirit of Christmas" gathering on
the street of our neighborhood. An invitation went out stating beginning
time and the date plus a few other things such as "bring something home
made to eat plus glass, fork...Someone had designed a beautiful
invitation, others hand-delivered it to every home inviting all family
members and friends, a couple of kids put up signs (as they had seen
others do the year before) creating a "safe" space (all cars chose to
bypass our gathering)... well, it was a blast and, as last year, a whole
bunch of ideas (no issues were posted and there was no design for action
planning) popped up in the dozens of small groups forming and
reforming... phone sessions are taking place, people meet at the corner,
emails are bounced back and forth...
(a relatively safe space, a yearning for deeper neighborhood, a mix of
very different people of which some had had contact but others not, kids
that got adults involved in play and fun....)
And still, hardly anyone "sees" what is happening. People wonder why it
works so well and are amazed how a vastly diverse and luscious buffet
appears without any master mind organizing it... they actually are
looking for those that made it happen.....
Greetings from Berlin
mmp
On 12.12.2011 17:46, Birgitt Williams wrote:
Looking deeper into the website, Artur, it is not at all clear who these
people with OST (Open Systems Thinking) are. What they have at one point
in their documents, however, is an article by Emery about Open Systems
Thinking with reference that it is OST. I find this odd because Emery,
also a highly regarded thought leader in organizational development, is
well aware of OST as Open Space Technology.
Ah well. As Harrison says, OST is not trademarked. However, all of his
books including Open Space Technology are copyrighted (also a legal
designation). And despite the copyrighting, it is not worth defending as
OST is out there sufficiently in the world as Open Space Technology already.
One reason that I am such a stickler about using ‘Open Space Technology’
rather than the shortened form ‘Open Space’ is that there is even more
confusion about ‘Open Space’ as applied to this meeting method since
Open Space as a term was used long before OST came along…especially in
architecture and landscape architecture. I think that the more we all
are careful about mentioning ‘Open Space Technology’, the more that
there is a common recognition of a fabulous meeting facilitation method.
Birgitt
*From:*oslist-boun...@lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-boun...@lists.openspacetech.org] *On Behalf Of *Harrison Owen
*Sent:* Monday, December 12, 2011 10:45 AM
*To:* 'Artur Silva'; 'World wide Open Space Technology email list'
*Subject:* Re: [OSList] OST - Open Systems Thinking
Never heard of them. Thank God I never patented or trademarked OST. Just
imagine all the trouble I would be in defending the indefensible – or
something. Much more fun just to give it all away. And you certainly
meet incredibly interesting people J
ho
Harrison Owen
7808 River Falls Dr.
Potomac, MD 20854
USA
189 Beaucaire Ave. (summer)
Camden, Maine 20854
Phone 301-365-2093
(summer) 207-763-3261
www.openspaceworld.com
www.ho-image.com (Personal Website)
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of
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*From:*oslist-boun...@lists.openspacetech.org
[mailto:oslist-boun...@lists.openspacetech.org] *On Behalf Of *Artur Silva
*Sent:* Monday, December 12, 2011 9:52 AM
*To:* OSLIST New Adress
*Subject:* [OSList] OST - Open Systems Thinking
Hi:
Have any of you ever heard about this?
*OST - OPEN SYSTEMS THINKING <http://www.thelightonthehill.com/>:*
*http://www.thelightonthehill.com/*
Interesting...
Regards
Artur
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