Re: [OSList] An invitation for future invitations to WOSONOS

[Bhavesh Patel via OSList]

I remember the WOSonOS in Kiev, my first one, and at the end we sat in a
circle with a talking stick, and the question was where the next one would
be... and people took the stick and spoke and responded and so on... and
after about 90 minutes we all felt like we came to some kind of
conclusion... I remember thinking "*Q. How could a decision be made with
such a simple process?*", and then was surprised when we got there...

I am not suggesting that this is the best method, just remembering it...


Smiles Bhav...



On 30 September 2015 at 22:03, Pernilla Luttropp via OSList <
oslist@lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:

> Hi all!
> At the inspiring WOSONOS in Kraków there were some learning conversations
> on how this community  goes about when expressing and accepting invitations
> from countries/places to host the upcoming WOSONOSes.
>
> In the big circle there were voices that expressed some confusion and
> discomfort with the process. Others said that whatever happened, they would
> trust the process. There was also the mentioning of ‘traditions’ and the
> ways things are usually done at a WOSONOS. And the reminder that traditions
> are made in every single now and ‘Whatever happens is the only thing that
> could have’.
>
>
> *If you are new to WOSONOS *This is how it’s usually done (I think): the
> countries that wish to host the next WOSONOS makes an invitation at the
> closing circle of the WOSONOS and the participants are free to accept any
> of the invitations. The process of accepting the invitation is sometimes
> done by some kind of ‘voting’ procedure in order to agree on one place.
> There is often someone who reminds everybody that the only way to ‘vote’ in
> Open Space is by applying ‘The law of mobility’. There is no need to only
> have one WOSONOS, there could be multiple since ‘Wherever it happens is the
> right place’.
>
>
> *My view *I am personally very uncomfortable to use the words ‘voting’ or
> to ‘make a collective decision’ within an Open Space. One of the beauties
> with Open Space is taking responsibility for your own engagement. If we all
> share the same engagement we will walk in the same direction, eventually.
> But sometimes it takes time for things to emerge.
> If a group decides on voting there are many good methods and it’s of
> outmost importance for those present to understand what they are about to
> do, in order to make an informed decision. Is it a majority decision? How
> many is the majority? What happens if some vote no? Is it possible to have
> a ballot vote? Is it the role of the facilitator to sum it up and make the
> final decision? In my view, we can only express our appreciation for the
> invitation at the Open Space, offer help if needed and make use of the law
> of mobility.
>
>
> *An invitation *This is an invitation to try something else and maybe to
> let go of a ‘tradition’. What if we opened up at the beginning of the
> process in order to see how it self organizes at the end?
> There seems to be something unclear about the ‘tradition’ on how to get
> information about who is inviting and why. If that information were
> transparent from the very start of the WOSONOS, it might enable more
> dialogue with the inviting hosts and between the hosts.
>
> The countries/places that wish to host a future WOSONOS could post this on
> the OSLIST and Facebook and send a gentle reminder a few weeks before the
> upcoming WOSONOS. The inviting hosts would then be posted on a flip chart
> at the WOSONOS and announced as a session when creating the bulletin board
> or at the evening news. As always there is the opportunity to add places,
> sessions and news announcements up until the closing circle, both on the
> spot and via other ways of communicating. This would make it easier for
> everyone to approach the hosts, express their delight or ask clarifying
> questions. It would also enable the hosts (or their representatives) to
> come together in a session and find out how they would like to do the
> invitations in the closing circle. Maybe some will wait until next year?
> Maybe multiple WOSONOSes in one year? Maybe in different continents at the
> same time? Maybe with different themes/urgent questions? Let’s embrace
> chaos and see what emerges! Or ‘Whatever happens is the only thing that
> could have’.
>
> Since the closing circle have a more definite dead line than ‘When it is
> over it is over’, due to flights and other time restrictions, this
> prolonged invitation process will open up time for more dialogues and
> invitations.
> But then again, as said in the closing circle in Kraków, there is nothing
> like a good mess in order to learn something new J
>
> Maybe it has been tried before and in that case I’m interested to know how
> it worked or didn’t work.
>
> Greetings from Sweden!
> Pernilla
>
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Re: [OSList] An invitation for future invitations to WOSONOS

[Marie Nelson via OSList]

A more integrative vision, in so many ways.



From: OSList  on behalf of Michael 
Herman via OSList 
Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2015 4:42 PM
To: Lisa Heft -; World wide Open Space Technology email list
Subject: Re: [OSList] An invitation for future invitations to WOSONOS

thanks for raising these questions, pernilla.  what you're proposing in terms 
of people (rather than countries!) coming forward at the beginning of the 
gathering makes great sense to me.  these invitations can be offered at any 
time, of course, including a week or a month before the wosonos gathering time. 
 if our tradition were to evolve in that direction, there could be some 
commenting on that in advance of the gathering.

at the same time, the thing that makes for the pressure and scarcity and 
overall un-OS feeling of this situation isn't really a question of when the 
invites are offered, but that we have developed this habit of having only one 
of these gatherings at once, or one per year, or more specifically that we 
designate just one as *the* world osonos, even though nordic and haitian and 
camden and oz folks and some other have had significant series of osonos 
gatherings.

i really like the idea that these things could happen on several continents at 
once, so the wosonos had multiple sites.  progress of tools like qiqochat offer 
interesting possibilities of being able to easily bumblebee across oceans.  
we've also been growing a tradition of spinning these things up into major 
productions, perhaps drifting some from the simple power of our core practice.  
if we met in more places at once and traveled shorter distances, maybe the 
hosts would feel less pressure to "work too hard" an planning and organizing 
these things?

what if the wosonos could evolve in the direction of a kind of world-around OS 
carnival/retreat/learning exchange week?  many invites, many parties, i mean 
working sessions?

michael




--

Michael Herman
Michael Herman Associates
http://MichaelHerman.com
http://OpenSpaceWorld.org


On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 2:22 PM, Lisa Heft - via OSList 
> wrote:
How wonderful, your invitation, in all its richness, Pernilla.

Another two things I would like to add:

1) As always, for any team interested in hosting a WOSonOS for a future year, I 
have a growing living letter of lessons-learned - gathered wisdom from past 
host teams, that has been growing since 2001 and that I happily offer to 
whoever wishes to contact me. My request is that if you, dear reader, are 
thinking “oh that is something I / we will ask Lisa for” then please wait until 
a few weeks from now, as I will in a few weeks update it with the latest Host 
Team’s lessons-learned.

And 2) As has happened at several years in the past, including at our recent 
WOSonOS  - you as a Host Team / Host Team representative do not have to be 
physically present at a WOSonOS in order to invite. Several of us have over the 
years acted as representatives for teams wishing to invite who were not able to 
physically make it. And you can make us do whatever you like, to represent you !

Looking forward to the conversation,
Lisa


On Sep 30, 2015, at 12:03 PM, Pernilla Luttropp via OSList 
> wrote:

Hi all!
At the inspiring WOSONOS in Kraków there were some learning conversations on 
how this community  goes about when expressing and accepting invitations from 
countries/places to host the upcoming WOSONOSes.

In the big circle there were voices that expressed some confusion and 
discomfort with the process. Others said that whatever happened, they would 
trust the process. There was also the mentioning of ‘traditions’ and the ways 
things are usually done at a WOSONOS. And the reminder that traditions are made 
in every single now and ‘Whatever happens is the only thing that could have’.

If you are new to WOSONOS
This is how it’s usually done (I think): the countries that wish to host the 
next WOSONOS makes an invitation at the closing circle of the WOSONOS and the 
participants are free to accept any of the invitations. The process of 
accepting the invitation is sometimes done by some kind of ‘voting’ procedure 
in order to agree on one place. There is often someone who reminds everybody 
that the only way to ‘vote’ in Open Space is by applying ‘The law of mobility’. 
There is no need to only have one WOSONOS, there could be multiple since 
‘Wherever it happens is the right place’.

My view
I am personally very uncomfortable to use the words ‘voting’ or to ‘make a 
collective decision’ within an Open Space. One of the beauties with Open Space 
is taking responsibility for your own engagement. If we all share the same 
engagement we will walk in the same direction, eventually. But sometimes it 
takes time for 

Re: [OSList] An invitation for future invitations to WOSONOS

[christine koehler via OSList]

Hi everyone

I find really interesting to observe what is happening
On one hand, there is the theory (Harrison, I don't mean that you "are" the
theory, but you remind us on what is important and yes, we do hear your
voice as a very important one)  : a self-organized community , living (or
trying to live with) its principles, no organizational structure, so no
trouble of decision making processes. As Harrison says, it's simple, be the
first to invite , if there is someone, you'll have it next year, or do it
at different places and that's all. Let's have fun and do one less thing.

On the other hand, there are things we can observe : people or teams
working very hard for wosonos (I did it for osonos, so I know what it mean
very well ;)) , decision processes that make some people very
uncomfortable, people who care very much and also people who don't care and
who don't understand the tension they can feel when the topic comes out.
Hey, we are humain, we tend to make things complicate because we are not
just mere brains but have opinion  and feelings about how things should go
or could go, about who is doing what and taking this particular position in
the community etc..

So this create what Pernilla calls tradition. rituals. Groups tend to need
rituals, don't they ?

What I saw in Krakow is people uncomfortable with the way things were being
made and other people trying to suggest new ways of doing them. But then,
how do we do ? Who can decide ? How can we stay "true to open space", not
make things too complicate and still be fair for all, especially when "all"
is the community, ie not only the people in the room but also people who
feel part of the community (most of them on this list).

I must confess that I am very curious to observe how this conversation
evolves, as I will learn from whatever happens. This topic for me could be
: how can we make decisions that engage the whole community in a
self-organized community without decision making process, only with
conversation, and moreover, online conversation ? (ouch this is a long
sentence)

No doubt a very interesting topic for most of us these days.


Christine



On Thu, Oct 1, 2015 at 4:40 PM, Marie Nelson via OSList <
oslist@lists.openspacetech.org> wrote:

> A more integrative vision, in so many ways.
>
>
> 
> From: OSList  on behalf of
> Michael Herman via OSList 
> Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2015 4:42 PM
> To: Lisa Heft -; World wide Open Space Technology email list
> Subject: Re: [OSList] An invitation for future invitations to WOSONOS
>
> thanks for raising these questions, pernilla.  what you're proposing in
> terms of people (rather than countries!) coming forward at the beginning of
> the gathering makes great sense to me.  these invitations can be offered at
> any time, of course, including a week or a month before the wosonos
> gathering time.  if our tradition were to evolve in that direction, there
> could be some commenting on that in advance of the gathering.
>
> at the same time, the thing that makes for the pressure and scarcity and
> overall un-OS feeling of this situation isn't really a question of when the
> invites are offered, but that we have developed this habit of having only
> one of these gatherings at once, or one per year, or more specifically that
> we designate just one as *the* world osonos, even though nordic and haitian
> and camden and oz folks and some other have had significant series of
> osonos gatherings.
>
> i really like the idea that these things could happen on several
> continents at once, so the wosonos had multiple sites.  progress of tools
> like qiqochat offer interesting possibilities of being able to easily
> bumblebee across oceans.  we've also been growing a tradition of spinning
> these things up into major productions, perhaps drifting some from the
> simple power of our core practice.  if we met in more places at once and
> traveled shorter distances, maybe the hosts would feel less pressure to
> "work too hard" an planning and organizing these things?
>
> what if the wosonos could evolve in the direction of a kind of
> world-around OS carnival/retreat/learning exchange week?  many invites,
> many parties, i mean working sessions?
>
> michael
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Michael Herman
> Michael Herman Associates
> http://MichaelHerman.com
> http://OpenSpaceWorld.org
>
>
> On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 2:22 PM, Lisa Heft - via OSList <
> oslist@lists.openspacetech.org>
> wrote:
> How wonderful, your invitation, in all its richness, Pernilla.
>
> Another two things I would like to add:
>
> 1) As always, for any team interested in hosting a WOSonOS for a future
> year, I have a growing living letter of lessons-learned - gathered wisdom
> from past host teams, that has been growing since 2001 and that I happily
> offer to whoever wishes to contact me. My request is that if 

Re: [OSList] An invitation for future invitations to WOSONOS

[Michael Herman via OSList]

i like your question, christine: "who will decide?"  and i want to twist it
around a little bit.  i want to suggest that everyone, all of us, are
already deciding.  and the question is "what are all of us already deciding
and agreeing to?"

in any open space event, what would happen if the facilitator put up a grid
of 50 post-it notes and set chairs in all the breakout spaces, but the
group politely pulled only one sticky per time slot, because they were in
the habit of all meeting together at the same time.  it might work fine,
but we as OS veterans would probably think they'd lost something of the
juice that is possible when the group breaks out into many different work
areas, and everyone is moving around, buzzing back and forth, and so on.
back to osonos now, when harrison got it started, the annual timing was an
arbitrary choice that fit other groups' customs and having only one site
was just the practical thing to do, as there weren't very many of us in
those days and it wasn't easy to connect multiple sites.

so what about "what are we all deciding?" 

in the beginning, harrison decided to invite a bunch of people to osonos1.
 then some of those folks decided to show up, do the dance, go home, tell
friends... and harrison decided to do it again.  when he said "no more for
me" others of us stepped in and said "i will host next year" and the rest
of us all individually decided if we would attend or not.  sometimes
decisions are made for professional development reasons but also because of
friends or other activities somebody might have in that particular locale.

just like participants in an OS event, where people talk at lunch about
"what are you going to this afternoon?" and might try to convince each
other to go here or there, we sometimes had side conversations between
osonos events... "it's time it goes to europe, no?" and "maybe it should
rotate between continents."  some people decided to offer invitations.
 others decided not to, or asked more experience people to help them host.

along the way, hosts and attendees jointly determined that it was okay to
have additional osonos events and those things happened, because
individuals decided to invite and others decided to attend.  at some point,
in one of those side conversations, somebody decided it was a good idea to
call one event a year "the World osonos" and some others agreed.  in the
same way, for a time there was talk and many seemed to agree that the
wosonos should go to "underserved" areas.  i never cared for this view,
myself, but it's an idea that enough people decided was valid that it did
hold some sway in people deciding to host and attend these gatherings.

what i am aiming at here is that we are, all of us, already deciding
exactly where we will and won't have an(y) and all osonos events.  there is
absolutely no restriction on who can offer an invitation, to where or when
it can be offered.  there is no reason for invitations to be offered only
at the end of a physical osonos event.  there is no reason why haiti or
nordic or other osonos events aren't called wosonos haiti and nordic
wosonos, because of course all of us from all around the world are always
invited to these things.

the reason we have only one "wosonos" each year, continuing to gather about
100+/- people each time, is because nobody decides to offer more than one,
nobody decides to call a second one "wosonos", so nobody can decide to
attend it.  i don't know how many invitations were offered in krakow this
year for 2016.  if there were several, then it certainly was possible for
those different inviters to get together and decide for themselves to not
have any voting.  they could have decided to host them simultaneously, and
pushed all of us to decide for ourselves which of these to attend.
 instead, somebody decided to call a vote and a bunch of others agreed,
including the inviters.  the vote happened and the losers decided to accept
that as the decision.

my invitation to all of us is to give some extra attention to what we are
each deciding about osonos gatherings globally.  have you decided osonos is
not for you so you just stay silent?  or that it's always far away?  have
you decided that you will go because the people there will know a lot more
than you and will teach you?  or that your stories matter so you must go
tell them?  do you have "side" conversations to arrange to meet distant
oslist friends at one of these?  have you decided that the people who show
up to a "wosonos" event are somehow different from those who would show up
a "nosonos" or "osonosinOz?"  perhaps you've decided that conversations
held face-to-face in two seats next to each other are better than two seats
joined by computer cameras?  have you decided that your voice or invitation
doesn't matter in this question?

it's almost as if many of us have decided that it's important to keep
adding one more to the series... osonos7, osonos10, osonos15.  karolina
sent out something about 

Re: [OSList] An invitation for future invitations to WOSONOS

[Chris Corrigan via OSList]

This struggle is the essence of the practice around which our community 
gathers. 

I think that how we approach these questions teaches us a lot about our 
personal orientation to the practice of holding space. Also, it provides us 
with many opportunities to examine, reflect and develop the personal practice 
of opening space. 

Chris 



-- 
CHRIS CORRIGAN
Harvest Moon Consultants
Facilitation, Open Space Technology and process design 

Check www.chriscorrigan.com for upcoming workshops, blog posts and free 
resources. 



> On Oct 1, 2015, at 8:51 AM, christine koehler via OSList 
>  wrote:
> 
> Hi everyone
> 
> I find really interesting to observe what is happening
> On one hand, there is the theory (Harrison, I don't mean that you "are" the 
> theory, but you remind us on what is important and yes, we do hear your voice 
> as a very important one)  : a self-organized community , living (or trying to 
> live with) its principles, no organizational structure, so no trouble of 
> decision making processes. As Harrison says, it's simple, be the first to 
> invite , if there is someone, you'll have it next year, or do it at different 
> places and that's all. Let's have fun and do one less thing. 
> 
> On the other hand, there are things we can observe : people or teams working 
> very hard for wosonos (I did it for osonos, so I know what it mean very well 
> ;)) , decision processes that make some people very uncomfortable, people who 
> care very much and also people who don't care and who don't understand the 
> tension they can feel when the topic comes out. 
> Hey, we are humain, we tend to make things complicate because we are not just 
> mere brains but have opinion  and feelings about how things should go or 
> could go, about who is doing what and taking this particular position in the 
> community etc..
> 
> So this create what Pernilla calls tradition. rituals. Groups tend to need 
> rituals, don't they ?
> 
> What I saw in Krakow is people uncomfortable with the way things were being 
> made and other people trying to suggest new ways of doing them. But then, how 
> do we do ? Who can decide ? How can we stay "true to open space", not make 
> things too complicate and still be fair for all, especially when "all" is the 
> community, ie not only the people in the room but also people who feel part 
> of the community (most of them on this list).
> 
> I must confess that I am very curious to observe how this conversation 
> evolves, as I will learn from whatever happens. This topic for me could be : 
> how can we make decisions that engage the whole community in a self-organized 
> community without decision making process, only with conversation, and 
> moreover, online conversation ? (ouch this is a long sentence) 
> 
> No doubt a very interesting topic for most of us these days.
> 
> 
> Christine 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Thu, Oct 1, 2015 at 4:40 PM, Marie Nelson via OSList 
>>  wrote:
>> A more integrative vision, in so many ways.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> From: OSList  on behalf of Michael 
>> Herman via OSList 
>> Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2015 4:42 PM
>> To: Lisa Heft -; World wide Open Space Technology email list
>> Subject: Re: [OSList] An invitation for future invitations to WOSONOS
>> 
>> thanks for raising these questions, pernilla.  what you're proposing in 
>> terms of people (rather than countries!) coming forward at the beginning of 
>> the gathering makes great sense to me.  these invitations can be offered at 
>> any time, of course, including a week or a month before the wosonos 
>> gathering time.  if our tradition were to evolve in that direction, there 
>> could be some commenting on that in advance of the gathering.
>> 
>> at the same time, the thing that makes for the pressure and scarcity and 
>> overall un-OS feeling of this situation isn't really a question of when the 
>> invites are offered, but that we have developed this habit of having only 
>> one of these gatherings at once, or one per year, or more specifically that 
>> we designate just one as *the* world osonos, even though nordic and haitian 
>> and camden and oz folks and some other have had significant series of osonos 
>> gatherings.
>> 
>> i really like the idea that these things could happen on several continents 
>> at once, so the wosonos had multiple sites.  progress of tools like qiqochat 
>> offer interesting possibilities of being able to easily bumblebee across 
>> oceans.  we've also been growing a tradition of spinning these things up 
>> into major productions, perhaps drifting some from the simple power of our 
>> core practice.  if we met in more places at once and traveled shorter 
>> distances, maybe the hosts would feel less pressure to "work too hard" an 
>> planning and organizing these things?
>> 
>> what if the wosonos could evolve in 

Re: [OSList] An invitation for future invitations to WOSONOS

[Lisa Heft - via OSList]

Hi, folks - Michael, I can answer these bits, for those of you who may be 
interested in what happened in Krakow:

> i don't know how many invitations were offered in krakow this year for 2016.  
> if there were several, then it certainly was possible for those different 
> inviters to get together and decide for themselves to not have any voting.  
> they could have decided to host them simultaneously, and pushed all of us to 
> decide for ourselves which of these to attend.  instead, somebody decided to 
> call a vote and a bunch of others agreed, including the inviters.  the vote 
> happened and the losers decided to accept that as the decision.


In conversations year-round and also just before and also at this recent 
WOSonOS (that I know of, anyway, and I am not the only person people talk to 
about this, but I invite the conversation all the time so I do get to talk to a 
lot of people about this year-round) - people from about 7 countries had been 
considering hosting a future WOSonOS. And in conversation with themselves, 
their potential teams, with a look at their own event-organizing capacity, or 
at whether or not they had an existing community of practice of people who know 
and understand OS in their region - six out of those seven countries decided 
(on their own, before any group conversation at the WOSonOS) not to invite the 
WOSonOS for 2016. And some of them plus a few others named in the full 
conference group that they were interested in inviting in the future but 2016 
would not be that time. Several said they would be inviting us to their 
regional events. People may experience it differently than me, so I will say 
this through my own filter: there were no losers. There was one team saying 
they were ready to go, had the support, had the community, were learning 
ongoing because they also hosts other kinds of OSonOSs, and were totally 
excited about and feeling ready to host this slightly-different sort of 
gathering. Yay, the Philippines !

And: It was indeed invited in Krakow for anyone considering inviting and anyone 
else interested in being part of the conversation to have a session about it 
earlier in the WOSonOS to chat and reflect about it, with the design for "what 
if there are more than one inviters / what is the design for decision-making” 
very graciously held, in my opinion, by the WOSonOS Poland Host Team. And then 
this small-group discussion opened up into a whole different and new 
conversation, which I feel the Host Team also held so graciously.

Also yes, thank you for pointing this out, Michael - it is very true that a 
number of those people (including myself) who think of hosting a WOSonOS in the 
future - in a good number of countries - have for some years been and will 
continue to host Open Space gatherings in their regions, inviting the world.  
They don’t always call them OSonOS because some find that because the 
conversations there are about facilitation in general, a different title 
perhaps better serves. Learning Exchange. Facilitators conference. Those sorts 
of names. 

And I love it - because this inviting, and these diverse regions, to the 
WOSonOS, to the other-named events, on-line and in-person - share our learning 
and our community across the world. To me, it is simply that “passion and 
responsibility” thing we talk about in OS. As someone / someones have the 
passion to say “come play and learn with us in our part of the world” - and 
they either do a simple or a more complex bit of preparation - which others 
perceive of as being difficult or easy. But which I perceive of as being their 
choice, their style, their passion. Which to me is so beautiful…

Lisa

Lisa Heft
Consultant, Facilitator, Educator
Opening Space
 


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