Kaufmannesque Decison Making

[Nick Thompson]

Everybody, (anybody?),  

 

I stumbled on this, yesterday.  Note that it cites Kaufmann for it's inspiration.

 

http://www.openspaceworld.com/brief_history.htm

 

It's a system, called for some reason "Open Space Technologies",  for organizing meetings and moving toward consensus.

 

My Calvinist curmudgeon nature  tends to automatically deplore this sort of thing,  (Any time I see chairs arranged in a circle, my first impulse is to run screaming from the room.) But I have to admit, it interested me.  The trick is that if there is more than one circle, the group can  reorganize spontaneously.  I guess people are dragging their chairs around the room.

 

The hedonist in me particularly liked:

 

The Law is the so called Law of Two Feet, which states simply, if at any time you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing – use your two feet and move to some place more to your liking. Such a place might be another group, or even outside into the sunshine. No matter what, don't sit there feeling miserable. The law, as stated, may sound like rank hedonism, but even hedonism has its place, reminding us that unhappy people are unlikely to be productive people.

 

Ah, the years I spent in Department Meetings when I could have been "outside in the sunshine!"!

 

I bet Steve Guerin will like:

 

The lesson from Open Space is a simple one. The only way to bring an Open Space gathering to its knees is to attempt to control it. It may, therefore, turn out that the one thing we always wanted (control) is not only unavailable, but unnecessary. After all, if order is for free we could afford being out of control and love it. Emergent order appears in Open Space when the conditions for self organization are met. Perhaps we can now relax, and stop working so hard.

 

Anybody out there have any experience with it?

 

Nick

 

 

 

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]

 

 

 

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[glen e. p. ropella-2]

Nicholas Thompson wrote circa 10-05-05 10:47 AM:
> Anybody out there have any experience with it?

I've been to a few barcamps.  It's refreshing in some ways; but
ultimately, what matters is your internal state, not what's going on
around you.  If you're just not in the mood for whatever context you're
in, then it doesn't matter how the context is organized.  If, however,
you are in the mood for it, then it also doesn't matter because you can
knead the context until it suits you.  And that's true even in seemingly
stultifying formal conferences.

There are people who can reorient themselves to learn/contribute in
whatever context they find themselves and there are those who need the
context to fit their predetermined pattern.  Those who find organizing
methods like this "set them free" seem to me to be less capable of
manipulating their own state of mind.  Similarly, those who find these
sorts of ad-hoc "unconference" methods too chaotic are also less capable
of manipulating their own state of mind.

The method you choose if you're assembling a conference depends on the
uncertainty about the types of people who will attend.  If it's low
uncertainty, you can organize the conference to meet the attendees'
patterns.  If it's high uncertainty, then use the unconference methods
and let the attendees decide on the organization.

--
glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Dale Schumacher]

On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 12:47 PM, Nicholas Thompson
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> http://www.openspaceworld.com/brief_history.htm
...
> Anybody out there have any experience with it?

Yes.  I have attended a few event organized like this and even helped
to facilitate one.

To me, it feels like a cross between FRIAM's regular get-togethers and
a lunch-and-learn session as often presented at the Complex.  Some
people come prepared with an agenda and a topic about which they are
passionate.  Others are simply there to learn and/or contribute.
Rather than have a number of pre-set topics, there is an open
"marketplace" where different subjects attempt to attract a group of
interested collaborators.  If there is insufficient interest in a
topic, it fades away naturally rather than continue to occupy time and
space in the conference.

The original model was derived from the spontaneous
hallway-conversations that inevitably occur at formal conferences.
Some participants observed that these were the most valuable part of
the conference, so they attempted to create a conference format that
is build entirely around these exchanges.

It helps to have some kind of high-level topic, to attract the right
group of participants.  The quality of the experience seems to depend
substantially on the quality of the participants (as any FRIAM
discussion) and the number of interesting topics being discussed.

I hope that is helpful.

Dale

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Merle Lefkoff]

Hi Nick,

Open Space Technology is a facilitation methodology even older than you
and me. (Just kidding--no method is that old.) I've been using it for
years and participated just last week in a whole conference in Istanbul
using the technique. At the Madrona Institute we massage it and combine
it with additional processes to see what it takes to break folks loose
from old paradigms. One of those old paradigms is the insistence on
moving toward consensus as a best outcome. In true complexity fashion,
we abandon the need for agreement. Since Steve is a part of our recent
Madrona group, he is experiencing a version of OST.

Merle




Nicholas Thompson wrote:

> Everybody, (anybody?),
> I stumbled on this, yesterday. Note that it cites Kaufmann for it's
> inspiration.
> http://www.openspaceworld.com/brief_history.htm
> It's a system, called for some reason "Open Space Technologies", for
> organizing meetings and moving toward consensus.
> My Calvinist curmudgeon nature tends to automatically deplore this
> sort of thing, (Any time I see chairs arranged in a circle, my first
> impulse is to run screaming from the room.) But I have to admit, it
> interested me. The trick is that if there is more than one circle, the
> group can reorganize spontaneously. I guess people are dragging their
> chairs around the room.
> The hedonist in me particularly liked:
> /The Law is the so called Law of Two Feet, which states simply, if at
> any time you find yourself in any situation where you are neither
> learning nor contributing – use your two feet and move to some place
> more to your liking. Such a place might be another group, or even
> outside into the sunshine. No matter what, don't sit there feeling
> miserable. The law, as stated, may sound like rank hedonism, but even
> hedonism has its place, reminding us that unhappy people are unlikely
> to be productive people./
> //
> Ah, the years I spent in Department Meetings when I could have been
> "/outside in the sunshine!"/!
> I bet Steve Guerin will like:
> /The lesson from Open Space is a simple one. The only way to bring an
> Open Space gathering to its knees is to attempt to control it. It may,
> therefore, turn out that the one thing we always wanted (control) is
> not only unavailable, but unnecessary. After all, if order is for free
> we could afford being out of control and love it. Emergent order
> appears in Open Space when the conditions for self organization are
> met. Perhaps we can now relax, and stop working so hard./
> Anybody out there have any experience with it?
> Nick
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
> Clark University ([hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>)
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 
> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
> http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Russ Abbott]

I could no longer resist and went to the web page.  The idea is that a group (of perhaps as many as 1000) people who have some common area of interest get together, set their own agenda (including perhaps subgroup meetings), and resolve their differences.  And it all happens automatically if no one pushes it. (Is that an unfair characterization?)

I wish it were that simple. I find it very hard to believe.  If it were that simple, what is it that prevents all conflicts from being resolved in this way?  Why, for example, is our Congress so dysfunctional? It's true that they are far more structured than an Open Space meeting, but if they threw away all their rules, I doubt that things would be better.

Here is what appears to be a key paragraph.

The essential preconditions [to a successful Open Space event] are: 1) A relatively safe nutrient environment. 2) High levels of diversity and complexity in terms of the elements to be self-organized. 3) Living at the edge of chaos, in a word nothing will happen if everything is sitting like a lump.4) An inner drive towards improvement, hence if you are an atom it would be useful to get together with another atom to become a molecule. 5) Sparsity of connections This one is a little hard to visualize and was a real surprise to me. Kaufmann is suggesting that self-organization will only occur if there are few prior connections between the elements, indeed he says no more than two. In retrospect, it seems to make sense. If everything is hardwired in advance how could it self organize?

Many times when groups of people get together to work things out these conditions don't hold. (Imagine a meeting in a workplace, either corporate, academic, etc. in which there are some real disagreements about how to proceed and some real possibilities of gain or loss of power, resources, etc.)

1. There may not be a relatively safe nutrient environment. Requiring that as a prerequisite is asking a lot.
2. There may be high levels of diversity and complexity--although alliances may form along lines that make things much simpler.
3. The event may be at the edge of chaos. In many cases the reason for more formal structures is to avoid falling off that edge into real chaos.
4. Different people may have different ideas about what improvement means. That may be the source of the problem.
5. In some cases pre-existing alliances may exist in which there are many connections within each camp.
   

Then what?

-- Russ

On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 6:10 AM, Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Nick,

Open Space Technology is a facilitation methodology even older than you and me. (Just kidding--no method is that old.) I've been using it for years and participated just last week in a whole conference in Istanbul using the technique. At the Madrona Institute we massage it and combine it with additional processes to see what it takes to break folks loose from old paradigms. One of those old paradigms is the insistence on moving toward consensus as a best outcome. In true complexity fashion, we abandon the need for agreement. Since Steve is a part of our recent Madrona group, he is experiencing a version of OST.

Merle




Nicholas Thompson wrote:

Everybody, (anybody?),
I stumbled on this, yesterday. Note that it cites Kaufmann for it's inspiration.
http://www.openspaceworld.com/brief_history.htm
It's a system, called for some reason "Open Space Technologies", for organizing meetings and moving toward consensus.
My Calvinist curmudgeon nature tends to automatically deplore this sort of thing, (Any time I see chairs arranged in a circle, my first impulse is to run screaming from the room.) But I have to admit, it interested me. The trick is that if there is more than one circle, the group can reorganize spontaneously. I guess people are dragging their chairs around the room.
The hedonist in me particularly liked:
/The Law is the so called Law of Two Feet, which states simply, if at any time you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing – use your two feet and move to some place more to your liking. Such a place might be another group, or even outside into the sunshine. No matter what, don't sit there feeling miserable. The law, as stated, may sound like rank hedonism, but even hedonism has its place, reminding us that unhappy people are unlikely to be productive people./
//
Ah, the years I spent in Department Meetings when I could have been "/outside in the sunshine!"/!
I bet Steve Guerin will like:
/The lesson from Open Space is a simple one. The only way to bring an Open Space gathering to its knees is to attempt to control it. It may, therefore, turn out that the one thing we always wanted (control) is not only unavailable, but unnecessary. After all, if order is for free we could afford being out of control and love it. Emergent order appears in Open Space when the conditions for self organization are met. Perhaps we can now relax, and stop working so hard./
Anybody out there have any experience with it?
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
------------------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Russ Abbott]

I just read the "Two Stories" section of this page (toward the bottom). It seems to me the two examples have these two features in common.

1. The people involved have a real interest in solving the problem. For most of them, if the problem at issue is not resolved, their lives will be a lot worse. So most of them have a commitment to succeed.
2. The even takes place over a number of days. That means that people are essentially forced to stay in contact with each other for that period.
   

-- Russ

On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 9:22 AM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]> wrote:

I could no longer resist and went to the web page.  The idea is that a group (of perhaps as many as 1000) people who have some common area of interest get together, set their own agenda (including perhaps subgroup meetings), and resolve their differences.  And it all happens automatically if no one pushes it. (Is that an unfair characterization?)

I wish it were that simple. I find it very hard to believe.  If it were that simple, what is it that prevents all conflicts from being resolved in this way?  Why, for example, is our Congress so dysfunctional? It's true that they are far more structured than an Open Space meeting, but if they threw away all their rules, I doubt that things would be better.

Here is what appears to be a key paragraph.

The essential preconditions [to a successful Open Space event] are: 1) A relatively safe nutrient environment. 2) High levels of diversity and complexity in terms of the elements to be self-organized. 3) Living at the edge of chaos, in a word nothing will happen if everything is sitting like a lump.4) An inner drive towards improvement, hence if you are an atom it would be useful to get together with another atom to become a molecule. 5) Sparsity of connections This one is a little hard to visualize and was a real surprise to me. Kaufmann is suggesting that self-organization will only occur if there are few prior connections between the elements, indeed he says no more than two. In retrospect, it seems to make sense. If everything is hardwired in advance how could it self organize?

Many times when groups of people get together to work things out these conditions don't hold. (Imagine a meeting in a workplace, either corporate, academic, etc. in which there are some real disagreements about how to proceed and some real possibilities of gain or loss of power, resources, etc.)

1. There may not be a relatively safe nutrient environment. Requiring that as a prerequisite is asking a lot.
2. There may be high levels of diversity and complexity--although alliances may form along lines that make things much simpler.
3. The event may be at the edge of chaos. In many cases the reason for more formal structures is to avoid falling off that edge into real chaos.
4. Different people may have different ideas about what improvement means. That may be the source of the problem.
5. In some cases pre-existing alliances may exist in which there are many connections within each camp.
   

Then what?

-- Russ

On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 6:10 AM, Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Nick,

Open Space Technology is a facilitation methodology even older than you and me. (Just kidding--no method is that old.) I've been using it for years and participated just last week in a whole conference in Istanbul using the technique. At the Madrona Institute we massage it and combine it with additional processes to see what it takes to break folks loose from old paradigms. One of those old paradigms is the insistence on moving toward consensus as a best outcome. In true complexity fashion, we abandon the need for agreement. Since Steve is a part of our recent Madrona group, he is experiencing a version of OST.

Merle




Nicholas Thompson wrote:

Everybody, (anybody?),
I stumbled on this, yesterday. Note that it cites Kaufmann for it's inspiration.
http://www.openspaceworld.com/brief_history.htm
It's a system, called for some reason "Open Space Technologies", for organizing meetings and moving toward consensus.
My Calvinist curmudgeon nature tends to automatically deplore this sort of thing, (Any time I see chairs arranged in a circle, my first impulse is to run screaming from the room.) But I have to admit, it interested me. The trick is that if there is more than one circle, the group can reorganize spontaneously. I guess people are dragging their chairs around the room.
The hedonist in me particularly liked:
/The Law is the so called Law of Two Feet, which states simply, if at any time you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing – use your two feet and move to some place more to your liking. Such a place might be another group, or even outside into the sunshine. No matter what, don't sit there feeling miserable. The law, as stated, may sound like rank hedonism, but even hedonism has its place, reminding us that unhappy people are unlikely to be productive people./
//
Ah, the years I spent in Department Meetings when I could have been "/outside in the sunshine!"/!
I bet Steve Guerin will like:
/The lesson from Open Space is a simple one. The only way to bring an Open Space gathering to its knees is to attempt to control it. It may, therefore, turn out that the one thing we always wanted (control) is not only unavailable, but unnecessary. After all, if order is for free we could afford being out of control and love it. Emergent order appears in Open Space when the conditions for self organization are met. Perhaps we can now relax, and stop working so hard./
Anybody out there have any experience with it?
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
------------------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Nick Thompson]

Russ,

 

I guess that's why they try to hold such meetings on neutral ground!

 

I was struck by the metaphor tucked away in "nutrient environment"

 

like an agar plate. 

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,

Clark University ([hidden email])

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]

 

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: [hidden email]

To: [hidden email]

Sent: 5/6/2010 10:23:45 AM

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Kaufmannesque Decison Making

I could no longer resist and went to the web page.  The idea is that a group (of perhaps as many as 1000) people who have some common area of interest get together, set their own agenda (including perhaps subgroup meetings), and resolve their differences.  And it all happens automatically if no one pushes it. (Is that an unfair characterization?)

I wish it were that simple. I find it very hard to believe.  If it were that simple, what is it that prevents all conflicts from being resolved in this way?  Why, for example, is our Congress so dysfunctional? It's true that they are far more structured than an Open Space meeting, but if they threw away all their rules, I doubt that things would be better.

Here is what appears to be a key paragraph.

The essential preconditions [to a successful Open Space event] are: 1) A relatively safe nutrient environment. 2) High levels of diversity and complexity in terms of the elements to be self-organized. 3) Living at the edge of chaos, in a word nothing will happen if everything is sitting like a lump.4) An inner drive towards improvement, hence if you are an atom it would be useful to get together with another atom to become a molecule. 5) Sparsity of connections This one is a little hard to visualize and was a real surprise to me. Kaufmann is suggesting that self-organization will only occur if there are few prior connections between the elements, indeed he says no more than two. In retrospect, it seems to make sense. If everything is hardwired in advance how could it self organize?

Many times when groups of people get together to work things out these conditions don't hold. (Imagine a meeting in a workplace, either corporate, academic, etc. in which there are some real disagreements about how to proceed and some real possibilities of gain or loss of power, resources, etc.)

1. There may not be a relatively safe nutrient environment. Requiring that as a prerequisite is asking a lot.
2. There may be high levels of diversity and complexity--although alliances may form along lines that make things much simpler.
3. The event may be at the edge of chaos. In many cases the reason for more formal structures is to avoid falling off that edge into real chaos.
4. Different people may have different ideas about what improvement means. That may be the source of the problem.
5. In some cases pre-existing alliances may exist in which there are many connections within each camp.
   

Then what?

-- Russ

On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 6:10 AM, Merle Lefkoff <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi Nick,

Open Space Technology is a facilitation methodology even older than you and me. (Just kidding--no method is that old.) I've been using it for years and participated just last week in a whole conference in Istanbul using the technique. At the Madrona Institute we massage it and combine it with additional processes to see what it takes to break folks loose from old paradigms. One of those old paradigms is the insistence on moving toward consensus as a best outcome. In true complexity fashion, we abandon the need for agreement. Since Steve is a part of our recent Madrona group, he is experiencing a version of OST.

Merle




Nicholas Thompson wrote:

Everybody, (anybody?),
I stumbled on this, yesterday. Note that it cites Kaufmann for it's inspiration.
http://www.openspaceworld.com/brief_history.htm
It's a system, called for some reason "Open Space Technologies", for organizing meetings and moving toward consensus.
My Calvinist curmudgeon nature tends to automatically deplore this sort of thing, (Any time I see chairs arranged in a circle, my first impulse is to run screaming from the room.) But I have to admit, it interested me. The trick is that if there is more than one circle, the group can reorganize spontaneously. I guess people are dragging their chairs around the room.
The hedonist in me particularly liked:
/The Law is the so called Law of Two Feet, which states simply, if at any time you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing – use your two feet and move to some place more to your liking. Such a place might be another group, or even outside into the sunshine. No matter what, don't sit there feeling miserable. The law, as stated, may sound like rank hedonism, but even hedonism has its place, reminding us that unhappy people are unlikely to be productive people./
//
Ah, the years I spent in Department Meetings when I could have been "/outside in the sunshine!"/!
I bet Steve Guerin will like:
/The lesson from Open Space is a simple one. The only way to bring an Open Space gathering to its knees is to attempt to control it. It may, therefore, turn out that the one thing we always wanted (control) is not only unavailable, but unnecessary. After all, if order is for free we could afford being out of control and love it. Emergent order appears in Open Space when the conditions for self organization are met. Perhaps we can now relax, and stop working so hard./
Anybody out there have any experience with it?
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
Clark University ([hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>)
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
------------------------------------------------------------------------

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Merle Lefkoff]

Merle Lefkoff wrote:

Russ is partly right.

1.  The people involved mainly have a policy interest only--solving the
problem of nuclear non-proliferation does not rule their lives.  So
their determination is based on a combination of professional  
(diplomatic,  think tank. INGO, academic)  interest, curiosity about how
to step out of the box or collapse it (we introduce them to applied
complexity), and a bit of altruism thrown in.
2.  Yes.  There are three meetings several months apart lasting two and
1/2 days, and the delegates are together all the time.  Some of the best
"open space" dialogue occurs at the dinner table, where in February our
Iranian and Israeli delegates had a mesmerizing three-hour conversation.



Russ Abbott wrote:

> I just read the "Two Stories" section of this page
> <http://www.openspaceworld.com/intro%20to%20pop.htm> (toward the
> bottom). It seems to me the two examples have these two features in
> common.
>
>    1. The people involved have a real interest in solving the problem.
>       For most of them, if the problem at issue is not resolved, their
>       lives will be a lot worse. So most of them have a commitment to
>       succeed.
>    2. The even takes place over a number of days. That means that
>       people are essentially forced to stay in contact with each other
>       for that period.
>
> -- Russ
>
>
> On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 9:22 AM, Russ Abbott <[hidden email]
> <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>
>     I could no longer resist and went to the web page
>     <http://www.openspaceworld.com/brief_history.htm>.  The idea is
>     that a group (of perhaps as many as 1000) people who have some
>     common area of interest get together, set their own agenda
>     (including perhaps subgroup meetings), and resolve their
>     differences.  And it all happens automatically if no one pushes
>     it. (Is that an unfair characterization?)
>
>     I wish it were that simple. I find it very hard to believe.  If it
>     were that simple, what is it that prevents all conflicts from
>     being resolved in this way?  Why, for example, is our Congress so
>     dysfunctional? It's true that they are far more structured than an
>     Open Space meeting, but if they threw away all their rules, I
>     doubt that things would be better.
>
>     Here is what appears to be a key paragraph.
>
>     The essential preconditions [to a successful Open Space event]
>     are: 1) /A relatively safe nutrient environment/. 2) /High levels
>     of diversity and complexity/ in terms of the elements to be
>     self-organized. 3) /Living at the edge of chaos/, in a word
>     nothing will happen if everything is sitting like a lump.4) /An
>     inner drive towards improvement/, hence if you are an atom it
>     would be useful to get together with another atom to become a
>     molecule. 5) /Sparsity of connections /This one is a little hard
>     to visualize and was a real surprise to me. Kaufmann is suggesting
>     that self-organization will only occur if there are few prior
>     connections between the elements, indeed he says no more than two.
>     In retrospect, it seems to make sense. If everything is hardwired
>     in advance how could it self organize?
>
>     Many times when groups of people get together to work things out
>     these conditions don't hold. (Imagine a meeting in a workplace,
>     either corporate, academic, etc. in which there are some real
>     disagreements about how to proceed and some real possibilities of
>     gain or loss of power, resources, etc.)
>
>        1. There may not be a relatively safe nutrient environment.
>           Requiring that as a prerequisite is asking a lot.
>        2. There may be high levels of diversity and
>           complexity--although alliances may form along lines that
>           make things much simpler.
>        3. The event may be at the edge of chaos. In many cases the
>           reason for more formal structures is to avoid falling off
>           that edge into real chaos.
>        4. Different people may have different ideas about what
>           improvement means. That may be the source of the problem.
>        5. In some cases pre-existing alliances may exist in which
>           there are many connections within each camp.
>
>     Then what?
>
>     -- Russ
>
>     On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 6:10 AM, Merle Lefkoff
>     <[hidden email] <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>
>         Hi Nick,
>
>         Open Space Technology is a facilitation methodology even older
>         than you and me. (Just kidding--no method is that old.) I've
>         been using it for years and participated just last week in a
>         whole conference in Istanbul using the technique. At the
>         Madrona Institute we massage it and combine it with additional
>         processes to see what it takes to break folks loose from old
>         paradigms. One of those old paradigms is the insistence on
>         moving toward consensus as a best outcome. In true complexity
>         fashion, we abandon the need for agreement. Since Steve is a
>         part of our recent Madrona group, he is experiencing a version
>         of OST.
>
>         Merle
>
>
>
>
>         Nicholas Thompson wrote:
>
>             Everybody, (anybody?),
>             I stumbled on this, yesterday. Note that it cites Kaufmann
>             for it's inspiration.
>             http://www.openspaceworld.com/brief_history.htm
>             It's a system, called for some reason "Open Space
>             Technologies", for organizing meetings and moving toward
>             consensus.
>             My Calvinist curmudgeon nature tends to automatically
>             deplore this sort of thing, (Any time I see chairs
>             arranged in a circle, my first impulse is to run screaming
>             from the room.) But I have to admit, it interested me. The
>             trick is that if there is more than one circle, the group
>             can reorganize spontaneously. I guess people are dragging
>             their chairs around the room.
>             The hedonist in me particularly liked:
>             /The Law is the so called Law of Two Feet, which states
>             simply, if at any time you find yourself in any situation
>             where you are neither learning nor contributing – use your
>             two feet and move to some place more to your liking. Such
>             a place might be another group, or even outside into the
>             sunshine. No matter what, don't sit there feeling
>             miserable. The law, as stated, may sound like rank
>             hedonism, but even hedonism has its place, reminding us
>             that unhappy people are unlikely to be productive people./
>             //
>             Ah, the years I spent in Department Meetings when I could
>             have been "/outside in the sunshine!"/!
>             I bet Steve Guerin will like:
>             /The lesson from Open Space is a simple one. The only way
>             to bring an Open Space gathering to its knees is to
>             attempt to control it. It may, therefore, turn out that
>             the one thing we always wanted (control) is not only
>             unavailable, but unnecessary. After all, if order is for
>             free we could afford being out of control and love it.
>             Emergent order appears in Open Space when the conditions
>             for self organization are met. Perhaps we can now relax,
>             and stop working so hard./
>             Anybody out there have any experience with it?
>             Nick
>             Nicholas S. Thompson
>             Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology,
>             Clark University ([hidden email]
>             <mailto:[hidden email]> <mailto:[hidden email]
>             <mailto:[hidden email]>>)
>             http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>             <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>             <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>             http://www.cusf.org [City University of Santa Fe]
>             ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>             ============================================================
>             FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>             Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>             lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>
>
>         ============================================================
>         FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>         Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
>         lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Dale Schumacher]

I've heard it said that a catalyst of collaboration is a problem whose
solution 1) provides benefit to all of us, and 2) requires the efforts
and contributions of each of us to succeed (we cannot succeed alone).
Open Space attempts to create the conditions where collaboration can
happen.  Although I don't care for some of the simplistic mantras
(e.g.: "whoever shows us is the right people"), I appreciate their
attitude and goals.

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org