Help plan the 2010 OSR annual conference

Are you searching for a way to reconnect with your OSR cohort and other Alumni? Join a wonderful team of grads to design and prepare for the annual 2010 Alumni Conference. Additionally we are looking for help with the new Alumni Communications group.

Activities for both groups will begin in January with a traditional OSR greeting and check-in. Teams will be gathered for the Alumni Conference by OSR 13 grad Steve Byers, while Ron McEnulty OSR 14 grad, will gather the new Alumni Communications group.  Please respond to either or both chairs for additional information on these activities at:

Steven Byers phone 360 259-0340 (mobile)
Ron McEnulty  phone 425-213-4322

Both groups would enjoy your participation and willingness to serve these OSR alumni programs.

OSR alumn helps create open space in cyber space

Lucy Garrick, (OSR 12) and Alumni board co-chair recently helped to create the first (as far as we know) Real-Time Virtual Global Open Space (RTVC).  

The conference theme was: What tools and principles do we need to help change to unfold? Social and technological development is a means for better organizations, and a better world.

Together, new found friends and colleagues from Germany, Canada, United Kingdom, Brazil, United States, and South Africa, designed and convened the 4-hour conference using Open Space principles and social media.

One word reactions from participants and convenors:
thrilling 
excitement 
multilevel 
smooth 
encouraging 
engaging 
conversations 
learning 
Like riding a roller coaster. 
technically challenging 
possibility 
engaging 
falling off the cliff 
bacterial 
crossing boundaries 
engaging 
exhilarating 
surfing 
disruptive 
just starting 
difficult connections 
interesting 
complex 
What's next? 
calls for more 
germinal

Over 50 participants signed on to the main sessions. Click on the RTVC MindMap. and see facts, key learnings, session topics and more. Note instructions on how to navigate the mindmap in the lower right corner of the page.

Virtual real-time collaboration

What tools and principles do we need to help change to unfold around global issues?

OSR has always been on the cutting edge of change management. Lucy Garrick (OSR-12) has joined a group of global change management practitioners who are forging the way. They are developing the first in a series of technical trials using social and technological development as a means for developing better organizations, and a better world.

The first in a series of virtual workshops will be conducted in May using the principles of Open Space as a way to convene and discuss both tools and global issues. More than 60 people from around the world have already signed up to participate. This is an opportunity to learn more about the tools and to network and connect with colleagues on a global scale around issues that interest you.

Learn more.

What are you learning now? Part 4: applying the learning

OSR graduates responded to this question in our latest survey. Here is the fourth installment of the results.

“Application in reality is a whole different ball game than talking "change" at a conceptual level - especially in the high tech arena. However, at the core of effective change, remains the need for self-development and there remains a gap between understanding one's role in change and the actualization of the efforts.”

“Theoretical knowledge is rarely well received in the material world of work. Pragmatism reigns and 'woo woo' is disdained by upper management. Those of us working in the smaller corporate realms and for non-profits don't have the luxury of experimentation with newer (unknown) emerging modalities. Some of the new 'community building' thought streams are transparent mimicry of the historical intentional community movement and are ill suited to the work environment. I appreciate the wonderful potentials of Whole Systems work on behalf of organizations and wish the elite, rarified environments designed for the privileged few could be widely provided in the day-to-day life of a majority of working people.”

“My learning is coming from hands-on work with groups, although most of my work currently is with individuals.”

“It is ever-changing and it is important to practice and network. More people have been exposed to the principles; however it doesn't make it easier.”

"Right now I am dealing with bureaucratic systems. I am in the application stage and learning that change truly takes place on an individual level. I would like to be in a position to lead more change — and my path has to work from the outside in because I see how ineffective it is to work from the inside of many organizations."

Part 1: design, leadership, change
Part 2: complexity, connection, unique situations
Part 3: agility to spirituality

Community Conversations Project

Lucy Garrick (OSR 12) and a group of professional trainers and consultants have been working to find ways to make a difference in the lives of individuals impacted by the economic situation facing many of us.

The group is called the Community Conversations Project and they plan to host an event in April or May to bring people together who are unemployed or under-employed to see how they can support each other.

The Vision: We are addressing the needs of society in transition by fostering a shift from isolation to community.

The Mission: We endeavor to create a platform for self organization that will allow people to share their stories in unemployment and collectively pay attention to what emerges with a network of resources at the ready to assist with collective improvisation.

If you have been impacted by the economic downturn facing our country please take the time to participate in this survey.

For more information contact Lucy Garrick

What are you learning now? Part 3: agility to spirituality

OSR graduates responded to this question in our latest survey. Here is the third installment of the results.

“Agility and nimbleness — personal in my professional practice, academic in the way I design graduate course curriculum about designing and leading systemic organizational change, and professional in co-creating and co-designing with colleagues innovative approaches to sustained/embedded change within organizations, all sectors. We have to stay on our learning edges creating conditions for seeing possibility in these uncertain times. This is a time for agile creativity.”

Innovation — “Entrenched organizational leadership and personnel destroy innovation and innovative thinking. Without major changes in leadership and mandated structural change, designing systemic organizational change goes nowhere.”

Intuition — “How to surface my intuition and understand it well enough to communicate as something more than ‘Well, I just have a feeling that…’"

“Nuance and the ever constant reinforcement to stay open to the environment I am working on. OSR learnings are guidelines, not rules.”

Relationships — “I continue to learn about the intricacies of relationships and the dance we do, individually and in groups, and how that influences our internal and external environment.”

“Simplicity and singularity”

“Social construction: social reality formed through discourse”

Spirituality — “My work has focused on the spiritual facet of sustainability and living systems. I'm in an ongoing learning experience.”

Part 1: design, leadership, change
Part 2: complexity, connection, unique situations
Part 4: applying the learning