Author: Michael

Last week at MeshForum, Jamais Cascio presented a fascinating story of how ubiquitous cell phone cameras and other tech advances would make privacy obsolete. Somebody will always be watching or listening, and probably storing our every move in some sort of digital and searchable archive, via “always on” cellular and other devices.

Later, it occured to me that this outer development of awareness and memory must parallel similar awareness skills being developed internally in our bodies and beings. Then support for the science of this comes via email today: scientists investigating “mirror neurons” that we use when we move and do things, but also use when we simply watch others do the same things. In short, science may be suggesting that we learn and empathize by reading minds.

The real trouble with this world of ours is not
that it is an unreasonable world, nor
even that it is a reasonable one.
The commonest kind of trouble is that it is
nearly reasonable, but not quite.
Life is not an illogicality, yet
it is a trap for logicians.
It looks just a little more mathematical
and regular than it is; its’
exactitude is obvious; but
its’ inexactitude is hidden;
its’ wildness lies in wait.

This is G K Chesterton, via John Mauldin’s weekly investing letter. After I went to business school, I went off to become a wilderness course instructor with Outward Bound USA. That leap began a long journey and practice which continues to attempt (and more and more often achieve) a mutual sort of marrying of the spirit, adventure, learning and uncertainty of wilderness expeditioning with the bottom-line, critical thinking, business results organizations need to survive.

Facilitating OpenSpaceTech meetings and summits is for me a direct and logical extension of my wilderness trips leadership. My practice of Open Space allows me to invite over and over again the productive gathering of the reasonable and all that is yet beyond reasoning, in business and community organizations. What we used to do in groups of 12 and 15, and call teambuilding is now possible in groups of 120 and even 1500. I call that “organization building” — and it’s every bit an expedition!

Tomorrow is the 14th anniversary of my last salaried paycheck, my own personal open space for the depth of life and the business results that pay the bills. The daring has made all the difference. I offer a big, universal sort of “thank you” to the many many friends and family and colleagues who’ve supported this grand expedition. On we go!

this morning i was playing in and around a bit of recurring tension in head, noticing that eyes and controlling with eyes are connected not so far from jaw and controlling with words and story. when i somehow relaxed brain-brainbase-speech-eyes more than usual, the sensasation was that everything that i think/thought was real, was me, was solid and true became wet, slippery, clear, running away through my fingers, flowing… and then i sort of snapped back after but a few moments of this sort of knowing not very much or not as much as i usually think i do. it was fun. i recommend it. if relaxing brain is just too weird, try yawning 108 times in one sitting or napping. aaahhhh….

i’m on the plane today to chicago for MeshForum. come join us there, for a different kind of shift, finishing with Open Space on wednesday.

Got this the other day, regarding Bucky Fuller and the purpose of life:

My name is David and I am a student from Cleveland, Ohio conducting a research paper on the philosophy of the purpose of life. I have a few questions I would like to ask concerning the topic. Thank you for the time and appreciation.

1. What is your personal answer to Fuller’s own question, “What, if anything, could be done by a penniless, unknown man working on behalf of all humanity?”
2. Is the true purpose of life a precessional effect, not a direct goal of life?
3. Does it take an entire lifetime to achieve the true purpose of one’s life?
4. Is it true that no one will ever fully know his true life’s purpose?
5. Do you believe in fate and why?
6. What is your interpretation of “life is complex but simple at the same time?”
7. Are there any tips for attaining the true purpose of life?

I’m still working on my answers and will post when finished. In the meantime, post your own answers for David in the comments to this item, if you like.

Found in a book I was going to leave for the Jamyang Center library today:

When we have developed our own inner purity, inner compassion and inner love, we can then see the reflection of this purity and loving-kindness in others. But if we have not contacted these qualities within ourselves, we will see everyone as ugly and limited. For whatever we see everyday in our outer reality is actually nothing more than a projection of our own inner reality…

Lama Yeshe, Introduction to Tantra: A Vision of Totality. My first thought is to keep it and read more. My second thought is that I could work on just this one point for the next forever.

A couple of days ago I posted a bit about invitation, riffing on some online discussions and also my work with a global consulting business here in London. I’m still rolling around in my set of opening questions, still learning and refining the ways I talk about the things to be considered and addressed in the process of writing an invitation and opening a space in organization.

Here’s the latest list:

Invitation

I love this image for movement, decentralization and my own work in OpenSpaceTech and the world…

When I was trying to explain the new paradigm of a movement and the relevance of decentralization in this world, Jayeshbhai promptly summarized it — ‘Just like a banyan tree.’ Indeed. Banyan tree starts with a root but when any of its branches hit the ground, they become roots too. In a short period, it’s impossible to figure out the original root, and it’s also very difficult to remove a banyan tree.

From a remarkable blog by Nipun Mehta, who’s walking and blogging his way through India with his partner Guri. Thanks to Christopher for catching this one for me.

I have been around the world teaching OpenSpaceTech as a practice in invitation. This is an excellent example of the opportunity for such practice. Harrison Owen posted this to the OSLIST email group…

My Inbox is a rich source of adventure. This little note from a CEO for example:

“XXX Inc. has a highly skilled team of ~100 people doing great work and we are also attempting to manage a company that differentiates ourselves by maintaining a unique company culture. We want to define, defend, and enable these values to be who we are, what we do, and how we behave as a collective organization. Building trust and allowing diversity, debate, and protest to flourish in an organization of high achievers is a difficult thing. I’m searching for ways to provide openness, healthy dialog, and a supportive atmosphere for these stellar people to deliver all they are capable of (collectively) to improve the lives of thousands of people living with cancer.

Basically I’m looking for techniques, methods, tools, and or simple ways to create an open environment of trust within a growing organization. My Dilemma: How to create a communication environment that’s open, listens, hears, understands, and is responsive? I am looking for practical executable methods to model these value behaviors within a for profit business enterprise. I want to work for a cause and I want those that join the company to be equally as committed to a similar standard. As companies grow and become successful it can be easy to become complacent or to compromise on these values. I’m looking for ways to help prevent organizational entropy, human dysfunctional politics, divisiveness, unhealthy behaviors, and the like within the work environment at all levels of the company. This value system requires a lot from management team and the organization, as well as asking a lot from our employees. But I believe that building on such a foundation and supporting our human capital in such a way we will ensure our success as a transformational company.”

He asked for comments and reflections in advance of a meeting with this CEO.

I said this:

almost always i find that the first few paragraphs or minutes of a conversation with a new contact or client — when they give this sort of snapshot of who they are, where they’ve been, and what they want next — is the perfect, most honest invitation.

these are the clearest pictures they can give, simple and clean, understandable to an outsider, and with all the honesty that is sometimes withheld, for all kinds of reasons both cultural and personal, from insiders.

my first question is then “who’s needed to create such an organization?” my second question is “how soon can we get them together?” maybe the third question is “what would we need to do to make sure that you (the ceo) lives to tell about it?”

seems to me that as long as we see culture and environment as something that is created by one person, sometimes a chief and other times a “bad apple” troublemaker, or some small group of same, we will always work to hard and always fall short. as soon as we turn the task over to an invited group of everyone, the job is already done, the environment is shifted, and we’re right there in it doing the real work in a whole new way.

as ever, the leap is in beginning.

More and more, I’m beginning with some simple lists, especially when I don’t have an opening shot like the one above. This list works pretty well for small projects and whole organizations, immediate crises and long-term strategy:

• best things we’ve ever done,
• current conditions that matter,
• things we know we want/need to do/have/create now/next,
• people needed to get it done,
• resources and supporting structures available to leverage,
• sacred cows, dead mooses and other lines not to be crossed,
• potential meeting dates,
• potential meeting places,
• how we’ll know it’s really working

Is there any other way to get things done quickly and easily in organization than pencilling these things out, inviting everyone, and opening some space for all of their work to move?

Oh, yeah, we could pick one person to tell everyone what to do, and the we could keep on doing exactly what we’ve always done, until that one person figures it out and tells us otherwise. But how long might that take??? Let’s go!

I’ve been firing up the Small Change News Network again, coming out of the full-time meditation center volunteer mode now. Moving into team blogging mode there soonly. Sorry this post doesn’t rhyme for “Poem in Your Pocket Day.”

I read John Mauldin’s weekly markets and investments letter. Last week he digested a ten-year geo-political forecast by stratfor.com, “private, quasi-CIA intelligence service” and makes connections to global markets. The letter and forecast touch on the breakup in China, market breakdown in Russia, collapse of the dollar, and the growing pains of “moderate” Islam. Fascinating stuff.

There is wisdom in not reading news of big stories that we can’t act on. A lot of crime news would fall into this category. A lot of political commentary too. I use bits like Mauldin’s letters to orient myself in the big world so that I can act, invest, vote and converse more effectively in my own small and local worlds.

Thanks to Dan O’Connor for the initial tip on Mauldin.

I’ve been living a rather simple, but busier than you’d expect, sort of life for the last five and some months. I’ve been mostly resident here at Jamyang, in the upstairs cell block of a 135-year-old courthouse turned meditation center, just across the Thames from central London. Primary duties have been cleaning, receiving, and cooking.

My neighbors in the three other upstairs cells are all transients. Many are monks or nuns or volunteers working for just a few days. Some other staff and volunteers live in bigger cells downstairs. In my time here, the four-member volunteer team has come from Spain, Columbia, Holland, Russia, England, Germany, Canada and the USA. The cell renters upstairs in my hallway have come from many more places.

This is a building where monks robes look pretty normal, and second-hand working and travelling clothes are common. When I go out of here in suit and tie for a meeting, it gets noticed. Yesterday, Grace Davis, one of the upstairs visitors, asked me about where I was going last week. As I explained my work, a lightbulb goes on and she says, “That sounds a lot like this thing called Open Space.”

Turns out that after I went around the world running OpenSpaceTech training and practice workshops in 2002, one of my partners, Brendan McKeague, an irishman now rooted in Perth, Western Australia, ran around that continent doing some more trainings. Grace, and english woman with connections down under, attended that training. So strange and wonderful to trip over one’s own lineage halfway between home and Oz!

The Tutor/Mentor Connection seeks to connect people who from around the world with information and networks that help support the growth of comprehensive, voluteer based tutor/mentor programs.

Dan Bassill, founder and director, is a pioneer in the use of mapping and website technology to support tutor/mentor programs around chicago and beyond. I love it when cool stuff like this originates in Chicago. Dan’s been at this for 30 years now. Glad to see his insights and connections emerging in a weblog.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Dan!