There are several ways to join the OS community via email listserves. The most important of these is the OSLIST worldwide list, but a number of regional lists also exist. Here is how to join them...
...is a listserve for Open Space practitioners and friends from everywhere (really)... perhaps the most active and easiest place to connect with the living Spirit of Open Space and the OS community. [Back to OSLIST Intro]
From the very beginning (1985), Open Space Technology has been free and freely available. But there is a cost -- that we freely share what we are learning. The mechanisms of sharing are multiple including training programs, public presentations, private emails and most especially in the online community known as the OSLIST.
The substance of what we share on the OSLIST is diverse: technical "How to..." questions, philosophical meanderings, and deep feelings from the heart. And in many ways, the deep feelings are the most important. It is from those feelings that we learn who we are, what we are doing, and what the true value of this work might be. If Open Space and the OSLIST were simply a technical approach to better meetings, then we might avoid both the philosophy and the feelings. We have discovered, however, that "OS as meeting methodology" is but a tiny part of the reality.
Over time, in Open Space and the OSLIST, we have wandered into the strange world of self-organizing systems, questions of peace making, human dignity, personal sense of worth, constructive conflict. Our journey has always been a shared one. No single person has, or could have, the total experience. And no one has the interpretive capacity to explain and elucidate that experience. We can only do this together, freely and openly. And what we have done so far is wide open for your searching and learning, in the OSLIST archive.
Occasionally Harrison Owen is asked why he never trademarked, patented, or franchised Open Space Technology. He says, "A flip, but honest answer would be that I was too lazy, in addition to the fact that I had better things to do than spend my time defending the sacred precincts. The same might be said for my refusal to "Certify" OS Practitioners. More to the point, and closer to my heart (true feelings :-)), I really felt/feel that OS does some good in ways that this funny world of ours can truly benefit from. Therefore I wanted it to be freely available to whomever, wherever, and however. . . And I don't just mean Open Space Technology as a narrowly prescribed methodology. I mean the whole enchilada - Method, Philosophy, Feelings, and anything else that has popped up along the way."
The OSLIST has been a critical part of the Open Space experience, and the evolution of the global Open Space community. From the very beginning it was open to anybody who cared - with no questions asked about why they cared or how much. People have come, people have gone, and some have just hung out. Some have posted regularly and many have been reading and learning quietly for many years.
There has never been any promise of privacy or exclusivity, indeed just the opposite. Anybody who would think of the OSLIST as a private, exclusive club would be operating under a severe misunderstanding. Indeed, the very nature of Open Space and the Internet, of which OSLIST is one small intersection, fosters this openness. Some of our messages have copied and forwarded their way around the world multiple times -- making Open Space, and the possibilities of Open Space, available to people and places we will never know. We think that's Fantastic! AND... we are glad that you are here!
Genuine Contact and Conscious Open Space Organization - a listserve with accompanying website at http://www.genuinecontact.info, filled with resources and archived discussions that are searchable--for the community of Open Space Technology facilitators working with Open Space Technology as taught through the Genuine Contact tm program, a vehicle for developing the Conscious Open Space Organization
Haitian Creole and French listserve... as reported by JohnEngle in Haiti... join it by sending a message to: mailto:reseauforumouvert-subscribe@yahoogroups.com As of December 2002, there are about 85 people on this list.
Russian yahoogroups.com email list in Russian: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OpenSpaceRu or mailto:openspaceru-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Swedish... Svenska Open Space Institutets forum syftar till att vara ett stöd i utvecklingen av Open Space metoden i Sverige. I detta forum ges möjligheten att utbyta erfarenheter och lära tillsammans - på svenska. Gå till: http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/sosif. This listserve with accompanying website is a space where people talking/writing in Swedish are invited to learn about OST together.
German ...list on Yahoo! with the first message on February 3, 2002. 175 members as of May05, most of them from Germany with several from Austria and Switzerland but also a few german-speaking colleagues from Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, France, Hungary, Sweden. There have been 1794 messages which is a weekly average of approximately 11. Its become an important exchange for us in this part of Europe. Want to be invited? Send a mail to: mmpanne@boscop.de OR to subscribe directly mail to: openspacedeutsch-subscribe@yahoogroups.de
Italian ...list on Yahoo!, pretty new as the practice of Open Space in Italy
http://it.groups.yahoo.com/group/Open_Space_Italia
To learn more about the OST group of Ukrainian facilitators, please visit
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ukrainian_Facilitator
To start sending messages to members of this group, simply send email to Ukrainian_Facilitator@yahoogroups.com *after* registering with yahoogroups.