Linking to this because I sent an email this morning referencing it, and was reflecting that Meet The Bloggers was establish with and operates on principles of Open Space Technology as described by Harrison Owen:

Owen�??s four rules:

1. Whoever comes is the right people
2. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
3. Whenever it starts is the right time
4. When it�??s over it�??s over

Owen supplements this with one law. �??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 you two feet and move to some place more to you liking. Such a place might be another group, or even outside into the sunshine. No matter what, don’t sit there feeling miserable…�?�

While I’m probably not the best practitioner of it, and I’m sure it impacts the operating agreement of the LLC, I think the model has served me well to this point.

Davos Newbies » 2004 » April » 21

From Henry Gomez:

Provoked by a guest author, George Nemeth has tweaked his comment policy at Brewed Fresh Daily… The “debate” George alludes to stems from the first post linked above, where an increasingly frequent poster named Jonathan defended the U.S. involvement in Iraq and taunted critics of the war.

Many loyal BFD readers were steamed, leading some to wonder why Jonathan — who appears to be Jonathan Murray of Cleveland’s Early Stage Partners venture capital firm — was even allowed to post at BFD… Since mine is a blog where The Man doesn’t allow comments, it’s hard for me to know exactly what George is thinking right now.

A few points. It wasn’t just one author/commenter that provoked me. It’s been the general tone of a number of folks that want to be confrontational. It’s been 3 years that I’ve been doing BFD and constantly defending my opinions and the opinions of others gets tiresome. So I’m not monitoring the comments like I was. Regarding what I’m thinking�??I’m thinking that most of my readers are going to self-organize and continue to comment, and if they feel someone is out of line, they’ll say so. I’ve gotten some heat for “censoring” comments�??not because of their content because I do believe in Open Space�??but because their being unreasonable and insensitive.

Just want to thank my friend Bill for leaving this comment, which I’ll close with:

I can certainly vouch for George and his inclusiveness�?�and this is coming from a conservative. That said, it is his world and he has the right to moderate it as he sees fit. I don�??t always agree with G (and vice versa), but we come away knowing more about the other person and we agree to disagree with a modicum of civility. It�??s a brave, new world and he does a good job with it�?�in fact, I think all of the bloggers that I read do.

Chris Corrigan writes:

The best line I heard at the BALLE Conference today was “faster learning beats better planning.”

Instead of blogging presentations and such, I’m letting ideas seep in and run together and I’ll write over the next week or so about stuff I’ve learned and stuff I’m thinking about.

Emphasis mine.

I got an email from Holly Harlan of Entrepreneurs for Sustainability saying she sat next to Chris. It didn’t surprise me. You can’t travel all the way to Vancouver and not connect with the people connected to us here.

Warning: this is a rant.

Panel disscussion where a bunch of people gather together to sit in a room and listen to a panel of “experts” is such an ineffiecent and ineffective broadcast medium.

If you’re going to have a panel, do us a favor and disseminate the information using some other broadcast media. If not the internet, then take out an ad in the newspaper, produce or sponsor a radio or television show, pamphlet the neighborhood with leaflets. Do a direct mailing. Record a panel discussion and send it out in the mail on a DVD. Anything, but a panel discussion. Worse yet, a series of panel discussions…

Get this - people comsume information on demand, not when you broadcast it. Our time is way more valuable then buying us a cup of coffee, a pastry, lunch, or a drink. Our ideas are way more vaulable than that.

Be a bit more considerate when you make demands on them. Create a bit more value in exchange for them.

End of rant

Since Jack posted this a week ago, I keep coming back to it:

When the space is open for people to interact in self-organizing ways, they tend to be collaborative, trusting, network-building, and action oriented. When they interact in contexts where the space is closed by imposed structure, they tend to be more competitive, critical, fragmented, and leader-dependent.

What’s your experience?