Jack, thanks for taking my posting to another level. I don't want to
change the forum but I'd love for a vehicle to emerge that provided what I
was pointing at and you made explicit.
I can see some suggestive possibilities that I'll point to at the end.
First, I want to build on what you say about the proprietary nature of
what is said on the list.
WE are bound by the ethics of consultant property that Rick has
prescribed. (Rightly, I think. I probably wouldn't have begun to
participate without it.) While I think this is honoured remarkably well,
the thinking expressed on the list - rather than the form - of course
cannot be protected anyway. So is the agreement worth much? I think it
might be usefully changed but not necessarily deleted.
THEY, that is the world who is not engaged with the list and who can
access it in various ways are not bound by any agreement. They can, in
practice, borrow freely and provide links that essentially include
anything here in their writing (with or without credit). The ethics of
the web seem to support this.
SO, we are limited by being participants and being related by that and
they are not. This is a strange set of affairs - that I've seen many time
before with unsatisfactory outcomes.
I like Jack's formulation:
"I'm not sure exactly what Peter Senge said, but Rick's notes regarding
the "proprietary" nature of consultant's work point to one of the
biggest obstacles, in my opinion. By the nature of things,
consultants and practitioners often find themselves treading the
leading edge, but the "community" has to wait for the best-selling
book, the marketing brochure, or the self-trumpeting magazine article
to find out what has been learned there. "
What I would love to see - even participate in - is "to establish
structures for capturing this knowledge and making it useful". Useful for
more research, more generation, more available for change - as some of
those threads might be.
To share a personal note. I use this list to develop my work. This is
one of the richest forums of challenges, application questions, new
wrinkles, issues to address, breakdowns, etc related my field of
organisational intelligence - even thought that is not the stated topic -
and provides a rich field of play. Most of my posting are sharing what
postings from others have generated in my thinking. To extend the power
of this use would be wonderful for me.
Here's what I see as possibilities.
The list remains as it is. Some people work on various organising,
maintaining practices, etc which develop a "body of knowledge" focussed
in various areas of interest for doing that. (For instance mine would be
particularly "complexity", "organisational intelligence", "dialogue",
"emergence", "communities of learning", "practice", "knowledge".)
These would include hyperlinks and, maybe with FolioViews, templates of
the various participants in these "advanced forums" or, to use a way that
George Por is speaking of this "electronic meeting rooms", which would be
by subscription only. I have assumed that the work would require some
paid resource. This may not be so but I'm not very familiar with the
possibilities.
I also see that these subscription vehicles would provide rich dialogue
but more focussed on research. I do not think these circles would detract
from the "society/community of the source" - the LO forum - that produced
the possibility. Why not? Because that would assume that the list has
somehow served its purpose and is non longer a viable entity. I think the
opposite is the case. I think each would support the other in rich and
varied ways.
I suspect this is possible without Rick's involvement. I suspect it's
possible right now by anybody. But I'd rather see it connected in some
way that worked for Rick and for everybody currently on the list.
I am meeting with a major publisher who is setting up an electronic
publishing arm. Maybe she will have something to say about this
possibility as both a commercial and viably alive possibility.
[Host's Note: Mike invited me to review this before circulating it, and I
have done so. I'm open to proposals of any kind that would advance our
mutual interests, including off-shoots of this LO list, and would support
anything that looks practical and effective. Speaking personally, I cannot
increase my time commitment for this pro-bono activity beyond what I'm
presently spending as host for this list. -- Rick]
--
Michael McMaster : Michael@kbdworld.com
web:http://www.vision-nest.com/BTBookCafe/TIA/TIAmap.html
"I don't give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity
but I'd die for the simplicity on the other side of complexity."
attributed to Chief Justice Brandeis
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations
For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>