OSE Europe/Vision
Idea on Sharing the Vision
The vision of OSE Europe. It is great when there are loads of people, willing to support and fund the project of creating a vital and healthy Open Source Ecology Movement in Europe. But the more people contribute, the more difficulties arise, when one wants to find a strategy to start, and how to get things running.
Doing Mail contacts and Skype conferences help very much to clarify thoughts and ideas, but as this always depends on peer-to-peer communication it will never converge as fast as it hast to, and there will be loads of misunderstandings, false hopes and wrong believes. Just because the people never told each other the whole picture without details what they want to achieve. Often of course the people didn't tell each other because they had no clear vision, they just had this itching feeling in the head, this nifty lightheadedness and fast bumping heart when trying to focus on the problem.
On the other hand, there are the people with very clear visions, ideas an plans who exactly know where to go and what to do next. This is great, but when the communication lacks severe problems arise. Often the communication done by this people is incomplete or one-sided. It never matters why the communication is like that. Because of wrong assumption what the others know, the feeling of having the same goal or just difficulties in make oneself clear. It happens to everyone and all the time, especially when one is not familiar with the prevailing culture the language in use or other conventions.
As OSE Europe will include many people from different countries with different background, different ages, different knowledge, different goals, different capabilities, different motivations and so one there is the need to form a foundation. A foundation on which the European Source Ecology Community can grow and evolve. For this purpose I strongly recommend the people interested in OSE Europe to make a Vision Paper.
So what is a Vision Paper?
The first time I encountered the idea was in Holistic Management by Allan Savory and since then I'm a true fan of it. A Vision Paper is a possibility to express ones Vision about an endeavor or project one starts or participates. It is not so much about the path how to achieve the results, it is more something like How will it be in three years? What will be achieved? Where will I and we be there?
It's very personal statement about the ideas, visions and dreams leading oneself. But is should not be to far of reality. Of course, in a Vision Paper will be very much that never sees the light of day, but also there will be everything essential that leads one and motivates one. Also a Vision Paper is not static. You will have to rewrite it from time to time. Also it is very surprising to look back to ones early visions of the project, just to see how far away oneself or the project hast evolved. Normally not to the bad.
So in short, a Vision Paper is a possibility to express all the expectations of a project. The project can be virtually everything, and it is great for a team to have a Vision Paper together, as well as it is great for every single person to have its Vision Paper. And there we are, to get a stable fundament on which OSE Europe can rest I think there has to be something like a Vision Paper written by the participating people. And to get to this Vision Paper it won't be enough to meet once ore make some calls, unless there are loads of Vision Papers available to everyone to get the spirit.
