The origins of boscop date back to 1997. At that time, consultants from the fields of organizational development, supervision, continuing education, community work, and human resources development came together in the working group “Large-Group Intervention in Transformation Processes” (GiT) to collectively expand their expertise in the area of large-group work. From this learning group, the berlin open space cooperative eG (boscop) was founded in 2004 as a registered cooperative.
The common goal in founding the cooperative was to create an organizational framework for working as Open Space facilitators: to foster cooperation and economic self-help, to promote the Open Space method, and to facilitate internal peer consultation.
The organization was intended to be, in its fundamental structure, long-term, cooperative, flexible, committed, oriented toward learning and negotiation, and organized in such a way that every member could help shape it in accordance to the Open Space principles. The legal form of a cooperative seemed to be the most suitable for creating this space of possibility.
Since then, boscop eG has existed with a very stable team and well-established partnerships. Over time, boscop has contributed significantly to the development and dissemination of Open Space, particularly in German-speaking countries, but also in other regions of the world.
Today
As a cooperative association of Open Space facilitators, boscop continues to see itself today as a learning, interactive organization that bases its organizational structure and collaboration on the Open Space principles. Our internal working methods are based on personal responsibility and self-organization (“everybody leads”). To this end, we engage in continuous dialogue with one another to learn together and further develop our cooperative. Our annual retreats are conducted using the Open Space format. As needed, we incorporate and test other suitable formats in our collaboration. Boscop members are both independent and part of an organization with formal structures: In this way, we experience and address as a team the issues and challenges that our clients and participants face in their daily lives.