Regarding Wayne's assertion: "The basic phenomonology of the conversation method has not changed. It has always been oriented toward the ontological. If it isn't, it is some other method - put it that way."

With respect, I'm afraid I disagree with Wayne's assertion that the basic conversation method has changed. What has changed is the the emphasis of the conversation.

In the Art Form method the conversation is "for" being. It is ontological-existential and ethical. In the ORID format [as articulated in ToP] the focus is knowing and sharing something inside the context of a facilitator-client agreement with a particular group of participants. the conversation is "for" knowing i.e epistemological.

Brian Stanfield's wonderful book of Focused Conversations really highlights this shift to the client-consultant workplace -which was a new field of engagement in which to practice conversation making.

Reading Brian's workplace conversation models is like reading the music scores for Bach's Well-tempered Clavier. Publishing those models really did change the conversation focus in my view. Of course there is other music to score and play besides Bach's and there are other conversations to model besides conversations for knowing [epistemology].

JWM's NRM monastic distinctions are really powerful: Knowing | Being | Doing are actually phenomenological distinctions for sorting out the internal and social experiences that open up in conversations and dialogues.

A conversation "for Being" [ontology] is an entirely different score and it creates an entirely different kind of conversational "music" that has a much wider and deeper expression - like the original Guernica Art From conversation did or like the Tombstone conversation did. In these conversations, you get to declare something, you get to take a stand and say what you value. The questions can reveal personal character, what was lost, what was gained, who you are being in this moment as a human being. The conversation can be profoundly existential i.e. ontological. It can also contain varieties of ontological language like mythological and religious expression.

A conversation for Doing -using JWM's NRM phenomenology is Largely unexplored in my opinion. John Epps wrote some brilliant and new Other World in This World conversations in 1996 which I found in the 6th floor Archives last summer. last summer we tried some over skype. Bruce Hanson gave a wonderful talk using the other world charts and Hoksai's pictures to describe an Appreciative Inquiry assignment at Hitachi Company on the outskirts of Tokyo. He talked about himself as being a navigator on an otherworld trek.

In my view the Jenkins's book on the 9 disciplines is a clearheaded translation of the old monastic categories. What remains is to see clearly the Knowing Being and Doing phenomenology in practice and in roles like the role of a facilitator and the new roles of pedagogue, story maker, coach, navigator

So in sum, the point wasn't to jump on Wayne's good thoughts. The point is to make some new distinctions about conversations that freshen the wind and hear new music...