While tomorrow is the official start of World Open Space on Open Space XVI, conference events are well underway.

The week started with an extremely well-attended (40+ participants) two day Open Space Technology learning workshop led by Lisa Heft. People from Uganda, Russia, Spain (Basque country), South Korea, the Netherlands, UK, and other countries attended the workshop.

Tuesday evening Harrison Owen presented the third edition (expanded and updated) of Open Space Technology: a User’s Guide. Harrison encouraged the approximately 100 attendees to dive in to the wine and crackers after a short talk about Open Space, self-organization, and his upcoming book, Wave Rider: Leadership for High Performance in a Self-organizing World. It was a delightful meeting of new and old friends of Open Space.

This evening, Wednesday, was an informal gathering also held at the historic Fort Mason site. This was the traditional pre-conference informal gathering. More wine, a delicious dinner, and extremely rich conversation.

Lisa Heft gives a taste of the whole WOSonOS experience thus far on the OSlist.

More reporting from the conference forthcoming!