[OSList] Thinking about hosting a future WOSonOS? Wisdom from Past Hosts

[Lisa Heft -]

Hi, folks. Access Queen here again.

Another thing I do as Access Queen is to collect and share best practices and lessons-learned from each year’s WOSonOS Host Team, and fold them into a growing living document.

Nobody says you have to do a WOSonOS in a certain way. And you can host these things whenever or whoever you feel so inspired. 
For example, I have been hosting an Open Space on Open Space (and on all things facilitation) every Spring in the San Francisco region, for years now. You are all invited, and I will post that date on this list.

However, it is interesting to see that the Host Teams from 2001 onward - since I have began this shared-wisdom document - name the same lessons-learned.
Some of which inform how they announced or invited, or had ample or insufficient funding to cover their expenses, or realized how the design of a WOSonOS / OSonOS is different than how they might design an Open Space meeting for an organization’s task or exploration. And there are some fun traditions that happen each year, as well. 

Again: you can do it all in your own way. You can start your own traditions. 
However if you are thinking of hosting a WOSonOS next year or in the future, do contact me directly and I will send you this “Wisdom from Past Hosts” document.

By the way - typically each year at a WOSonOS one or more teams invite the WOSonOS to their country for the next year, or for a future year. Right there before the Closing Circle / end of the conference.
Our Chinese colleagues made a lovely invitation to host the next WOSonOS when they came to the 2013 WOSonOS in Florida, USA.
I am wondering if they may bring their voice and invitation to Serbia to say so again.  WONDERFUL team!
Sometimes a team will offer for a few years in a row, because there may be several teams who step forward to invite at once, and then typically the people attending the WOSonOS chat and decide together in some way which country across the world the WOSonOS will travel to for the next year.

Please know that you do *not* have to be present at a WOSonOS to invite to your country for a future year. However it really does help, I think, to have attended one or more WOSonOSs first, to know how that particular event feels and might be structured. You can ask someone you know is going to a WOSonOS to invite on your behalf. A great thing is to design an invitation that really gives the cultural flavor and passion for your country.

I invited three years in a row before the group selected my country for the following year. 
Whenever it starts is the right time.
There were other wonderful inviters and other wonderful countries were chosen before mine, which was perfect.
I have a lovely memory of Thomas and Eva from Sweden representing me one year - I was an egg, wasn’t I? And… I broke, didn’t I? 
All well, I feel much better now.

Anyway.
Contact me directly if you would like to receive this document to inform your country team’s thought and planning for potentially hosting a future WOSonOS.
And I am sadly not attending this year but do let someone on this list know if you would like them to plan with you how *they* can creatively represent you when it is invitation time at the conference…

Lisa

Lisa Heft
Opening Space