World Cafe LO29302

From: Vana Prewitt (vana@praxislearning.com)
Date: 10/13/02


Replying to LO29288 --

Dear LO friends:

Questions came back to me regarding The World Cafe and I'm happy to give
my impression and understanding of it. There are a few key "rules" to
hostiong a Cafe, one of which will be very familiar to organizers of Open
Space. The host poses a question that matters to those who attend. In the
case of a gathering of educators, it might be about envisioning
educational excellence. The questions that I've found most compelling are
quite similar to those we pose in Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider et
al). They have the power of imagining the best that can be. They tap into
individual dreams and passions and help build something that occurs among
and between people when engaged in a discussion of deep commitments.

Like AI, Cafe conversations tend to focus on the future not the past and
tend to focus on how we can make things better rather than dwelling on
things we cannot change or past events that cannot be undone. It accepts
the world as we see it today and moves on from there. Now, this part is
not a "rule" but my observation of what works well and how I construct
Cafe conversations.

Like a real salon conversation, people come and go from tables and convey
the conversations of past tables to new talbes, thus transferring the
context of meaning from one group to the next while generating new
synthesized meaning. It is probably the most tangible form of a postmodern
OL technique I've yet seen because the emphasis is on dialogue, deep
listening, and collective meaning making. We socially construct our own
experinces and collectively construct the meaning of events and intents.
The Cafe is a deliberate attempt to set the stage and environment for this
type of conversation to occur for a specified purpose.

Meaning is graphically captured more so than taking notes at the table and
report-outs. The skills of graphic facilitators is used to do this, which
frees up people (in my culture at least) from assuming a "business-like"
mental model and engages the creative side of participants. They are given
newsprint, crayons and markers to illustrate their ideas while they talk.
Individuals share with each other, then act as delegates to other groups
who continue this model of bee-like cross pollination. Cafes have been
conducted in 1.5 hours and over several days, with small groups and
hundreds of people. They bring to light tacit knowledge and make it
explicit, transfer knowledge, and generate knowledge as conversations
circle and flow.

These are the ground rules of the Cafe.

  * Create Hospitable Space
  * Explore Questions That Matter
  * Connect Diverse People and Ideas
  * Encourage Each Person's Contribution
  * Listen Together for Patterns, Insights and Deeper Questions
  * Make Collective Knowledge Visible

Read more at http://www.theworldcafe.com

Regards,

Vana Prewitt

-- 

Vana Prewitt <vana@praxislearning.com>

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