World Cafe Community

Welcome to the World Café Community Blog!

The World Café is a global community of people dedicated to awakening and engaging collective intelligence through conversations about questions that matter... Welcome to your blog! Your active involvement is warmly invited.

New Features for the World Cafe Online Community

Hi there,

I'd like to introduce a new tab to you on our Online Community, it's called Features. Under it you'll find four tools that were already there but at different places (and i updated the Tag Clouds!) and you'll see two new tools that I just finished programming! As some of you know I am keen on experimenting with ways to access, navigate and comprehend "virtual/face2face-hybrid-organisms/entities" like the World Café Online Community. These two represent my latest manifestions in that inquiry:

1) The Sitemap Graph is my best current attempt on visualizing the Online Community as a whole; still not the content, but at least the complete content-structure in the form of a graph! Once i was into graphs i also made a membergraph and an animation of the sitemap-development since 2009. Let me know what you think of it. 

2) The Nearness Radar allows you to filter out those members, amongst all 4000 (almost), that are within a certain radius of your location. That is finally air-distance based, yes > transcending national borders for search.

Please be assured that these two tools only use the information that is publicly accessible (without login) on the Online Community anyway.

... And let me use this opportunity to share another tool-idea with you. It would also only use publicly accessible data, but work with it in a way that causes issues for some people and I want to be sensitive to that.

My thinking is the following; 4000 members... that gives almost 8million different possible groups of 2! And seriously, not the best host in the world could not make sure that all of those 8million, who could benefit from being connected, are actually getting a chance to connect to each other. In my opinion, that's where the power of computation comes in.

So, concretely I am thinking about an algorithm that suggests you to visit other profiles based on the use of words you both share in your profile/posts/comments, based on the membership in groups you share, based on your physical location or even based on your resonant (or particulary dissonant?) star-signs. Basically a match-making tool. The same concept that dating-sites are using and the same concept that Facebook uses massively (but secretly). How about having that same here; but out in the open, transparently, honest and with professional intentions? Everyone of course would have to be able to choose not to be displayed in any matching-results.

And here's where I am keen on hearing your thoughts; how would you feel about such a tool? Under which circumstances would you find it useful? Should people be given an opt-in chance or an opt-out chance upfront? My ideal image of how this would play out, is that people will polish their own profile-information in order to appear in more meaningful search-queries and a few hundred new meaningful connections will be made every year. My worst-case scenario would be that people will find it intruding and actually reduce their profile-information or leave the Community altogether. What do you think?

Warmly,

Benjamin Aaron Degenhart
Global Communications Team of the World Café Foundation

Contribution/s from Japan

We recently received a most welcome and moving letter from Mr Tomoyuki Tsunoda and the Art of Hosting/World Café community in Japan. It contained a check, and this note:

"Art of Hosting in Japan held a Charity Dialogue event on January 18th, 2012, in Tokyo. We called for donations to the World Café Community Foundation to say "thanks" because the World Café process is easy to use and provides a lot of fun that is needed now to recover our communities against the damage that has been done by the Tsunamis.

We Japanese need a lot of conversation, a lot of dialogue, to rebuild our communities and everyday life. The World Café process helps us hold such conversations.

So we say, Thank you World Café!"

To know that our friends in Japan are thinking of us and wanting to support and acknowledge the Foundation even with all they have to deal with there at home, means everything to us. These are true friends, and we are so grateful for their many contributions to the World Café, financial and otherwise. Our hearts remain with them as they go through the joyful and painful work of rebuilding their homes, communities, lives, and country after the multiple disasters of last year.

The letter was signed by:

Kazuaki Katori
Tamio Nakono
Hidetake Enomoto
Chizue Takeuchi
Rie Kuroi
Syuu Uraya
Tomoyuki Tsunoda
Mami Yoda
Nao Ashida
Misuzu Ninomiya
Yoshihiko Suko
Emiko Taguchi
Kaku Suzuki
Izumi Takii
Kazumi Yagi
Emi Owada
Yoko Itagaki
Kazue Takashige
Naoki Ishidoya
Ryota Yamauchi
Mamoru Oosone
Masaru Kojima
Kouya Nakaoka
Kouhei Noda
Tsuyoshi Kurosawa
Hiroyuki Matsumoto
Takashi Nisio
Toshiko Iwashima
Ayako Satou
Daiki Hayashi
Akikazu Hayashi
Hiroshi Okuyama
Kentarou Fukui
Syouko Matsumoto
Yuka Kamoshida
Yuuko Takahashi
Yoshiko Fukase
Kayo Fujiwara
Misato Matsubara
Takuya Murakami
Masaaki Mezaki
Hiroshi Ooki
Hiroko Nakajima
Miyako Sakatsume
Masaya Furuse
Ryoutarou Hayashi
Bob Stilger

Announcing Level Two

We are pleased to announce that we are now accepting registrations for Hosting World Cafés: The Fundamentals. Level Two of The World Café Signature Learning Program series, this educational event is collaboratively offered by The World Cafe and Fielding Graduate University and co-presented by Fielding Faculty member Bo Gyllenpalm and Amy Lenzo of the World Café Community Foundation. 

The course will be a robust 4.5 week process delivered online through Fielding's distance learning technology and 2 2-hour synchronous events on Sunday May 6th and Sunday June 3rd using MaestroConference. Graduates will receive 6 CEUs.
Download a flyer for the course here.

See the Fielding web page for more details - including the complete course schedule - and registration. More information on the Signature Learning Programs is available on the World Café website.

*  *  *  *  *

We are very excited about this partnership with Fielding. There been a close association between the two organizations for a long time, but this projects brings us into new territory. We welcome the opportunity it opens for the entire World Cafe community - to secure continuing educational and professional accreditation for World Café work, research, and learning programs, and to benefit from the experience and academic excellence that working with Fielding brings.

In addition, this course is a rare opportunity to work with two of the leading pioneers who have brought the World Cafe processes and principles into the online environment (see their articles on this subject in World Café Publications). Bo Gyllenpalm pioneered the use of World Café in an asynchronous online environment starting with the Masters course Organizational Development Concepts and Methods he presented at Fielding back in 2000, and Amy Lenzo has been following his lead and evolving "real time", or synchronous, World Cafés online since 2008 - see the stories on StoryNet.

Here's a statement from Bo:

I am proud and excited about the cooperation between the World Café Community Foundation and Fielding Graduate University. I have been working on this for the last 5 years and my vision is for Fielding to be the academic home for the World Café like Case Western Reserve University is the home of Appreciative Inquiry.

The World Café has been used a lot at Fielding after Juanita Brown presented her dissertation at Fielding, ”The World Café; Living Knowledge through Conversations that Matter”. Having been on her dissertation committee and working with her for more than 17 years it is my pleasure to present an academic online World Café course at Fielding awarding 6 CEU credits.

This 4.5 week online World Café Signature Learning Level 2 course provides a fundamental understanding of the World Café theory and method, applying the World Café principles to bring forth the creative power of conversations and engage questions that matter. Participants will collaboratively develop the capacity to use the World Café design principles in their own lives and work, and gain a basic understanding of the World Café hosting practices.

Bo Gyllenpalm, PhD
Fielding Adjunct Faculty and Trustee

 

Saying Goodbye to California

A Letter from World Café co-founder, Juanita Brown:

As many of you know, David and I are in the process of moving our home and base of operations from the San Francisco Bay area to our family farm in the mountains of North Carolina, near Asheville, in order to be closer to my 90 year old mom and other family members, including David’s grandchildren on the Eastern coast of the United States.

Even though we are excited about this move and know without a doubt that it is the right thing for our lives, we are sad to be leaving our beloved home on Tomales Bay, just north of San Francisco where much of the World Café book was written.

It was here that I first fully encountered the joys of the natural world.  To experience seals, herons and pelicans up close and bear witness to the ever changing light outside has been a never ending source of deep nourishment.  To walk along the rocky shore, truly “being home” inside myself for the first time in my life was a great gift which I shall always remember.

We are placing our Tomales Bay home for sale, with the hope and faith that some wonderful person, family or group will find this, as we have, a home of dreams and a place of retreat, reflection, and creative endeavors.  Our dear Amy Lenzo, Global Communications Director of the World Café has helped us create a flyer (Download BaylightVista_flyer) and website to share this unique opportunity—as Tomales Bay is a protected area of the coast where further development is restricted and homes of this nature, size, and incomparable location are few. We’d be grateful for your passing on this special offering to other kindred spirits you think might be interested (because it's for sale by owner until May, this is an especially timely opportunity).

And now we are starting on another great adventure—an adventure of partnering across generations with my mom and a group of younger leaders from the local community to deepen the legacy of the Millie’s Mountain for future generations. Ashley Cooper and I were interviewed by the Alia Institute for their Fieldnotes e-magazine accompanied by a little 2 minute video of what’s unfolding here made by Thomas Arthur of the EarthAnima Project. (Thank you Thomas!)

We welcome your thoughts and feedback and would love to hear of any experiences and learnings you are having in partnering across generations in your own organizations and communities.

And thanks again for sharing the news of our beautiful home for sale in Tomales Bay.

With warm wishes,

Juanita

World Café Signature Learning Programs

We have now scheduled our next set of Level One World Café Signature Learning Programs!

We will be offering these learning programs in three two-hour sessions online - one in January 2011, and one in February 2012.

Each one is timed to be convenient and accessible to people in different parts of our international community, so you can choose the one that works best for you. 

January 2012
Level One Online - The Americas & Asia/Australia
Offered online in three two-hour sessions
January 6th, 9th, and 11th
(in Asia/Australia that is Jan 7th, 10th, & 12th)
5pm - 7pm Pacific Time
REGISTER HERE

 

February 2012
Level One Online - The Americas & Europe
Offered online in three two-hour sessions
February 15th, 17th, and 19th
8am - 10am Pacific Time
REGISTER HERE

 

We call them Learning Programs rather than trainings, because while you will come out of the series (Levels One to Three) well grounded in the art and craft of hosting World Café, the process is one of collaborative learning rather than pedagogical instruction. Interactive and experiential, these programs are held in an atmosphere of shared inquiry and mutual support.

 

Start your own "learning journey" into the magic of the World Café by registering for one of these introductory Level One events now!

 

Level One is a pre-requisite for the Level Two Signature Learning Programs, so you'll want to take one of these currently-scheduled programs to prepare for our Level Two course being offered online in May 2012 in collaboration with Fielding Graduate University.

Read more about World Café Signature Learning Programs here.

 

If you would like to contribute a scholarship to one or more of the many people who would love to participate in this program but are prevented by financial limitations, please make your contribution using the "Give" button in the left column - be sure to indicate your wishes in the PayPal text field provided.