In the last few weeks I contributed to a German weblog at Carl Auer Verlag about the World Café Gathering. In the next days I am going to translate my reflections into English and to post them here. Until now it was kind of having a monologue. Although there have been around 15.000 visits on that blog each week, there haven’t been any comments, and that was kind of frustrating, as the topic was on dialogue. No echoes. Maybe I was broadcasting on the wrong frequency for the systemic audience at Carl Auer, maybe it is just the way it is with blogging. Anyway I will give it another try here and see what happens.
When I was writing the reflections I realized that I have a very partial view of the gathering. As I was engaged in the different roles of being a host, I followed the dialogue on innovation only part-time as a participant. I was focused more on processes rather than on contents.
One example: On Friday afternoon during the dialogue on innovation,
I was translating an interview with Juanita Brown and David Isaacs. For
both of them it was unusual to be participants and not hosts of a World
Café dialogue. They could report on details of the content of the
discussion that I have not been aware of. Even during the interview I
did not get their sharing because my focus was on the translation part.
Only when reviewing the tape this week I finally could listen to the
content.
So I still am curious of how others experienced the days in Dresden.
I saw many interesting people from the distance without being able to
speak to all of them. I met many people with whom the conversations
were only a beginning.
How can we know about our different experiences and views? What have
been the outcomes for you? What kind of bottom line do you apply to
evaluate the Dresden gathering?
This weblog might be part of staying in contact with each other as a
network. As blogging is a brave new world for me, it is still an open
question: Is a weblog really an opportunity to have meaningful
conversations?
In the hosting team we just came up with the idea to experiment with
a skype-based world café format to share the experiences in Dresden:
Establishing a series of skype conference calls in groups of four, with
hosts and guests, and different rounds of dialogues with guests
virtually traveling for connecting perspectives and fostering
cross-pollination. We have to think about how to organize such an
online dialogue, how to establish an appropriate way of harvesting and
how to share the results. Well, this is just emerging, with multiple
minds connecting their knowledge. When you would like to be involved in
a test run, just leave a message here or send an email to
soeder@integraldevelopment.de with your skype name so we can contact
you in time. Anyway we will keep you informed about the progress of
this part of the innovation process.
Greetings from Dresden to all of you,
Ulrich Soeder
