This story was written Nov 7th, 2015:

I’ve just returned from 10 days in Japan (my first time in that beautiful country), where I was co-hosting and participating in the World Café 20^th Anniversary celebrations. As I take the time to recover from the travel (a mind and body-bending journey ending in San Francisco 3 hours before I left Tokyo!), I want to share a bit about what happened, my reflections about the experience, and the impact it has already had on me.

As pretty much “communications central” for the World Café Community Foundation, I hear a lot of stories about what is happening with the World Café around the world, but it is very different to see and be part of these stories in person. There are the facts … and there is the experience – feelings, impressions, insights, learning; some of which can be shared in words, while others are more subtle and difficult to convey.

So. Here’s the story; I’ll try to mix fact and experience with some degree of coherence!

Japan led the international World Café 20^th Anniversary celebrations with four Impact Café events in eight days, each one unique and all of them historic occasions in one way or another.

My hosts were the IAF (International Association of Facilitators) in Japan, who sponsored or co- sponsored all four of these events, along with FAJ (Facilitators Association of Japan) and Qualia Co Limited.

The team taking care of me was Kazuaki Katori, popularly known as the Father of the World Café in Japan (although he jokingly insists his title should be “Grandfather” given his age of 72, but he has more vitality and energy than any grandfather I know!), his colleague Masako Arakane, whose sensitivity and thoughtfulness was ever-present, Natsu Iwaki, who seemingly effortlessly managed many of the high level “behind the scenes” details, and my very special translator Yumi Fukushima.

This delightful core team had many helpers and the IAF community in Japan took extremely good care of me. I have never experienced the kind of personal hosting I received in Japan, and I have been deeply impacted by this in a number of ways. The sense of deep care and respect I received from my hosts in Japan is still finding its place in my psyche, and I know it will leave a lasting impression on me. In many ways, it feels like the ultimate expression of what hosting – and hospitality – can be.

The personal hosting and hospitality that came from Kazuaki Katori, in particular, was extraordinary. As a man who is curious about everything, Kazu has found many special places to love throughout Japan so he was not only an exemplary co-host for these official 20th Anniversary events but an excellent personal tour guide as well. He showed Masako and I (and others who joined us at different times) many hidden treasures in Tokyo, Osaka, & Kyoto.

(I was lucky enough to spend my last day in Japan with Kazu and the incomparable Bob Stilger in Kyoto visiting many very special temples and gardens, and it was absolutely magical – all I had imagined Kyoto to be and more.)

Sometimes in my everyday life I imagine I am “too busy” to give the care and attention that true hospitality takes on an everyday basis, and yet Japan’s culture is the busiest, most fast-paced one I have ever experienced (I thought the pace in the US was fast – the pace in Japan is MUCH faster!!) and Japanese hospitality is incredible.

The Japanese are natural World Café hosts, and I had much to learn from their example.

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IMPACT CAFE #1
The Japanese World Café 20^th Anniversary celebrations started with an unprecedented collaboration between the IAF in Japan and GLC (Global Leadership Community).

Kazuaki Katori from the IAF and David Nevin from the GLC co-hosted this bi-lingual Impact Café for both Japanese and non-Japanese facilitators and World Café practitioners in the Tokyo area. While both organizations had been talking about collaborating on something like this for a while, this celebration was the perfect occasion to make it happen.

The purpose of the Café was to deepen relationships in the World Café community in Tokyo, with a theme of fostering conversation among strangers. As it was a bi-lingual event, there were little markers on each table to indicate the language being spoken there. Everyone was encouraged to “challenge” themselves – to speak English and meet new people – and there was a palpable sense of excitement in the room as participants did just that throughout the Cafe.

Both intimate (30 – 40 people) and moving – this was a perfect start to the celebrations and the ideal introduction to World Café in Japan for me.

As one of the few people in the room who didn’t speak Japanese, I was touched by the enthusiastic interest among Japanese-speakers in joining the English-speaking tables, which seemed to increase in popularity with each round of conversation. “Challenge yourself!” became the joyful greeting at each new table along with welcoming smiles.

I was part of several really good conversations; I remember one in particular when our question was about what makes for good conversation among strangers… A young woman at our table said she thought shared values were important, and mentioned how much easier conversation was with her peers than with her parents. That idea led us into an exchange about the Wiser Together World Café work that draws its power from inter-generational collaboration, and in the process expanded all of our ideas about what is possible.

It was incredible to feel the genuine interest in me as a representative of the World Café Community Foundation and the outpouring of kindness and hospitality, which as I was soon to learn, was typical of this community.

The graphic harvest for this Impact Café was perfect – a long banner with the harvest from the English tables at one end (done by Tanja Bach) and the Japanese tables (by Tomohide Oshima, aka “Tommy” aka “Pooh-san”) at the other, all captured as balloons to go with the theme of World Café as a rising balloon in Japan, which came together in the center.

When the Café was over, a large group of us went to a little “hole in the wall” a few blocks away for drinks and food, where I was presented with a bouquet of flowers in one of the lovely, unique little plastic-paper vases from the World Café table set-up.

This was my first exposure to the post-event party practice, which turned out to be part of virtually every event. A large jocular group ranged around several tables and shared dish after dish of local delicacies while prodigious amounts of Japanese beer and sake were consumed.

I was still very tired from the long journey and left a bit early that night, but not before several deep conversations – both personal and professional – that made me feel as if I had already made several new friends, and entered a wonderful new community of shared meaning and purpose on the other side of world.

IMPACT CAFE #2
Two days later, I hosted an all-day “MasterClass” for World Café practitioners in Japan.

There were about 25 people participating in this Master Class from all over Japan – some had flown in from across the country – and it was one of the most wonderful and powerful learning program experiences I’ve ever had the honor to host or be part of.

First of all, and I don’t underestimate the effect this had on the entire program, I had a very talented professional translator – Yumi Fukushima. Yumi was like a more dynamic version of me – I felt that she understood me perfectly and conveyed everything I was trying to say without omitting even the smallest or most subtle nuance. It was an extraordinary experience to be mirrored so beautifully.

The participants were eager to learn and generous in responding to my invitation to share their learning with each other, as the group included both very experienced World Café hosts and those who were brand new to World Café.  That combination can often be very challenging, but somehow this time it worked, due in no small part to the kindness of the more experienced hosts and their willingness to care for their newer colleagues and help them learn.

I had created a workbook on the World Café Seven Design Principles for this course (in English), and as a special surprise Yumi translated it into Japanese, so that was a great gift to everyone.

At many times throughout the workshop, I felt that there was a deeper understanding of World Café emerging among the participants – not only of the relationship between the Design Principles and the practice of hosting World Café, but of the deeper meaning beneath the World Café and how it is a metaphor for the way human beings learn from and with each other in the circles of conversation we are all part of throughout our lives.

As a presenter, I had the unusual and very pleasant experience of having my knowledge and contributions drawn from me effortlessly by the depth of the participants’ listening.  They were avid learners and really wanted to deepen their understanding of World Café. There were many unexpected discoveries and questions and comments at the end of the day were thoughtful and insightful. We all left feeling that we had learned something new (me as much as anyone!).

The same attention to detail I was becoming to count on resulted in a beautiful bento-box lunch (wrapped in paper so lovely I still have it!), and we ended the workshop with a great after-event party, where the questions and learning continued with beer, finger-food, animated conversation, and LOTS of photographs taken and posted on FaceBook! 🙂

If I haven’t said this before, I was very impressed by the World Café community in Japan!

IMPACT CAFE #3

The 3rd event was entitled “The Power of The World Café”, and it was very powerful indeed! This ambitious World Café was the centerpiece of the 20^th Anniversary celebrations in Japan and quite an undertaking! Many months had gone into planning it with a very large distributed team of hosts, technicians, designers, logistics coordinators, translators, and administrators.

The Power of The World Café, like the MasterClass and the GLC collaboration there in Tokyo, was held in Labo 3 x 3, a large, impressive shared work-space in the old Nippon Building in downtown Tokyo. Everyone there was friendly and helpful as we took over the whole place for this central World Café, filling it to capacity.

But it wasn’t just Tokyo! Nine locations across the length of Japan – Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Sapporo, Kanazawa, Sendai, and Okinawa – were linked together through an elaborate technological hub on Google HangOut, with cameras and projectors strategically placed in each location so that we could all see what was happening in the other 8 locations as we shared large portions of the all-day program.

For all its complexity, execution of this ambitious World Café was almost completely flawless, despite many challenges – not least of which was that the guest of honor, World Café co-founder Juanita Brown, was unable to be there at the last moment. Juanita was planning to join us from her home in North Carolina via internet connection but a family medical emergency that came up while she and her husband (and co-founder of the World Café) David Isaacs were traveling in California, made that impossible.

Under great stress in-between hospital visits, with only a few days before the event, Juanita managed to complete (with the help of two wonderful technicians in California) and send 20-plus minutes of video message that Latino (Tadashi Hirai) and his team were miraculously able to translate in time! So Juanita was there with us after all, in spirit and through her message, which brought a great many people to tears as they listened all across Japan.

There were almost 500 people present between the 9 locations, and over 150 of us there at Labo 3 x 3 in Tokyo.

Excitement and anticipation was very high for this special World Café, and we were all very pleased that everything went so well.

A great surprise for me was when they brought out a huge birthday cake for the World Café’s anniversary, and asked me to say a few words and blow the candles out. Then, each of the other locations spoke a few words of congratulations in turn, and there were many other cakes – one beautifully drawn on paper with candles blazing!

It was a great thrill for me to co-host (with Kazuaki Katori) one of the day’s two World Cafés and be a part of this historical moment as people all over Japan gathered to honor World Café and talk about the power of its impact in their lives and work.

In the afternoon, I was given the floor to share some stories about the breadth and depth of World Café impact around the world and the evolution of online World Cafés, followed by three outstanding storytellers sharing the impact of their World Café work in Japan. There was Itsuo Tasaka, on the ground-breaking use of World Café in the country’s disaster recovery efforts, and how they sparked a rippling effect for other empowering responses to the disasters; Daisuke Kawaguchi, with an extraordinary story about a visionary application of World Café in business (see Daisuke’s story elsewhere here in StoryNet); and Takeaki Udou on World Café and the exciting “Imagine Yokohama” project.

It was very moving to hear each of these stories, and I wished we had time to hear much more from each of these inspiring storytellers. I also know that their stories are just the tip of the iceberg and that World Café is being used throughout Japan in many innovative and inspiring ways. I hope we hear many more of them in the future.

The harvest of the 2nd World Cafe of the day, where people shared what kinds of collaborations and conversations they would like to see using World Café in Japan, was wonderfully imagined in each location and conveyed through the magic of technology in a collective harvest. In Tokyo and Sapporo people were playful – imagining Cafés wherever people gather: on the trains – especially during rush hour – on buses, and in lines for the women’s restroom! 🙂 Other locations including Kanazawa, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, and Okinawa were more strategic and wanted to see World Cafes embedded in political elections, in congress, addressing the country’s energy issues, the role of women in Japanese society, peace, poverty, social services, and children’s issues. In Nagoya, college students shared a fresh vision of what World Cafes could do to make a difference in their region.

Being able to hear the voices from different regions around Japan added immeasurably to the richness of the harvest, which was beautifully rendered graphically in each location (in Tokyo we had the talented artist Osamu Fukui, supported by Tomohide Oshima, who was also Master of Ceremonies!).

The visual and verbal connection between the locations made the experience very powerful, and I think we were all inspired and a little awed by our ability to stand together as a whole nation in celebration of World Café – and by what’s possible through the power of the indomitable human spirit in Japan.

A small team led by Kazuyuki Kose managed the technology for this whole 500-strong World Café: Kose, Latino (Tadashi Hirai), Saeko Noguchi, and Kohei Onozawa. None of them, including Kose, were professionals – they were all volunteers from different IT sectors who came together in a perfect microcosm reflecting the promise of World Café itself – each one of them bringing a unique skill that, when combined and offered together, created something truly extraordinary and much better than any of them could have created on their own.

I have never heard of anything like this World Café ever having been done before – so as far as I know it was a first, not only for Japan but also for the international World Café community. Congratulations to all who were part of this impressive Café, whose success opens many opportunities for others around the world!!!

See more photos of this and the other World Cafe 20th Anniversary Celebration events in Japan in this collaboratively-created FaceBook photo album.

IMPACT CAFE #4

The last of the four Impact Café Anniversary celebrations in Japan was an online event – World Café Asia – held two days later. We hosted this Café from the very modern Coaching Labo office in Osaka, a little over three hours away from Tokyo on the shinkansen (bullet train), where we were warmly greeted and made comfortable by CEO Masahide Motoyama.

World Café Asia was an experiment, held in the spirit of adventure. It was co-hosted by Kazu Katori and myself, introduced by Natsu Iwaki, and supported by the IAF in Japan. Twenty-five people from all over Asia – Japan, India, Malaysia (and one ex-pat living in Geneva who woke up at 2 am to join us!) – came together to experience this new way of participating in World Café and explore opportunities to collaborate with other facilitators across Asia.

English was not the native language of the majority of participants, but it was our common denominator, and we all pitched in to make it work. Latino and I created an “Easy Peasy Guide” to the technology that he translated into Japanese, and there were many people on hand to help.

All the attention to creating hospitable space online resulted in a wonderful rich World Cafe with generative conversations about what kind of collaboration is possible now in the World Café’s 20th year, with new technologies that have the potential to make our work together even better.

Special thanks to David Nevin who helped with the technology test sessions and provided a solid anchor during the online Café. Here are some screenshots he sent:

My co-host, Kazu Katori was a seminal part of this Café’s success. He brought Master-level hosting skills to a new medium where he proved to be as welcoming and inspiring as he is when hosting face-to-face. I was very pleased to have the opportunity to co-host with him and look forward to many more Cafés working together.

Finally, we had a crack technology support team with Adam Koren from MaestroConference and the indefatigable Michaela Sieh who also woke up at 2 am to help everyone navigate this unfamiliar medium. My deepest gratitude to them both, and to Rachel Smith (our graphic recorder from Grove Consultants International), who wowed us all by harvesting the online Café digitally in real-time so we could see it emerge before our very eyes!

Here is the result of her handiwork:

In spite of my own feeling that the experience was a bit chaotic at times, with the uneven sound quality that came from so many different languages, locations, and the varying quality of internet connectivity, the feedback from this Café was actually quite positive. Many people remarked on having made unexpected networking connections that led to collaborations that they couldn’t have otherwise foreseen, and there was a lot of excitement and hopefulness expressed about the potential for online World Cafes to connect the facilitation community throughout Asia.

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I cannot possibly do justice to the once-in-a-lifetime experience that these 10 days in Japan gave me, much less tell the story in its entirety. I hope that the many people who helped make it what it was will add their own stories and memories, comments, and photos to my beginning attempts. If you were there (and even if you weren’t!), I warmly invite you to add your voice in the comments field or add your experience as a separate story here in StoryNet. The story isn’t complete without you.

In closing, I once again send my deepest thanks and gratitude for all my friends in Japan, new and old, who have been such good friends to the World Cafe for so many years. You have much to teach us all about the true meaning of World Cafe.