Yes I am familiar with the knowledge cafe or world cafe as it is also called. I
have worked with Juanita Brown who is the originator of the process. We made a
cafe at my workplace, the Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish Daily News) several years
ago. We had invited the readers for 2 hours of discussion about the newspaper
and 25 people came. It worked really well - people are still talking about this
event.
Juanita was recently in Sweden and made a 5 days workshop on how to use the
concept in the business world. I think it will be used in Sweden by several
consultants after this.
www.worldcafe.com has more information
I think most important is that it is so easy that it can be used by anyone
without a lot of preparations. And everyone is free to use it like Open Space.
It is a process that is suitable for just a couple of hours or half a day. The
cafe model makes it a non threatening process. You are invited to a cafe with
small round tables with red/white checkered tableclothes on them, 4-5 people at
each one. There is a flipchart paper on every table for notes, insights, aha's.
After a while (15,30,45 minutes) you switch tables but leave one person, who
can tell the newcomers about what has been said on the topic. This can be done
2-3 times, til everyone has heard almost everything.
All tables talk about the same question, and it has to be an open and also deep
one. We used a lot of time on how to formulate good questions in Juanitas
workshop.
Here is one: "What are the most important issues and oportunities that you work
with today?" Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
I think the cafe could be a good process for a planning group to discuss the
theme for an upcoming Open Space. I am part of a group planning to use it in
schools to bring teachers, students and parents together in evening cafes to
discuss important questions. I see World Cafe and Open Space as kindred spirits
and I think they work well together.
Ingrid Olausson
Stockholm
