Interview with Bo Gyllenpalm about World Cafés and Virtual Knowledge Cafés
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By Regina Schlager in Konzepte Published: Saturday, 09 May 09 - 01:37 PM (GMT +01:00) Last Updated: Wednesday, 13 May 09 - 08:22 AM (GMT +01:00) |
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When I read the report of Bo Gyllenpalm about his experiences with setting up and facilitating a Virtual Knowledge Café with the principles of a World Café, I found it really inspiring. So I found the courage and asked him if we could talk about it via Skype, and he readily agreed.
Bo's article with the case study is from 2000. In a masters program in Organizational Management at the Fielding Institute he designed the course "Organization Development Concepts and Methods" in a Virtual Café format. He describes the set up of the café and his learning experiences. He was not sure if the café principles would work online, but to his own surprise just the opposite occurred.
In our conversation Bo stressed that virtual cafés are conducted asynchronously. People have time for reflection and to read the materials. The members of the course really liked that.
I asked Bo if he had any suggestions how companies could use virtual cafés. He told me that he had used world cafés in different companies, but more as face to face cafés.
- The most frequent cafés in companies are strategy cafés.
- He also worked with the EU translation agency. He was asked to run a café after an employee satisfaction survey which indicated that employees were not satisfied with how the questions were presented. As a result, employees could participate in a full day café to design a new survey, the café rounds were used for framing the questions. This proved to be successful.
- A World café can also be useful for competence development.
I was wondering if it could be useful to combine virtual knowledge cafés with face to face cafés.
Bo's answer was: "Definitely!" He told me about an example, where he firstly ran an internet café with four different café questions to test the questions, and then with a subsequent conference with 400 people for face to face collaboration. In general, he suggests that the café format is very flexible. It can also be combined with other methods, eg. open space.
It strikes me that the role of the facilitator is very important. I asked Bo if he had tips for getting into this role?
He answered that the introduction is important. In a face to face café it should be as short as possible, because people want to start: a five-minute introduction is fine.
In his Virtual Knowledge Café, the first week of the 12-week course was a check-in phase. It's useful to get people to discuss. We spoke about the importance of building trust for the willingness to be open and for knowledge sharing.
A useful exercise Bo mentioned to get to know each other: He asks the participants to think of the characteristics of a productive conversation they have had. They write them down, creating their own guidelines. It's always interesting that these characteristics are very similar.
Another hint from Bo: use a 'talking stick' in a face to face café, it can be a stick or another object. The person who would like to speak, takes and holds the talking stick, while the others listen attentively. The facilitator role is about setting the stage.
I learned from a post on the coevolution-blog about a research partnership between Fielding Graduate University (Institute of Social Innovation) and the World Café Community Foundation. I was curious to hear more about it.
Bo: In social science research, normally ten people are asked in an interview or survey and the researcher draws a conclusion from their answers. In the project, the World Café is used instead: 100 to 200 people participate in talking about a question, and from the outcome of this the researcher draws a conclusion. This research partnership is about making the World Café method a part of the research method.
Materials about this research project can be found in the research wiki.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank Bo Gyllenpalm for his time and co-operation with this interview.
Resources:
Gyllenpalm, Bo (2000): Connecting Diverse People and Ideas. A Virtual Knowledge Café. Herausgegeben von Whole Systems Associates.
Schieffer, Alexander; Isaacs, David; Gyllenpalm, Bo (2004): World Café. Kollektive Kreativität im Kommen. In: LO - Lernende Organisation, H. 20, S. 40–47.
Seliger, Ruth (2008): Einführung in Großgruppen-Methoden. 1. Aufl. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Verl. (Carl-Auer compact).
Steier, Frederick; Gyllenpalm, Bo; Brown, Juanita; Bredemeier, Sabine (2008): World Café. Förderung der Teilhabekultur. [Bredemeier = Bredemeyer, RS]
Whole Systems Associates (Hg.) (2002): Das World Café präsentiert Café to Go! Eine kurze Einführung, um Gespräche in Gang zu bringen.
Whole Systems Associates (Hg.) (2002): The World Café Presents Café to Go! A quick reference guide for putting conversations to work.
Post von Regina Schlager
RSchlager1(at)gmx.net
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