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Issue #3, October, 2007

conversing at a table in the World CaféGreetings!,

Welcome to this issue of World Café TableTalk!

A wave of comments on the World Café Europe blog sent in from MBA students in Prague after having experienced a World Café remind me how deeply we all long for the sheer pleasure of conversation about questions that really matter. I particularly loved this comment: "Our academically selected topic "What might a great MBA experience look like?" ends up described as a cup of tea, a growing flower, an orange or the fire of a tea candle. Isn't it ridiculous? For us it was something amazing...".

Speaking of amazing, we're pleased to announce there have been three new translations of the World Café book published this month - in Taiwan, Japan and Germany! Read more about these translations, reports on remarkable World Cafés in India and Bali, important announcements and other international news in this issue.

But first, a special welcome to the 1,350+ new people who have subscribed to this newsletter since we started it just a few short months ago! We're so glad to have you with us, and look forward to hearing from you about your World Café experiences.

Thanks to all of you who sent in stories, photos and comments, and are adding your thoughts to conversations in the online community space. The World Café is all about listening to and sharing diverse perspectives ... and you are the only one that can add your unique voice to this conversation. Thanks for your contributions, which enrich us all!



Amy Lenzo, Editor
and the World Café Community Foundation
 
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In This Issue
World Café Joins Hands with Bali Institute
What's New?
Community Media Café in India
Translating the World Café
Conversations that Matter
World Café in the News
Visual Intelligence
Connectivity Tips
Great Resources

the world is in our hands
World Café Blogs! COME PLAY!

Global Climate Change
&
Conversation as a Co-Evolutionary Force
&
World Café Europe
Great Dates
October 18th - 21:
Visual Language Conference in Sante Fe, New Mexico

October 31 - 24: Organizational Development Conference in Baltimore, Maryland

November 3:
Youth Dialogue Project World Café, San Francisco, California

November 5 - 7:
Pegasus Systems Thinking Conference in Seattle, Washington

December 3 - 6:
Methods for Strategic Collaboration workshop in Tucson, Arizona


__________

Details on all these events & more on the World Café website Calendar

Send us your dates!
Quick Links
























"Everything is connected... no one thing can change by itself."

~ Paul Hawken


World Café Joins Hands with Bali Institute
Awakening Global Action in Ubud

opening welcome in Awakening Global Action conference in Bali

This photograph, taken by World Café Steward Don Proffit, conveys the spirit of the country in the warm welcome that was given to attendees at the Awakening Global Action conference in Ubud, Bali this summer. For more photographs, click here.

Don co-facilitated a two-day intensive conference-within-a-conference at the Ubud event with leaders from the US, Bali, Australia, and South Africa to explore vital questions about our global future. Read his story in the World Café StoryNet.
 
What's New?

World Café Europe has just announced the date of the 2nd World Café Europe Gathering - to take place in Bilbao, Spain, June 5-7 2008. More details in this invitation. (See the website What's New page for more updates on what's happening with World Café Europe.)
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The Boulevard Paulistrano and Global Mind Change World Cafés in Sao Paulo, Brasil last June were groundbreaking events. Here's one of the wonderful photographs Juanita Brown brought back:

world cafe in brasil

For more, see the Brasil "set" on the World Café gallery on Flickr.

Reminder: Uploading your images to Flickr and tagging them with "theworldcafe" is an easy way to share them.
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There is a lot happening with the World Café network in Latin America, including the ability to subscribe to the Boletín World Café-Latino - just click the "join our Mailing List' link at the top of the left hand column and add the Boletín World Café-Latino to your existing subscription (you're already subscribed to TableTalk if you're receiving this).

Also, Ana Cristina Maldonado has been working with Palomilla colleagues in Mexico to create a
Spanish page as the first step towards a full Spanish translation of the World Café website.
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For More News...
Check in regularly with the 'What's New' page on the website for ongoing World Café news, and please send in your own updates so they can be shared with the network.

Community Media Café in India

World Café Media Gathering in India

Manish Jain shared this exciting story, told in a series of photos (be sure to read the text accompanying each image!), about a 5-day Community Media Gathering in India where over 35 artists, artisans and media activists came together to share their concerns, experiences and skills in producing and sharing media. They went on to explore how these creative artforms can strengthen inter-cultural dialogue that nurtures their own and their communities' well-being.

Translating the World Café

covers of three World Café book translations

Three new translations of the World Café book were published this month! Translation teams in Japan, Taiwan, and Germany have been working for months towards this day, and the results are finally on the bookshelves, joining existing translations in Spanish, Portuguese and Turkish.

The covers for each of these new editions are all unique, as were the individual circumstances that supported the work and guided the translations into being, but the heart and care for the World Café and the desire to share it with people all around the world was the same in each.

Our thanks and congratulations to them all for such beautiful results!

Click here to read more about the stories behind each of the books and for links to order them.
Conversations that Matter
Hot conversations in the World Café network

people sitting around a table in conversation

There's a great information-sharing conversation going on in "Tableless Cafés?" on the online community space right now. Christine Whitney Sanchez posed a question about how to host a World Café when you don't have access to the usual 'props', and the suggestions began to pour in...

If you have any tips to share, please add them! Or start a new topic and introduce a question of your own. It always amazes me to see what comes out of the collective mind when it is focused on something specific.
 
World Café in the News
Media Citings
two people reading World Café news in the paper
Cheryl Esposito welcomed Juanita Brown to her 9/21 show on Voice America for a conversation about how "conversational leadership" is shaping a successful world future for the 21st century and beyond.

Juanita was also featured in the 9/27/07 "Wise Talk" teleconference forum hosted by Sue Bethanis of Mariposa Leadership, Inc.. Listen to their conversation (scroll down the page until you see the audio files)
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Here is an article (in German) from Digest Online about a World Café in a public café in Duesseldorf facilitated by Birgit Gosejakob.
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Steve Pashley blogged about his experience hosting a World Café in the National Health Service in his UK blog "The Changing NHS".
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Keep your eyes peeled for media citings about the World Café and send them to us at: news@theworldcafe.com
 
Visual Intelligence
Community Tech Steward Amy Lenzo worked with graphic listener Susan Kelley to create this map of the World Café online communications constellation and how the pieces work together (stay tuned for more illustrations with further details on each element, including a visual guide to the website):
graphic of the World Cafe virtual infrastructure

The Cybrary has a downloadable copy of this image and a Key to the Map in a Word document.

Connectivity Tips

World Café on FaceBook: in addition to the online community space, now the World Café has a small but fast-growing "group" on FaceBook. If you already have a FaceBook account (or want one) connect up with us there.
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The World Café has just been offered space in the 'Info International' grid on virtual world Second Life! If you are interested in being part of the team to build and host this project, please contact amy@theworldcafe.com!
 
Great Resources

Welcome to the World Café graphic by Roy Blumenthal

Graphic Facilitation artist Roy Blumenthal has uploaded several of his wonderful graphics, including a print-quality file of the "Welcome" poster above, into the World Café Cybrary. Have a look (scroll down the page until you see the links)!
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One of our colleagues from the Art of Hosting, Ravi Tangri, sent a link to some fantastic videos - The Art of Harvesting, Chaordic Design, Chaordic Stepping Stones, and the Art of Calling - on the ArtofHostingTV.net channel. Stay tuned as more videos are added.

World Café coffee cup

The World Cafe Community Foundation
Email:
news@theworldcafe.com
Web: www.theworldcafe.com