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Issue #20: December, 2010
Greetings!Hello! So much has happened in the World Cafe community since the last issue of TableTalk - the last few months have been a time of incredible growth, innovation, and change. This issue of TableTalk offers highlights from the last quarter and gives you a "sneak preview" of what's coming in 2011.Read on for announcements, rich new stories and methods of harvesting them, and exciting new resources. You'll also discover vibrant conversations, links to events, and suggestions for how we can be of support to each other in these times.
Please remember the World Cafe Community Foundation in your end of year giving (there's a "donations" link in the left column below this editor's note). The opportunities before us now make it a perfect time to contribute financially. Your tax deductible donation of any amount will give a powerful infusion of creative energy on the cusp of an exciting new year.Thank you for being part of this community and doing your part to help foster the conversations that matter most throughout the world.
Warm holiday wishes to all,
 Amy Lenzo, TableTalk Editor and the World Café Community Foundation
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| Great Dates |
Every Monday Night
UCSC World Cafe
Santa Cruz, California
Every Friday Night
World Cafe at Starbucks
St Petersburg, Florida
December 13
Cafe Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland
January 7
Online Community Cafe
Telephone, Everywhere
January 21-25
Cafe Latino Gathering
Sao Paulo, Brazil
__________ Details on all these events & more on the World Café Community Calendar.
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"True conversation requires us to treat the world as if it were alive and everything in it a revelation."
~David Whyte
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Announcing ... Our New World Café Logo!
Gabriel Kurauchi is the talented young Brazilian who won the "New World Cafe Logo Contest" with this design:
We chose Gabriel's logo because, more than any other, it met our key criteria of being friendly yet professional and inviting and accessible to the wide range of World Cafe users. It is a design that is classic and clean and reproduces well in a variety of media; it will stand out in a crowded brand-scape and tell our story of global connection and communication. We also feel it reaches across generations and will be at home in cultures all over the world.
Look for an interview with Gabriel talking about his
the creative process of designing our new logo in the next issue of TableTalk.
For more results from the "New World Cafe Logo Contest", including visuals for the five beautiful "finalist" designs, read the full announcement here.
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Transforming TWCCF
What's ahead in 2011...
As you can see by our new logo, transformation is afoot in the World Cafe Community Foundation these days. We're excited by these changes and and think you will be too - here's a "sneak preview" of what's coming up in the next few months:
Look first for our launch of a new website in early 2011. With it we will also be inaugurating a number of new projects and programs. These will include a suite of professional World Cafe services, products to support and inspire World Cafe practitioners, our eagerly anticipated learning programs, and a series of virtual and face-to-face events convened around the big questions we collectively face today.
These new programs will offer you great new opportunities to connect, collaborate and contribute - and we need your help to make the most of them.
We need your best stories - What World Cafes you are hosting - especially those that show the scale and scope of the World Cafe process?
We need your ideas - What services and products do you most need or want to contribute? What new thinking or support could have the biggest impact for you now?
We need your money - Your financial contributions are essential to help us continue making the core ideas and process of the World Cafe freely available to everyone, to support the rapidly growing World Cafe community, and to ensure that we can continue developing new projects and programs.
We need your presence and continued practice - If you haven't already, be sure to join the online community and share what you are learning. Welcome those who are new to the World Cafe and with your hospitable hosting, show them what a World Cafe conversation is all about.
Make your donation now, quickly and easily via the link on the left, and post your stories in the online community, or send them to Amy Lenzo along with your suggestions and requests.
Leadership for these new developments is coming from the World Cafe Community Foundation's new board - twelve dedicated, long-term World Cafe practitioners supported by the wisdom and experience of co-founders Juanita Brown and David Isaacs (now serving as emeritus board members) - and an expanding production team. Key participants include Susan Rockrise in communications, Benjamin Degenhart in our online community, and Barbara Krohn in administration. We are especially pleased to introduce Deborah Goldblatt, the newest member of our team, who will be coordinating our resource development efforts. Look for more about and from Deborah in upcoming issues of TableTalk.
Working together, let's make 2011 the start of a new era of conversational leadership, innovation, fiscal health and vitality.
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World Cafe Stories
Stories are the life-blood of our community of practice, and the last few months in particular have yielded a rich harvest. Read on for reports from Europe, South America, California, Japan, Washington DC and the online world that hyper-links us all these days.
 The 2nd European Salon co-hosted in October by World Cafe friends and practitioners across Europe was held at the home of Ilona Christl and her partner Higgins in Egensbach, Germany.
A wonderful example of innovation and collaboration, the program was co-designed by hosts and participants (with the help of a three-legged cat called Findus!). In a conversation initiated by Salon co-host Hanno Langfelder, even the harvest was done collectively.
Read the full thread to experience and join in the spirit of what has become an annual opportunity for friends of the World Cafe in Europe to learn and grow together as peers.
Italian-American World Cafe host Adriano Pianesi takes a particularly creative and innovative approach to harvesting his work in two screencast videos that chronicle extraordinary World Cafes.  Adriano's first screencast is about the World Cafe he co-hosted with Sara Cobb on US Immigration Policy at George Mason University, a subject that is very close to his heart as some of you may remember from the online Community Cafe Adriano hosted on the subject earlier this year.  Adriano's second screencast was created from what may be the Italian World Cafe he co-hosted with five members of the local community in Milano. This ground breaking World Cafe was supported by the artistry of German-Italian graphic recorder Sabine Soeder.  Juanita Brown and Amy Lenzo co-hosted an online Cafe on the theme "Moving from Insight to Action" for the Enlightened Business Summit, the Shift Network's October online series co-convened by Chip Conley. Supported by graphic recorder Andrea Medina, the online World Cafe enabled participants synthesize their breakthrough insights from the week-long business summit and find ways to move them into action in their daily work lives. Shift Network founder Stephen Dinan participated and later said he was "amazed to see how well the online World Café worked" in achieving the goals he'd hoped for. An inter-generational bi-lingual World Cafe hosted by Kelly McGowan and her colleagues at the New York City-based Leadership Transformation Group was the pivotal success factor in an event produced by the Casey Foundation. Kelly has generously shared the details that enabled that breakthrough. Read her story to find out how they did it.  From the Spanish-speaking Cafe Latino community group hosted by Maria de los Angeles comes a story about a Cinema Cafe in Caracas, Venezuela co-hosted by Luisa Elena Sucre and Freddy Trujillo. The two hosts share their story on the group's comment wall, along with a number of wonderful photos and quotes from some of the 65 distinguished participants. Have a look!
University of California at Santa Cruz professor Dave Shaw has been hosting regular community World Cafes for students and faculty during the school term every Monday night from 6:30 - 9pm in the Kresge Student Lounge. Dave has also created a group for the UCSC World Cafe community where he and students have been uploading videos and slideshows from their Community Cafes.  A wonderful World Cafe story recently came to us via Art of Hosting colleague Bob Stilger, who heard it while hosting an inter-generational dialogue in Japan. The story was of a young Japanese man who "spent 7 months bicycling through all 47 provinces of Japan - from Okinawa in the far south to Hokkaido in the far north. He had held 40 World Cafes as he traveled with more than 1,000 people. When he finally returned to Tokyo, 200 people he had been with across Japan came to Tokyo to continue the dialogue with him".
We hope to hear more from this young man about his experiences, and will share them in upcoming issues of Table Talk. Stay tuned...
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Resources, Translations & Media Mentions
Conversational Leadership is in the news! An article on Conversational Leadership co-written by Tom Hurley and Juanita Brown, originally published in the Systems Thinker (and later re-published in the Oxford Leadership Journal) was cited in the Public Intelligence blog, and translations of the article have now been made available in both German and Spanish. Cafe To Go has now been translated into Italian, thanks to Mario Gastaldi.
 | | illustration by Sonja Niederhumer |
World Cafe friend and colleague Ria Baeck has co-designed the ProAction Cafe format with Rainer Leoprechting. This innovative design marries Open Space and World Cafe formats. Please share your experiences using it or any other combination of conversational methodologies in the World Cafe StoryNet.
Keep updated with current media mentions and new resources as they are posted by subscribing to the community Cybrary listings.
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The World Cafe Community Foundation
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The 
The next World Cafe online Community Cafe, on the theme of "Vision", will be held on January 7th and co-hosted by Amy Lenzo and online community steward Benjamin Aaron Degenhart. You're welcome to help shape the inquiry. Bring your ideas to the 
