Dialogue
There are many different ways to have a dialogue. I guess David Bohm was one if the first to develop this idea.
In my home town, they started developing meetings in December 2004 to make people meet from different backgrounds. Eight people who don´t know each other sit down at one table, introduce each other and talk and share about a pre-set topic for 2 hours. No debating, but listening to each other and getting a better understanding of the other points of view. No talking about theories or things you read in the newspaper, but sharing your own experiences.
There are dozens of those tables all over town: at a police departments, at banks, at churches… That´s the idea of Amsterdam Dialoog which organises these dialogues once or twice a year. “De gesprekken leveren ideeën op om de leefbaarheid in Amsterdam te vergroten en in gesprek te blijven.”
It’s actually based on the idea of Socratisch Gesprek. The importance of using concrete examples from your own experience appeals to me very much. If you say something rather abstract and you are not able to give a concrete example, then you could reconsider what you just claimed. But do you dare to question your assumptions?
I participated in another kind of dialogue event: Unfolding Cards. Dialogue tools through a card game that `unfold leadership and collective intelligence´.
Café Conversations “is an easy-to-use method for creating a living network of collaborative dialogue around questions that matter in service of the real world”. I’m not sure if it’s really much different from the kind of dialogue I described above, but maybe it’s more about the easy set-up what it is about!
World Café
“Awakening and engaging collective intelligence through conversations about questions that matter.”
It’s about people sitting in a café-style setting, sharing their ideas and experience on a certain topic. Then they move on to different tables and hear the ideas of others, and continue the discussion with the other ideas of different tables. If you continue this during another few rounds, amazing energy and ideas can arise!
Have a look!
Open Space Technology
Do you also have the most interesting conversations during the coffee breaks and not during a congress or other formal meeting itself? Open Space Technology was set up to open a space where you can have conversations on a subject that really matters to you and with the people you chose! The participants can set the agenda of the day themselves and talk about issues or questions that live within the group itself, and not just among the ‘leaders’ that set the agenda.
And then there is this bunch of principles that keep the setting flexible and open for surprises! “Be prepared to be surprised” it said at the entrance of the last Open Space I participated in!
Matières Prises – nouveaux entrepreneurs de debats dans l’espace public
A inspiring way to open the debate in the street, with the broadest participation possible. It’s fun, anyone can participate and give their opinion or react to other opinions. And as an organiser you can speak to them all!
