Event: How to Design and Host a Gurteen Knowledge Café 16 May 2023, 15:00 to 19:00 (London time)

Title: How to design and host a Gurteen Knowledge Café

Facilitator: David Gurteen

Date: Tuesday 16 May 2023

Duration: 4 hours

Time: 15:00 to 19:00 (London time). This workshop is timed to work best for anyone living in EMEA/Americas time zones. In other words, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. Time in your timezone

Location: Online Zoom Event

Price: GBP 150.00

Registration: Eventbrite

Workshop Description

What is a Knowledge Café?

The Knowledge Café is a simple method to bring together a small group of people to have a lightly structured conversation on a topic of mutual interest. You do not need to be a professional facilitator to design and host one.

The Café can be adapted for a variety of purposes, such as:

• Share knowledge
• Generate ideas
• Make better sense of an issue
• Improve decision making
• Support sales meetings and
• Mitigate risks
• Explore possibilities

It also helps connect people, improve interpersonal relationships, break down organizational silos, and improve trust and engagement. At its best, it is a powerful sense-making tool.

The Workshop

In this workshop, David will explain the Café process. He will share real-life stories (from over 20 years of running Cafés worldwide and online) of how the Café has been used or adapted within organizations for various purposes.

In the workshop, you will:

• Gain an understanding of the principles that underpin the Knowledge Café
• Know how to run a Knowledge Café (both face-to-face and online on Zoom)
• Learn the benefits of the Knowledge Café and how to adapt it for different purposes

Who should participate?

Most people will benefit from this workshop, but it will be of particular interest to anyone looking to encourage and facilitate more purposeful, constructive, and creative conversation in their teams or organizations.

These include:

• Managers
• Facilitators
• Project and Team Leaders
• Trainers
• Community of Practice Leaders

And professionals in:

• Change Management
• Human Resources
• Knowledge Management
• Learning and Development
• Organization Development

Café Conversation

Enjoy the conversational energy of a few of my past Knowledge Cafés.

Gurteen Knowledge Café: Worcestershire Innovation, Worcester, 2017  (source)

Gurteen Knowledge Café: Johnson & Johnson Knowledge Café in Cork, Ireland, 2015 (source)

Gurteen Knowledge Café: Knowledge Management Society, Bandung Indonesia, 2014 (source)

Knowledge Sharing | KHDA, Dubai, 2013 | David Gurteen (source)

Gurteen Knowledge Café: RSA Workshop, London, 2011 (source)

Gurteen Knowledge Café: KM Egypt, Cairo, 2010 (source)

Gurteen Knowledge Café: Conversation, London 2010 (source)

Gurteen Knowledge Cafe: SMARTlab at the University of East London 2006 (source)

Gurteen Knowledge Cafe: KMPAP Conference, Hong Kong, 2006 (source)

Agenda

• Introduction
• Speed Conversation
• The Knowledge Café Process
• Conversation in break-out rooms
• Q&A
• Coffee Break
• Knowledge Café Applications
• Knowledge Café Real Stories
• Conversation in break-out rooms
• How to run virtual Knowledge Cafés
• Q&A
• Conversation in break-out rooms
• Whole group conversation and Q&A
• Close

Recommendations from a recent workshop

You will find several recommendations below from a Knowledge Café workshop I ran in May 2021, where 21 participants participated.

David's workshop set me up with all the tools and know-how I need to start running Knowledge Cafés in my organization. Learning directly from David was terrific. He shared many of his personal experiences, and he facilitated a vibrant conversation among the attendees. So glad I attended!

Corey Garretson
Community, and Knowledge Manager, LogRhythm
Boulder, Colorado, United States

Having struggled through many organizational change projects as a keen initiator and reluctant participant myself, I became acutely aware of the power of conversation and knowledge sharing. David's Knowledge Café workshop helped me recognize and learn how to create conditions for effective information exchange and uncover opportunities and challenges.

Also, I found that this format can help build and strengthen the bonds between people. The workshop had a great balance of content, interaction with the facilitator, and practice of the method. I highly recommended it!

Kostas Lopsaitis
Head of Field Operations
United Kingdom

I attended David Gurteen's worthwhile Knowledge Café Workshop in May 2021.

It's challenging to connect and engage in our current world of the "endless zoom". However, the content and structure provided by the Knowledge Café format breaks through current constructs in a human, reasonable, and natural way.

I highly recommend this session for anyone who wants to discover shared meaning and develop mutual understanding in their organizations.

Nina Garcia
Manager, Knowledge Management Technology
London, United Kingdom

I joined a Knowledge Café workshop last week and was positively surprised.

It was an eye-opening experience for me. Conversation is something powerful and can make things happen - I do believe that!

Many thanks, David, for making things simple and allowing for a rich encounter!

Miriam Pikaar
Institutional Development and KM officer, Caritas Europa
Brussels, Belgium

What can I say about David Gurteen and Knowledge Cafés? He has been a mentor, a guide, and a source of inspiration.

Learning from David means learning from one of the pioneers of this model, sharing his experience and enjoying his human touch, and having a successful model to replicate.

David’s approach to Knowledge Cafés means creating trustful spaces where everyone is encouraged to participate, despite possible challenges - aware that real conversational spaces break down barriers and establish invisible bridges between antagonistic positions.

The Knowledge Cafés I have run, inspired by his teaching, have helped me understand the value of conversations to improve performance within organizations, contributing to strengthening communities, identifying commonalities, breaking down silos, discovering and inspiring one another, and even identifying potential innovations.

If you are interested in learning how to carry out a Knowledge Café at work, this is the place to do it.

I can assure you that your experience will exceed your expectations.

Rocio Sanz
Consultant, and Knowledge Management Broker
Geneva, Switzerland

David Gurteen is one of the most talented conversation facilitators I have ever met. Being the creator of the Gurteen Knowledge Cafés, he does a great job inspiring and teaching people the value of knowledge sharing through conversation.

I recently attended the virtual Knowledge Café Workshop. It was one of the most interesting and beneficial virtual sessions I have ever attended. We, as participants, were fully engaged and enthusiastic until the last minute.

It was an amazing experience that made me rethink the value of human conversations.

Soha Radwan
Knowledge and innovation Specialist, Dubai Municipality
Dubai, United Arab Emirates

David is an outstanding facilitator, more precisely an outstanding conversational facilitator! Since joining one of his David Gurteen's Café, I enjoyed the format and how it could be applied/replicated in different cases.

Being part of his Café helps you understand possible ways to ignite conversations in different environments, spark innovation, support human relationships, and create a rich working environment.

David makes you feel comfortable (at home), and open speech, ideas, insights, etc., are welcome and never judged, which is a big plus!  Discovering the format was a revelation for, me and I'd highly recommend it.

Ginetta Gueli
Information & Knowledge Manager
Rome, Italy

As a recently retired University Professor and College Assistant Dean for decades, I am keenly aware that one must be mindful of both codified knowledge and tacit knowledge to provide value in the real world.

David Gurteen’s Knowledge Café concepts and methods merge the codified knowledge and tacit knowledge processes in a constructive way.

I have attended several of his seminars and continually learn. Further, for many years, I have hosted a monthly version of the Knowledge Café.

Bob Podlasek
Emeritus Professor, Bradley University
Peoria, Illinois, United States

I love the guiding principles and the process of the Knowledge Café concept. It is very different from what I have experienced and what is the 'norm'.

I can completely relate to "Death By PowerPoint"!

The Café is a new and exciting way to share and generate knowledge that ensures engagement!

I believe it would be a beneficial KM tool for us at the Commission, given our diverse work.

Sonia Rees
Information Management Officer, OECS Commission
Castries, Saint Lucia

A few weeks back, I attended a virtual session/workshop organized by David Gurteen on how to strategically design and run a "knowledge café."

While many of us may have heard the term knowledge café and even participated in one, it was good to see first-hand the design elements and principles of strategically designing and implementing one to create an engaging space for conversation and collaboration.

What I found most interesting was the inclusion of Conversational Leadership in the discussion and how that can lead to more effective strategic conversation, project implementation, and collaboration techniques such as the knowledge café.

There was a lot of diversity and inclusion of perspectives with participants connected globally from across the public and private sectors, making the conversation quite engaging and informative. David's facilitation techniques were a bonus!

I think a well-designed knowledge café can be a valuable tool to drive meaningful conversation, engagement, collaboration around specific program/project objectives and goals.

Naureen Aziz-Wani
External Affairs, World Bank
Washington DC, United States

I attended a virtual knowledge café in the hope of gaining some valuable tips and ideas on how to deliver my own café. I wasn't disappointed.

The session was expertly facilitated, and the energy throughout the afternoon was inspiring.

I am excited to now plan to deliver my own virtual Knowledge Cafés throughout the Trust to help share knowledge and encourage conversation on several pertinent topics.

Sarah Hennessy
NHS Library and Knowledge Service Manager
Wakefield, United Kingdom

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