Event: Gurteen Knowledge Café Workshop Tuesday 20 October 2026, 14:00 to 18:00 BST (UK time)

Organizations rely on meetings and workshops to think together, explore issues, and make sense of complex situations. Many sessions drift into presentations or debate, leaving little space for shared thinking or real conversation. A Gurteen Knowledge Café provides a clear, practical approach to designing and hosting focused, participatory conversations.

Gurteen Knowledge Café Workshop
How to design and host a Gurteen Knowledge Café

Facilitator: David Gurteen

Date: Tuesday, 20 October 2026

Duration: 4 hours

Time: 14:00 to 18:00 GMT (London time). This timing works best for participants in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas.
Time in your timezone

Location: Online Zoom Event

Price: GBP 175.00

What is a Knowledge Café?

A Knowledge Café is a simple and practical way of bringing a small group of people together for a focused, lightly structured conversation around a shared question or topic. The emphasis is on thinking together rather than presenting, debating, or trying to persuade.

You do not need to be a professional facilitator to design and host a Knowledge Café. The method is straightforward, adaptable, and grounded in a small number of clear principles.

The Café can be used for many purposes, including:

• Sharing experience and knowledge
• Generating ideas and insights
• Making better sense of complex or ambiguous issues
• Improving decision making
• Supporting sales or client conversations
• Surfacing risks and assumptions
• Exploring possibilities and options

Beyond the immediate topic, a well-run Café helps people connect, listen more carefully, and think more openly together. Over time, it can reduce silos, strengthen trust, and improve the quality of everyday conversations. At its best, the Knowledge Café becomes a practical sense-making practice rather than a one-off event.

Knowledge Café Principles

The Workshop

This workshop is a practical introduction to designing and hosting Knowledge Cafés, both face-to-face and online. David will walk through the Café process step by step and share real stories drawn from more than twenty years of running Cafés in organizations, conferences, communities, and virtual settings.

The emphasis throughout is on practice. Conversation itself is the primary learning medium, so you experience the Café rather than simply hear about it.

In the workshop, you will:

• Understand the principles that underpin the Knowledge Café
• Learn how to design and host a Knowledge Café with confidence
• Explore how the Café can be adapted for different contexts and purposes
• Gain practical guidance for running Cafés online using Zoom

Who should participate?

This workshop is open to anyone interested in improving the quality of conversation in their work. It is particularly relevant for people who want to create spaces where listening, reflection, and shared understanding matter.

It may be of interest to:

• Managers and team leaders
• Facilitators and coaches
• Project and programme leaders
• Trainers and educators
• Community of practice leaders

And professionals working in:

• Change management
• Human resources
• Knowledge management
• Learning and development
• Organisation development

No prior experience of Knowledge Cafés is required.

Café Conversation

Below are short clips that capture the conversational energy of past Knowledge Cafés.

Agenda

The session is interactive throughout, with regular opportunities to take part in Café-style conversations.

• Welcome and introduction
• Speed conversation
• The Knowledge Café process
• Conversation in breakout rooms
• Q&A
• Coffee break
• Knowledge Café applications
• Knowledge Café real stories
• Conversation in breakout rooms
• How to run virtual Knowledge Cafés
• Q&A
• Conversation in breakout rooms
• Whole group conversation and Q&A
• Close

Recommendations from a past workshop

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

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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