A Future Café is a form of Knowledge Café designed to explore trends and issues that shape, influence or in some way impact the future.
The Purpose
There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.
Credit: Steve Balmer
A Future Café is not about making decisions or reaching consensus.
The value of a Future Café is in getting the participants to engage with an issue and to think more deeply about the future and what it means to them.
In designing your Café, you should think carefully about its purpose, who to invite and whether you need to capture anything.
The Topic and the Question
A Future Café is typically kicked off by a short talk by a speaker who is an expert in the field of the subject under discussion, followed by a question
For example, the speaker might talk on the Blockchain before asking a question such as “How do you think the Blockchain will impact your business?”
If the topic is a broader more general one that falls within the scope of people’s experience than a less experienced speaker and a short introduction and a question will suffice.
For example: “Going forward, how serious a problem do you think is fake-news and how might we counter it?”
The Café conversation could also be triggered by other means.
Capture
Often in a Café, nothing is captured, and the outcomes are what people take away in their heads.
But in the case of a Future Café, it is often essential to capture ideas or actionable insights.
The trick is to do it in a way that is not detrimental to the quality of the conversation.
The Future Café is a powerful form of thinking together.
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