Knowledge Cafés at ING Bank, Netherlands Connect, connect, connect

In the article, I learned that the then ING Business School in the Netherlands had adapted my Knowledge Café process and were using it as part of their Challenging Minds programme.

I contacted Mireille Jansma and Jurgen Egges to congratulate them on their work and the article. This instigated a conversation with Mireille where I discovered that she had learned about my Knowledge Café four years earlier through my website and had then experienced one that I ran at an ECKM conference in Barcelona in 2007.

Mireille and Jurgen had adapted the Café format and used it in two ways. The first way is described in the Forbes article that I summarise here:

• They gather articles and reports about relevant trends in management, banking, and finance
• They then broadcast “Research Alerts”
• When an Alert deserves serious attention, they host a Knowledge Café
• The Knowledge Cafés are targeted at specific groups or open to anyone
• Sometimes the Knowledge Café is triggered by a video
• They follow through with online discussion groups

These types of initiatives focus on topics that are highly relevant and in-the-moment for managers and workers, and where the sharing of ideas and exchange of opinions lead to creativity and innovation.

Credit: Karl Moore and Phil Lenir

They were also using the Knowledge Café in a second way as part of their Challenging Minds programme as described in the paper below that was submitted as an application for the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) Excellence in Practice Award in 2011.

They did not win the EFMD award but its an innovative approach to teaching nevertheless and shares much in common with Flip Teaching.

This is a short video interview with Mireille Jansma and Jurgen Egges of the ING Business Academy in Amsterdam in November 2011 where I asked them how they learned about his Knowledge Café concept and how it has played a role in their “Challenging Minds” programme.