1. Gurteen Knowledge Cafe
KHDA Dubai 29 October 2013

3. Henry of Germany giving a lecture at the
University of Bologna in the 14th century

4. Have you ever questioned the lecture as
a means of teaching/learning?

5. Show me a Professor of
Education … who
lectures, and I’ll show you
a hypocrite who doesn’t
read the research.
Donald Clarke, PlanB Learning

6. What is the most powerful
learning technology ever
invented?

7. Conversation is the most
powerful learning technology ever
invented
Conversations carry news, create
meaning, foster cooperation, and
spark innovation.
Encouraging open, honest
conversation through work space
design, setting ground rules for
conversing productively,
and baking conversation into the
corporate culture spreads
intellectual capital, improves
cooperation, and strengthens
personal relationships.
Jay Cross, Informal Learning

8. What’s the defining work of
business?
What’s your job as a
knowledge worker?
What’s the most important form
of work?

9. Business is a conversation
because the defining work of
business is conversation literally.
And 'knowledge workers' are
simply those people whose
job consists of having
interesting conversations.
David Weinberger
The Cluetrain Manifesto

10. • Conversations are the way
workers discover what they
know, share it with their
colleagues, and in the process
create new knowledge for the
organisation.
• In the new economy,
conversations are the most
important form of work ... so
much so that the conversation
is the organisation.
Alan Weber, Harvard Business Review

11. Our most effective KM tool is
conversation
The words we choose, the
questions we ask, and the
metaphors we use to explain
ourselves
are what determine our success in
creating new knowledge
as well as sharing that knowledge
with each other.
Nancy Dixon
Common Knowledge

12. What makes a good
conversation?

13. The kind of
conversation I’m
interested in is one in
which you start with a
willingness to emerge
a slightly different
person.
Theodore Zeldin
Conversation
Theodore is an
Oxford Historian

14. Gurteen Knowledge Cafe
London, September 2002

15. Global Knowledge Cafés
• I have run them all over the
world
• Some interesting cultural
experiences
• Format always works
• People love to talk
• Discovered their power

16. Gurteen Knowledge Café Process

17. Basic Café Process
•
Speaker makes short presentation
•
Poses a trigger question
•
Small group conversations at tables
•
Three rounds of conversation
•
Whole group conversation (circle)
•
Share actionable insights
Process can be adapted depending on
the purpose of the Café, context,
numbers, venue etc

18. Café Principles
• About a learning conversation (dialogue) – not debate
• Everyone equal; no table leaders; no reporting back
• No one forced to do anything
– OK to just listen
• People trusted to talk about what is important
– OK to go off-topic
• People take the real outcomes away in their heads
• Minimal summarization or attempt to reach consensus

19. Café Outcomes
• Outcomes are what you take away in your head
• Deeper understanding of the issues discussed
• Deeper insight into other people’s perspectives
• Better appreciation of your own point of view
• Improved relationships
• Position to make more informed decisions

20. What do you make of
the Knowledge Café?

21. Knowledge Café Applications

22. Surfacing Issues

23. ISN Zurich
• Dramatic improvement in
inter-team dialog,
collaboration & knowledge
sharing
• Many internal work processes
overhauled as a result
• Explosion of new ideas &
initiatives on the part of staff at
all levels of the organization
• Empowered staff to speak up
and take the initiative
Chris Pallaris
Chief Editor, ISN, Zurich

24. Transform Meetings

25. Transform Decision Making Meetings
• Break meetings into two parts
• To better understand the issues
– Dialogue - Café style
– Divergent
– Understanding
• To make decisions and plans
– Debate
– Convergent
– Making a decision

26. Transform Any Talk

27. Transform any Talk
• Move from
– presentation + Q&A
– 30 mins + 10 mins
• to
– presentation + reflection
+ conversation + Q&A
• Allow
–
–
–
–
20 mins presentation
2 mins for reflection
10 mins for conversation
8 mins for Q&A
KM UK
KM Australia
KM Singapore
ECU Forum Mumbai + Johannesburg

28. Many Other Café Applications
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
learn from each other
clarify issues
gain insight
break down organisational silos
break down inter-personal barriers
surface issues & problems
surface potential risks
surface opportunities
get buy-in for a course of action
stimulate innovation
build better relationships
engage with our work
share good practice
develop our unique voice
move to action

29. What applications can
you see for the
Knowledge Café?

30. The Knowledge Cafe

31. What can we each do individually to encourage
more knowledge sharing in our organization?

32. How might we initiate more conversations in our
organization and what would be the benefits?

33. www.gurteen.com
David GURTEEN
Gurteen Knowledge
Fleet, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 7774 178 650
Email: david.gurteen@gurteen.com

34. Licence
• You may use these slides under the following
Creative Commons Licence
• Attribution-Share Alike 2.0
• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/uk/

35. Some slides I did not use

36. Conversation is a meeting of minds
with different memories and habits.
When minds meet, they don't just
exchange facts: they transform
them, reshape them, draw different
implications from them, engage in
new trains of thought.
Conversation doesn't just reshuffle
the cards: it creates new cards.
Theodore Zeldin
Conversation

37. For all our knowledge, we have no
idea what we're talking about.
We don't understand what's going
on in our business, our market, and
our world.
KM shouldn’t be about helping us to
know more. It should be about
helping us to understand.
So, how do we understand things?
It's through stories that we
understand how the world works.
David Weinberger
The Cluetrain Manifesto