A Resource Guide for Hosting Conversations That Matter at the World Cafe

The World Café is an easy-to-use method for creating a living network of collaborative dialogue around questions that matter to the real-life situations of your organizations or community. In this beautifully illustrated booklet, Juanita Brown collaborates with Nancy Margulies and the World Café Community to articulate seven guiding principles for people to use to host their own Café. Learn about the thousands of people on five continents who have experienced the World Café, a model for setting up the ideal Café for your group, the roles of the hosts, crafting powerful questions, Café assumptions and etiquette, and more.

Resource Link: http://www.theworldcafe.com

AI Annotations

AI Annotations is a place to create a conversation ?– an exchange of ideas and practices - among the co-owners of Appreciative Inquiry Consulting and with others who are on the journey of exploration and collective understanding of Appreciative Inquiry. Loretta Donovan, Roberta Peirick, Loretta Randolph, Tony Silbert and Sandy Wells make up the AI Annotations blog team as of 5/07.

Resource Link: http://aiconsulting.wordpress.com

Alexander & Associates

Betty Alexander brings sixteen years of experience to her work in large system change and leadership development for public and private organizations. As a graphic facilitator, she uses her skills in deep listening, information synthesis, and intuitive visual processing to make group conversation visible. The real-time visual record of a meeting that she creates is designed to optimize group learning and productivity. It illuminates collective wisdom, creates understanding between multiple, contradictory and complex data, acknowledges individual contribution by reflecting what is being voiced by each person, and builds commitment through high participation in meeting processes.

AmericaSpeaks

Promoting the founding belief that every citizen has a right to impact the decisions of government, AmericaSpeaks serves as a neutral convener of large-scale public participation forums. Through close consultation with leaders, citizens, the media and others, AmericaSpeaks designs and facilitates deliberative meetings for 500 to 5,000 participants. Its partners have included regional planning groups, local, state, and national government bodies, and national organizations. Issues have ranged from Social Security reform to redevelopment of ground zero in New York.

Resource Link: http://www.americaspeaks.org

AmericaSpeaks' Network News

AmericaSpeaks, a non-profit organization, engages citizens in the public decisions that impact their lives through their innovative 21st Century Town Meetings, as well as citizen engagement consulting, strategic planning services, and public speaking. Their one-way e-newsletter, geared towards their network of AmericaSpeaks facilitators, is sent out once a month.

Resource Link: http://www.americaspeaks.org/resources/facilitators/newsletter/

Appreciative Inquiry

Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is about the coevolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations, and the relevant world around them. In its broadest focus, it involves systematic discovery of what gives "life" to a living system when it is most alive, most effective, and most constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms. AI involves, in a central way, the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system's capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential.

Café to Go! A Quick Reference Guide for Putting Conversations to Work

The World Cafe Community Foundation, 2002.

This concise 7-page guide to the World Café covers the basics of the process. It includes brief outlines of each principle, a description of Café Etiquette, an outline of key elements of the World Café conversations, and tips for creating Café ambiance.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/cafetogo.pdf

Center for Wise Democracy

The Center assists communities in creating Wisdom Councils - randomly-selected, facilitated 'juries,' reflecting the larger diversity of the community - which engage in dialogue about the larger system and arrive at creative consensus on shared visions. These visions in turn serve to increase the quality of the dialogue among the larger community.

Resource Link: http://www.wisedemocracy.org

Center for Wise Democracy - Dynamic Facilitation Training

The Center assists communities in creating Wisdom Councils - randomly-selected, facilitated 'juries' reflecting the larger diversity of the community - which engage in dialogue about the larger system and arrive at creative consensus on shared visions. These visions in turn serve to increase the quality of the dialogue among the larger community. "Dynamic facilitation" is used to facilitate Wisdom Councils, and the Center provides trainings in dynamic facilitation regularly.

Resource Link: http://www.tobe.net/info/general.html

Change Facilitation s.r.o.

Change Facilitation s.r.o is a global network of Change Management consultants who facilitate complex change processes. Change Facilitators use approaches that benefit your entire system, and adapt their interventions to local cultural conditions. Change Facilitation can offer you state-of-the-art advice and training on managing change.

Resource Link: http://www.change-facilitation.org

Change Management Blog

This blog, hosted by Holger Nauheimer from Germany, is for change management facilitators and anyone interested in the subject. The concept of change management describes a structured approach to transitions in individuals, teams, organizations and societies that moves the target from a current state to a desired state.

Resource Link: http://www.change-management-blog.com

Change Management Toolbook

The Change Management Toolbook includes a broad range of tools, methods and strategies which you can apply during different stages of personal, team and organizational development, in training, facilitation and consulting. It is based on the wealth of tools and principles that have been provided by Kurt Lewin, Edgar Schein, Peter Senge, Arie de Geus, Robert Dilts, Virgina Satir, Bert Hellinger, Harrison Owen, David Cooperrider, Marvin Weisbord, Steve de Shazer - just to name a few - and many other great teachers.

Resource Link: http://www.change-management-toolbook.com

Conversation as a Co-Evolutionary Force (the World Cafe blog)

The World Cafe's blog provides a space for people to speak to each other in their authentic voices. Across the diversity of language, culture and geography, this is a place where we can ask the questions that truly matter to us and listen for the patterns that emerge in response.

Resource Link: http://conversationsthatmatter.typepad.com/theworldcafe/

D&D Success Stories

Compiled by the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD), 2005.

Below are dozens of links to dialogue and deliberation success stories and case studies that are available online. Approaches covered include Deliberative Polling, Citizens Juries, Future Search, National Issues Forums, Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue, AmericaSpeaks, Study Circles, the Public Conversations Project, and Wisdom Councils. NCDD has been compiling these resources for the D&D community for several years, but we could really use your help keeping this page updated. Email us at [email protected] with your additions and changes.

Dalar International Consultancy

Dalar International Consultancy, Inc. offers a holistic approach to leadership development and organizational development that achieves results that some call miraculous. We offer consulting, coaching/mentoring, and meeting facilitation services to those who wish to work with us, always customized to the unique needs of the client, and yet always within a holistic perspective that works with four levels of consciousness: mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical consciousness.

Resource Link: http://www.dalarinternational.com

Dannemiller Tyson Associates

DTA was founded in the early 1980?’s by Kathleen D. Dannemiller and the late Charles Tyson to help organizations achieve fast, long-lasting change. The earliest work was with the Ford Motor Company as it sought to move its culture from "command and control" to a more participative style. Over the years, DTA has worked with literally hundreds of clients in the profit, non-profit and governmental sectors around the world. DTA consultants are all seasoned senior practitioners skilled in helping organizations chart and travel their own change journeys.

Resource Link: http://www.dannemillertyson.com

Dialogos - Master Class

True leadership that promotes wholeness, transformation, and generativity in social systems requires three things: an understanding of the "Physics" of social systems; quality of character; and an understanding of Living Process, generative change, based on an understanding of the nature of design of wholeness in living systems. The Master Class is the next step for graduates of the Leadership for Collective Intelligence program who are looking to deepen their capacity in all three of these territories and bring their development as a leader and practitioner to another level.

Resource Link: http://www.dialogos-inc.com

Dialogos, Inc.

Founded by William Isaacs, Dialogos promotes the spirit and practice of dialogue for strategic use at all levels of leadership within and across organizations. They work with client organizations to meet their business objectives by transforming taken-for-granted limits in ways of thinking and acting.

Resource Link: http://www.dialogos-inc.com

Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together

William N. Isaacs, Dialogos. New York, NY: Currency, 1999.

Isaacs is a colleague of organizational learning guru Peter Senge (who wrote the introduction) and one of the founders of MIT's Organizational Learning Center. He also directed MIT's Dialogue Project, on which this book is based. Isaacs argues that organizational learning cannot take place without successful dialogue.

Resource Link: http://www.dialogos.com

Discovering Common Ground: How Future Search Conferences Bring People Together to Achieve Breakthrough Innovation, Empowerment, Shared Vision, and Collaborative Action

Marvin Weisbord and 35 international co-authors, Future Search. Berrett-Koehler, 1992.

Case studies showing theory in action from around the world. A definitive book on the underlying theory, research, and practical applications providing general guidelines for successful conferences. 444 pages.

Resource Link: http://www.futuresearch.net/method/whatis/books_videos.cfm