Online World Café: »Dialogue and Leadership: The New Face of Community?«

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Comment by Ulrich Soeder on September 14, 2009 at 3:21am

If you are interested in the results of this Online Café, please visit the StoryNet and join the conversation.

Comment by Ulrich Soeder on September 10, 2009 at 11:43am

WHAT IS AN ONLINE CAFÉ?

Basically it is a normal World Café conversation. The tables consist of conference calls between four to five persons. We are gathering in groups of 4 or 5 and all of us are discussing the same questions. The rounds will be longer than in a live café because the communication is a little slower when we can’t see each other. Each round should be at least 30 min.

The design and the preparation of the café are very similar to a live café. We will share the purpose and the desired outcomes in time.

We will change the virtual tables after each round, so you are going to meet different people.

There is another important difference to a live café: You will be assigned to tables, you can’t chose the people you are talking to. We haven’t found a way yet to get this aspect more natural. That is why we have to know in advance who will be going to participate.

We are going to have a few rounds. There might be a plenum at the end, but it could be a plenum via chat as well, depending on the number of participants. In the chat function, up to 100 people can participate, in the Audio function, only ten/25 people can take part in a conference call. So our possibilities for the plenum are limited.

After the café, we are going to make a summary to document our conversation and to harvest the results of the conversation.

We'll have a few graphic recorders who are going to join this conversation (as an additional guest at each table to record the conversation and make it available asap to all.


TABLE HOSTS
The table hosts have more important roles in an online café than in a live café. The table hosts have the role of co-hosts. They are setting up the conference calls at their »tables«, are checking that the connections are stable and will provide the timing. For this café, I would like to ask skype experienced people to take the roles of table hosts. Let me know if you are going to support the hosting.


Here are some technical informations to get started for our Online Café:

PARTICIPATION
We need to know your skype name so that we can set up the conference calls.

Please let us know if you are participating or not and send an email to [email protected] with your skype name until Sept 12th (saturday)!

SKYPE ACCOUNT
We are using SKYPE to get connected. If you have no Skype account yet: It is free for download and easy to set up. You will find the links on www.skype.com .

HEADSET
You should use a headset and NOT the microphone that is built into your computer. This increases the sound quality of the connection very much. If you don’t have a headset yet: It cost’s about 10 to 20 €.

PRACTICING SKYPE
If you are new to skype, it might be a good idea to have some test calls before the Online Café will start to get familiar with the different functions of skype and your headset. My skype name is usoeder.

DURING THE ONLINE CAFE
Provide yourself food and something to drink for the time of the Online Café.

In Skype we will use the Audio and the Chat function. The Chat function is similar to the table cloths in a live café: we can leave our thoughts and notes and everyone can read them during the conversation.


QUESTIONS

If you have questions, don’t hesitate to a mail to [email protected] or [email protected]. I'll be back only on sunday afternoon, so the questions to me will be answered starting from sunday evening.

Cheers, Ulrich