Hosting Conversations about Questions that Matter
Introductions
There are people gathering here in the World Cafe community from literally all over the world, and it is so exciting!!! I really want to meet everyone, and I know I'm not alone. Would you please tell us a little about yourself here, just as an introduction, so we can start to learn about each other? Where do you live? How did you learn about the World Cafe? What are your interests and passions?
NOTE: The convention on this part of the site is that the responses are in chronological order, so you have to click forward to the last page (at the bottom of this page) to see the latest introductions.
Tags: community, introductions, stories
Replies to This Conversation
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I'm Karyn (CAR-in, like 'car in the garage' or 'car insurance') Romeis (rowMACE). I am a South African ex-pat who has been living in the UK for the past 10 years. I have been working in the field of workplace L&D in a range of roles for the past 20 years. My primary passion is learner empowerment, to which end, I explore the potential of social media tools and spaces which enable user generated content and networking. I am a complete learning geek and would do my job for nothing if money were no object.
I am currently busy with a Masters' degree at Oxford Brookes university.
I was invited to join World Cafe by one of my many wonderful friends... only I can't remember who it was (blush). I seem to recall that it was Loretta Donovan, but I might be wrong!
I am married with two teenage sons.
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I live in upstate New York. I was born and grew up in another country which I really miss. Warmer weather and warmer people. My mother fled the country with her two daughters, my younger sister and myself because of the violence. My sister and I were caught in a riot. I don't like where I've been living for the past 18 years as there's no sense of community. People don't want to interact with anyone except their immediate family. It's a very conservative, insular area. Therefore, I've joined several social justice organizations mostly to have human interaction. However, they tend to be very focused and structured around the issue of the moment, which is understandable. When people start to chat, the paid organizer re-directs the conversation towards planning for whatever rally or town hall or lobbying visit, etc. I help her do this as I agree that we need to focus. But I still don't get my needs filled.
To try to find an outlet for socializing, interacting on a human level, I found out about World Cafe several years ago. I tried to start one locally, following the guidelines set out for getting a conversation going and gathered people in a side room of a local popular restaurant in the downtown area. People seemed to want to have a speaker to listen to and not really to talk to each other. (A biology professor on campus two years ago started a Science Cabaret with a speaker once a month at the same restaurant. It's still going on). After two meetings, I gave up as two people showed up at the second meeting.
A year or two after I entered a Ph.D. program full time and found there lots of opportunities to have meaningful conversations. However, I finished the program rapidly, in three years, and so am back to square one socially, isolated. No matter how much I try, my neighbors just want to stay to themselves. During the winter, days and weeks could go by without my ever using my voice or being near another human being unless I make the effort to go to a commercial place like a Barnes & Noble bookstore. There's no non-commercial place for people to gather and converse. This is not how I grew up and it's very painful.
With the rapid development of the Internet since that time and the accelerated pace of social networking groups online, I came across this online version and joined. I'm still hoping to meet like-minded FTF.
Cecile
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Permalink Reply by John Inman on -
Cecile, my heart goes out to you. It is very easy to get isolated in this modern world. Particularly in the US where there is a breakdown of community. I live in Central Oregon and outside of work, I have my family and not much else. We are new the the area so I understand how you feel. We as a species were not designed to live outside of a community. We do best in collaboration.
I am just starting my PhD next month. Good for you to complete. What is your focus and where are you going with this new direction?
John
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Permalink Reply by Sami Sunchild on -
Thank you John for your message to Cecile - and me! I am the founder of a Living Landmark Peace Center and b&b, in the heart of San Francisco, with people coming through my life all the time. Coming and going, that is. I yearn for family - and have none. I live the most interesting life, dedicated to making a better world.
Wouldn't change it but long for close, positive, creative friends!
In love and service,
Sami
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Permalink Reply by Sami Sunchild on
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Hello Cecile
Please check our PeacefulWorldConversations.org and see if you would like to join with us.
If so, we would like to communicate with you. Suggestions?
Sami
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Permalink Reply by Sami Sunchild on
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This is Sami Sunchild, host of Peaceful World Conversations in San Francisco. I would love to learn how your conversation group developments are coming along and if we can be of help
[email protected] www.redvic.com 415 861 7264
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Permalink Reply by Renee Jackson on -
I live in Chicago, Il for the present, and was introduced to the World Cafe Model, a little over 3 years ago. Cafe's... along with other innovations have completely transformed the way I provide tranings, workshops, focus groups, and forums. I have incorporated this system in my work with parent cafe's, men cafe's, community cafes, partnership cafes within communities, incorporating Social Emotional Learning also as part of the structure of the conversation. They have been very successfull with creating collaborative relationships/partnership between parents, teachers, and staff. They said it couldn't be done, and it would never happen. They have been extremely successful. I have provided cafes across the state of IL, and other states...crossing systems that provide services to children, youth and the whole family. Whether it's child and family services, human services, health dept., education, etc...it works, if you work it!
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My name is Debbie and I'm a 48-year-old student of life from Youngstown, OH in the United States. I was first introduced to the World Cafe in a Transpersonal Psychology class I took at Youngstown State University in 2007. The class intructor was Dr. Christopher Bache. Other ideas and theories that were introduced in that class were those by such notable teachers/authors as Dean Radin and Elizabeth Satouris. I still count this as one of the most thought-provoking and insight-promoting of all my undergraduate classes.
My goals include being a positive change-agent and co-creator of community wellness. I love exploring through elevated dialogue and watching people experience their own epiphanies, seeing that butterfly of a new paradigm emerge from the cocoon of the individual mind.
Thank you for showing up, being present, and co-creating with this community.
~Deb
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Permalink Reply by M Kay Robinson on -
Hello, My name is Kay. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and consider myself a global citizen in that I am connected with people all over. My company is InSight Intuitive Consulting. As a business intuitive I consult with business owners and professionals when they are considering a decision about a direction to take. I am married and have two grown children, one granddaughter and one due any minute!
My passion is supporting and raising the voices of women around the world. Women bring collaboration, cooperation and community building to their partnership with men. It is time for peace and care taking of our children and the planet.
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1. My usual 'bio':
Dave Pollard is the author of the weblog How to Save the World (howtosavetheworld.ca), which documents what he's learned about how the world really works, and how we might create better ways to live and make a living. His first book, Finding the Sweet Spot: A Natural Entrepreneur's Guide to Responsible, Sustainable, Joyful Work, was published last year.
Dave has over thirty years' business experience advising entrepreneurs about innovation, research, sustainability, collaboration, coping with complexity, and the effective use of knowledge and social media. He believes that life's meaning, and an understanding of what needs to be done, emerges most often
from conversation in community with people you love.
2. What I care about:
(a) I think our globalized, growth-economy based, oil-dependent, unsustainable, unresilient civilization is going to crash in this century, no matter what we do, and our descendants are going to suffer monstrously when it happens.
(b) I think industrial agriculture (and animal factory farming in particular) is a horrifically cruel and wasteful system that contributes massively to climate change, deforestation, impoverishment of soil and loss of biodiversity.
(c) I believe that the greatest challenge we face in this century is finding the right partners to collaborate with, in our personal lives, in enterprise, in political activism and in community.
(d) I believe we need to de-school our society, and relearn the process of self-directed learning focused on developing critical knowledge and capacities such as understanding how the world really works, acquiring self-knowledge and self-understanding, learning how to discover what we are meant to do, and learning how to deal with complex issues.
3. Why I'm here:
For 30 years I have witnessed dysfunctional groups, mostly in business, that are hobbled by their inability to converse effectively, and hence their inability to convey important information, to make informed decisions, and to learn. This dysfunction spans every aspect of conversation, from who is invited to the conversation, to when and why and how conversations occur, to how they are conducted, to the (in)capacities of the conversants, to what is listened to, what is heard, how it is accepted and how it is acted upon.
As a result I've studied and written extensively about conversation. Two examples from my blog are:
Ideas for Better Conversations (http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2005/04/06.html)
and Five Hurdles to Effective Communication & Conversation (http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2005/06/20.html).
Mostly I'm here because the four things I've listed above, the things I care about, cannot be solved without effective dialogue and collaboration on a massive scale, and effective conversation and communication is essential to this. I have written that facilitation is the most important skill of the 21st century, and believe that facilitating group conversations is integral to that (http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2008/10/02.html).
What I bring to the group, mostly, is a deep knowledge of what does NOT work in group conversation -- in business meetings, in conference presentations, and in work 'teams'. I know a fair bit about knowledge transfer, systems thinking and social complexity. I am also a reasonably competent writer, a visionary, an idealist, and an imaginer of possibilities. I hope to be able to bring some of my skills, knowledge, ideas and perspectives to the work of World Cafe.
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I live in Krakow, Poland where I manage LlifeScience Cluster Initiative - the network of institutions and people from different fields (science and education, business, health care, government) devoted to the development of innovations in life science field. We are mission driven and one of the goals is to build the life science community. For over 10 years I have been involved as the consultant in many projects aimed at developing "learning organizations" at strategic level. Do not remember when I learned about WC for the first time - surely it was in conjunction to studying "systems thinking" and "systems dynamics". I participated for the first time in the WC event during Systems Thinking in Action Conference in San Diego in 2000. Since then I organized several events of this type, mainly as my consulting projects.
I do implement the tools and methods of learning organizations in the strategic framework of LifeScience Cluster Krakow.
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I´m Jan-Erik Kristoffersen living in the northern part of Norway(beyond the Polar Circle) and have been living as a consultant and facilitator in my own company, IdeSmia AS for nearly 4 years. Actually I have created my own title; "IdeaSmith". I have broad experience in various fields as product development/ innovation, marketing/sales, business strategy and managment/leadership - and have been working in different branches over the years. I have had leader roles for more than twenty years. 5 years ago I had a wonderful experience - joining a year of University study here in Harstad. The "experimental" study was called "Creative Leader- and entrepreneurship". The study gave me the tools and my working experience, my network and my personal mentor gave me the "courage" to start my own business.
The last 4 years I´ve been working with "creative problemsolving", business development, strategy, design and giving lectures in creative leadership for organizations, hospitals and companies.
I´m doing "process design" and facilitation for difficult problemsolving cases, based on my lesson of life: "Every organization, group and company has the skills, the creativity and the experience to solve any problem arising - but most of them don´t know how to make use of the total "brain-force" within".
I love to facilitate people to find their own solutions to important issues and problems - the energy from a group in "flow" is often the best payment a man could get...
The World Café I came across in my study at the university and I´ve successfully used it as a tool and arena for larger groups( Have faciltated 180 people in one process). I have used material I greatfully have found on the community web, and also written material from books and cases - and then added my own experience. Discussions with other experienced faciltators and my mentor has also helped me in difficult cases.
Love to meet peers and new friends across the world - meeting new people and learn from others - is what life is about...!?
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