Hosting Conversations about Questions that Matter
Moscow World Cafe and Graphic Recording Workshop
This from experienced World Cafe host and graphic recorder Ulric Rudebeck:
A visit to Moscow. A mission unusual, challenging conditions with a very friendly encounter.
In September Amy asked if I could do a Café training in Moscow in end of November. I had never been there so it was a new experience I gladly took. Elina Cuesta and Raffi Aftendelian based in San Diego were my contacts. Very supportive and did all necessary preparation. Elina Chairperson for InterTraing a facilitator organization in Russia was later the guide in the Russian community. Very friendly and caretaking and dedicated. She was 8 month pregnant , so actually I had double guidance. Soon it becomes clear that one wanted not only café work but also graphic facilitation.
In the end it was more than 20 participants during three days with one day mainly focus on café and one with visualization and graphics and one with a mixture based on the questions that the participants had. Very intense.
There were a lot of preparations done behind the scene. A flyer was done, excerpts of my book Strategic Vision Work was edited for the target group and the “Cafe to go” in Russian was used. A place with large walls was found. Plenty of pens and paper. All very well organized .
The café part we started by having a mini cafe almost without any theory. It was by the belief - first to experience and then to understand the theory behind. It worked very well. We cover all the café principles and went deeper in question the participants brought to the plenary dialogues. All was illustrated by graphics in run time so all could follow. That was part of the design because half of the participants were very unused to English and my Russian needs a lot of improvement. To our help we had a stimulant interpreter. The communication level was at times very intense. I talked, he talked the participants talked to me and to each other and I illustrated it on the wall - all at the same time. It worked very well but also demanded focus and flexibility on all hands.
My general feeling was that the whole group was very eager to learn and that the café thinking has a good chance to make a stronghold in Moscow.
The facilitation with graphics was even more an experiment in communication. Now 4-6 groups were recording in Russian and I did the comments in English with the interpreter Peter intensely busy with all the connections the flowed simultaneously. A lot of pictures were done and in the end all had the possibility to make their marks on the walls.
A learning is that it is possible to have almost the same tempo as if it is done in only one language. But it needs a large flexibility and high ambition on all hands. It also needs a special pedagogic touch to make parallel activities and a lot of delegation of exercises to the participants in their groups. You can not have anyone sitting on the fence and expect to be fed. Here all was directly active and that made it possible.
An other learning was that the combination of café and graphic facilitation works very well. One can drew form one to the other, especially if the participants as here were professional in facilitation. A bit of thinking in the design to really get the links between the two is needed but that is not difficult once the focus is established.
Some wonderful graphs come out of the workshop and I hope some new graphic practitioners.
So thanks to all that made this possible.
(Thank YOU, Ulric, and also big thanks to Raffi & Elina)
A visit to Moscow. A mission unusual, challenging conditions with a very friendly encounter.
In September Amy asked if I could do a Café training in Moscow in end of November. I had never been there so it was a new experience I gladly took. Elina Cuesta and Raffi Aftendelian based in San Diego were my contacts. Very supportive and did all necessary preparation. Elina Chairperson for InterTraing a facilitator organization in Russia was later the guide in the Russian community. Very friendly and caretaking and dedicated. She was 8 month pregnant , so actually I had double guidance. Soon it becomes clear that one wanted not only café work but also graphic facilitation.
In the end it was more than 20 participants during three days with one day mainly focus on café and one with visualization and graphics and one with a mixture based on the questions that the participants had. Very intense.
There were a lot of preparations done behind the scene. A flyer was done, excerpts of my book Strategic Vision Work was edited for the target group and the “Cafe to go” in Russian was used. A place with large walls was found. Plenty of pens and paper. All very well organized .
The café part we started by having a mini cafe almost without any theory. It was by the belief - first to experience and then to understand the theory behind. It worked very well. We cover all the café principles and went deeper in question the participants brought to the plenary dialogues. All was illustrated by graphics in run time so all could follow. That was part of the design because half of the participants were very unused to English and my Russian needs a lot of improvement. To our help we had a stimulant interpreter. The communication level was at times very intense. I talked, he talked the participants talked to me and to each other and I illustrated it on the wall - all at the same time. It worked very well but also demanded focus and flexibility on all hands.
My general feeling was that the whole group was very eager to learn and that the café thinking has a good chance to make a stronghold in Moscow.
The facilitation with graphics was even more an experiment in communication. Now 4-6 groups were recording in Russian and I did the comments in English with the interpreter Peter intensely busy with all the connections the flowed simultaneously. A lot of pictures were done and in the end all had the possibility to make their marks on the walls.
A learning is that it is possible to have almost the same tempo as if it is done in only one language. But it needs a large flexibility and high ambition on all hands. It also needs a special pedagogic touch to make parallel activities and a lot of delegation of exercises to the participants in their groups. You can not have anyone sitting on the fence and expect to be fed. Here all was directly active and that made it possible.
An other learning was that the combination of café and graphic facilitation works very well. One can drew form one to the other, especially if the participants as here were professional in facilitation. A bit of thinking in the design to really get the links between the two is needed but that is not difficult once the focus is established.
Some wonderful graphs come out of the workshop and I hope some new graphic practitioners.
So thanks to all that made this possible.
(Thank YOU, Ulric, and also big thanks to Raffi & Elina)
Tags: Mosow, Russia, World Cafe, design, graphic recording, multi-lingual, training
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