My Experience at UCSC's World Cafe

Hi everyone! My name is Shawn Bianchi, and I've just had my first experience with a World Cafe this past Monday the third at the University of California, Santa Cruz campus.

Before getting into the meat of the night, we reminded of ourselves of the qualities which foster good communication. Patience, really listening (as opposed to preparing what you have to say while another is talking), earnest engagement, and passion, were among them. With those qualities in mind, we begun our conversation.

The night was centered around discussion of globalization. In a small group with two others, we were first asked to define what globalization was, and this was really important for setting the foundation for the rest of the meeting, at least for me. I realized that I didn't have much of a concrete understanding of what that word, globalization, means. My own thoughts immediately dived into the hypothetical, and ignored the reality of how globalization is occurring today. I thought, well, successful globalization would look very similar to a successful conversation, full of patience, passion, and understanding between countries and cultures across the world. So it surprised me when the other two people in my discussion group began to discuss the economic realities of globalization -- the domination of western capitalist ideas and corporations, swallowing local cultures across the globe. It's not that I hadn't been aware that such things were happening, it was simply that this wasn't on my radar when the question "What is globalization?" had been prompted.

And that led me to something of a revelation, and probably the most important part of the night for me. The World Cafe, at least on that particular night, was centered on real-world problems. That sort of focus is something that I'm not used to in my every day life, and it the juxtaposition of the kinds of answers given by myself versus those of my group members made that extremely apparent. But it's something that I need if I hope to make a real difference in the world, and that is something that, from that night forward, I will be very aware of when I approach any problem in the future. The World Cafe provided me with an invaluable tool in only a single night.

I don't mean to focus on only that aspect of the night, as what came before and followed that point was fantastic as well. Our second discussion did highlight some hypothetical aspects, funnily enough. In new groups, we went on to talk about how we could intervene with the extremely damaging path that globalization is on, and guide it into a more positive pathway. Our group found a mutual frustration in the difficulties of finding productive places to put forth our energy, as well as not knowing which organizations were worth our time. We did all agree that the ideal state of globalization was to foster a world which different cultures were aware and educated of each other, and to respect one another without trying to become one another.

The night ended with a wonderful meal over a relatively casual discussion of the drought California is currently facing. This conversation focused less on how to solve this issue, as we all seemed to understand what a precious resource water is and the importance of conservation, and more on a mutual frustration with the lack of such consideration other organizations seem to be using water.

All in all, I am extremely excited to have found The World Cafe. I have learned so much in this one night, and I can't wait to continue to learn. I only hope that I can be as valuable to The World Cafe as it has been and will be for me.