Introductions to the European Salon

Replies to This Conversation

Permalink Reply by Ulrich Soeder on August 9, 2009 at 6:11am

Okay, I’am first.

My name is Ulrich Soeder and I am living with my family in Dresden, Germany. I'm working as a communication consultant and coach and I am a passionate photographer.

Beauty is inspiring me, and I see beauty when individuals take the courage and effort to change themselves, when groups engage in dialogue and discover their collective intelligence.

As a consultant I am interested in how I can help teams / organisations to create a shared purpose together. What makes a community a community? And what kind of leadership is needed for this objective? What is the role of dialogue in creating the collective equivalent of mindfulness?

I experienced World Café for the first time in 2006 during a symposion on integral leadership, where I met someone who introduced me to someone else who prepared a World Café event in Dresden. To make a long story short, I became part of the hosting team for the World Café European Gatherings in Dresden 2007 and in Bilbao 2008. During this period I learned a lot about World Café and I met wonderful people through this work. I also learned a lot about the difficulties in creating a living culture of dialogue, sharing leadership and developing a common purpose.

Since then I started to design and host cafés in different contexts (science, education, government, civil society).

I got into this project (the Online/ European Salon) because I was interested to contribute to a European platform where dialogue and change practitioners can learn from each other’s experience and learn together through action. Today I am especially passionate about conversations which inspire action and help to make a difference in the world.

This project is not especially about the method of World Café, it is more about the succesful application of large group dialogues. I like the idea to reach out to practitioners of diverse theoretical and practical backgrounds and inquire what could be possible if we transcend competition.


I’d like to share a picture that I made during the planning meeting for the European Salon in Dresden in May this year. The question was: What form should this meeting take? We did an body-exercise to invite the collaboration of the unconscious, and my end result of this process of inquiry was this picture which I called »A cradle for culture«, and shows the team at work in our living room.

Shaping culture and building community needs attention, focus and effort. It is hard work and great fun at the same time. And, that is my guess, we are at the very beginning of creating a global community. So, in my view, a cradle might be the right container for this period of collective development.
While we have been working together on this project, I felt that we were walking out talk and actually doing what we’re talking about: We are alreade engaging in creating some new community.

Maybe the others who have been in Dresden want to share their pictures, too, when introducing themselves.

That is my wish for this Online Salon as well: Let us discover a New Face of Community while we are engaging in collective inquiry and conversation.

Permalink Reply by Amy Lenzo on August 15, 2009 at 11:43am

Thanks for the invitation, Ulrich. What a great idea.

Ok, so I'm Amy, and I live in California, where I am an online communications professional, a blogger and a photographer, and also deeply motivated by Beauty. Perhaps we are twin souls, Ulrich. :-)

I was drawn to be part of the planning group for this event because of at least three major threads... one my passion for community and the World Cafe community in particular, two my deep identification and connection with Europe (I lived in England for 13 years, and my non-profit work allowed me to travel extensively - I have dear friends, godchildren, and ex-husbands, etc. there), three my concern with the fragmentation and wounding of the World Cafe community in Europe over the last 5 years or so, and four, my love of connecting people and sharing and aggregating the best of what's happening in the world through the online medium.

I am personally interested in a number of the salon topics we've brought forward through the salon. The questions that engage me are those about a different kind of leadership, shared leadership, leadership that is brought about through conversation and collaboration. Equally important and fascinating to me are questions about community - what is community now that we don't live in small agricultural villages? Does the internet offer us an opportunity for global community? What does community mean, anyway? What does it mean to live in community?

Permalink Reply by Ulrich Soeder on August 15, 2009 at 12:04pm

Thanks Amy! Would you like to share your picture from Dresden (swimming in a sea of community)?

Permalink Reply by dee gray on August 17, 2009 at 9:25am

you may have to take what i say about myself on trust and i think that is the essence of this introduction. i can tell you that i am interested in honesty, accountability, responsibility and i am hoping you will assume these things to be self evident. you may however want evidence of my trustworthiness and ability to work within and create a trusting environment if that is the case perhaps you need to be specific as to what form that might take.

community leadership is something little spoken of so little recognised i am hoping you will address this.

sustainable collaborative community seems more achievable a time of fragmentation of the global market i am hoping the group will consider practical ways of realising this

what are your resources, what do you aim to achieve and when, how do you aim to achieve them?

Permalink Reply by Ulrich Soeder on August 17, 2009 at 10:53am

Hi Dee, welcome to this group.

there is no formal procedure to introduce yourself. Personally, I am curious who is showing up here and for what reasons. If you'd like to share something about your personal background, that would be great.

What we want to achieve is outlined in the intent for the European Salon – how this is turned into specific results will emerge in the process. The methods for achieving the results will be designed interactively. You are most welcome to join this adventure.

Our resources: Passion, creativity, knowledge, wisdom, experience, a growing network of friendships ...

Permalink Reply by Ilona Christl on August 20, 2009 at 4:41am

My name is Ilona Christl
I'm an inter-and intracultural trainer, flex consultant for a company whose supporting their clients to shape culture, turn it into a high performance, healthy culture. And I love my job.
I do have a garden, a daughter and many friends and it's my greatest joy to nourish our growth, to support each other in its developement and I do that at home and at work. I love sunflowers and nature. And we do live at the countryside and I invite evryone who wants to, to visit us, since we are in a travelers organization called: Servas. This is another passion of ours, me and my husband, who you can see on my picture too. I've travelled to Russia, to Cameroon, to the States and of course Europe. I lifed in Czech Republic, Germany, Scotland, Cameroon and Paris.
Since I was brought up in a bicultural household (Czech-German) I learned at an early age that people act very diffrently. certain people are very good in expressing their feelings, others don't do that at all. Certain people like hugging, others you may not approach....I then finished University with a master in philosophy, since this subject was the one which seemed to nourish my need to understand. But during this time something outstanding had happened: The wall inbetween the two German countries came down and with it some walls in our brains started to brake down too.
I have had the opportunity to lead a researchproject, about the Charta 77, with those people who through their behaviour, changed a whole system. They changed a culture of a whole country, people like you and me became leaders of a whole country, and the former dissident turned into a president. WOW!!!

I still like to know how that works and I still think that a change in culture is more than needed, but how are we going to do it?

We've had witches burned, we#ve gone through bloody and velvet revolutions,which one will we invite this time???

Love to hear and understand more about it.

Permalink Reply by Sabine Soeder on August 24, 2009 at 6:04am

Hi all, let me introduce myself.

My name is Sabine. I’m an architect and have specialized in Lighting Design. I’m working as a graphic facilitator. Together with my husband and our two kids I’m living in Dresden, Germany. My roots are Italian and German.

What’s my personal connection to this group? What’s my personal story?

One of my deep motivators or activators in my life is dialogue – that people talk and listen – and even can stay in situations of disagreement. One of the chances of the economical situation in the world that I see right now is change. To become even more effective and sustainable, we should try to blend different methods and approaches - to learn from each other and together. For me it’s important to include and welcome the experiences and the stories from the Elder (Thank you Anne Dosher!).

This tree emerged at our planning meeting here in Dresden at the beginning of June. The tree – a big tree with deep roots and large branches – stands for community, for dialogue and for leadership. In the moment when it emerged the feeling about this tree was: powerful, centered, flexible, moving in the wind - vital.

These days I’m looking curiously how people are leading in business contexts – and how they are communicating. What does this mean for us? The majority of architects, for example, are leading in a very hierarchic style. Their language is understood by other architects, but not by many clients.

Some of the stuff that matters to me: Where does leadership begin? When you take the image of a spiderweb – everybody is like a distinctive and unique hole in the web – and every change interacts with the whole… Which qualities are recommend for people in leading positions today? What are their duties and responsibilities? How can we find and create together our common ground in a respectful perceptive way?


I’m looking forward to learn with you here in this group and to meet some of you in October in Austria.

Warm wishes, Sabine

Permalink Reply by Amy Lenzo on August 26, 2009 at 9:05am

I love this tree - it is to me such a beautiful symbol of connection and community...

Permalink Reply by ank on August 24, 2009 at 6:57am

Dear all,


I am fascinated by online conversations in general.. and indeed you questions about knowing what triggers people to participate to share time ideas and knowledge in open platforms is very important to understand ?

We at Synthetron have noted sofar 3 main drivers:
• “Belonging”: being invited, associated with the organiser in the largest sense
• “Topic”: participants feel that they want to know more or share ideas about the specific topic.. they are often advocates of and/or interested in the topic
• “Time”: the conversation must conveniently fall within a time frame where it is not competing with urgent or operational matters.

We are ambiguous about what people say to be a key driver “Visibility”: all our conversations are anonymous hence do not generate visibility. To the contrary this anonymity gives a safe space to the participants.. We still experience that the safe space largely compensate the visibility factor .. participants do not know “who says what” which helps to really focus on the content and less on the messenger, to genuinely listen.

Triggered?

My colleague is running the Thinking Tank : open online conversation on. the next one takes only 30 minutes (normally 60 minuets) and is on the topic of business leadership.
You can all participate this social brainstorm meeting.
Surely it is in a different style and way then the world café .. be it that the purpose , the type of questions and openness are very similar... What is fundamentally different is the pace of the conversation and the collaborative filtering of the most relevant ideas and opinions.

This "Special Thinking Tank" is on Aug 27th , 4 to 4.30pm UK time (12 to 12.30pm EST) on the topic of "Business as usual or time for a new style of leadership?" It is set up in collaboration with Aspire and the RSA in London.. for more info http://thethinkingtank.co.uk/next.htm

Joanne

Permalink Reply by Chris Chopyak on August 24, 2009 at 12:10pm

What has brought me to this group - the topic, the relationship between these three things. the connection, and space in between these three concepts is fascinating to me. how to balance between the "me" and the "we"

Permalink Reply by Ulrich Soeder on December 8, 2009 at 8:13am

Hi all,

please have a look at the conversation »The European Salon – LIVE« where I have posted the documentation of the SecondView introduction we have applied in Reichenau. There you find photographs and pictures that tell about what attracts people to the European Salon.

Take care, Ulrich