World Cafe With a Wiki

Replies to This Conversation

Permalink Reply by RJ Johnson on September 17, 2010 at 9:36am

I recently posted some questions about using a wiki for online World Cafes. It would be interesting to hear what others have to say on the topic. Here's the link:
http://21stcenturyappreciativeinquiry.com/innovations/creating-worl...
Thank you for your feedback,
RJ Johnson

Permalink Reply by Ben Roberts on October 21, 2010 at 7:48am

How is your wiki-based WC going? I think the idea of asynchronous online work like this is very powerful and significantly underutilized, despite the challenges involved. Here is a link to a directory of online tools that might have some useful stuff for you: http://c4lpt.co.uk/Directory/

In the post you link to above, you mentioned the challenge of bringing the collaborative drawing/doodling process into the online environment. One idea I have had (but never tried out) is to invite participants to do their own work and simply posting all that to a central "wall" for general review. An add-on to this might be a tool that would allow for the creation of "collages" out of the individual submissions. In this way, graphical syntheses of the larger conversation could evolve.

Another idea might be to have one or more people skilled in graphic recording create images for each of the group conversations as they progress.

I would also note that in one sense, the function of the tablecloth drawing is less important in an online format such as this, since a newcomer to the "table" can simply read all the posts from the previous participants. One still misses the visual dimension that supports the conversation as it happens, of course, but at least the basic written content is there as a permanent record

Another challenge you mentioned was how to create "tables" with limited numbers of participants. I assume you considered a separate wiki document for each table as one option? Once the table rounds are completed, these could then be merged and/or synthesized as part of the harvest phase.

Regards,
Ben Roberts

Permalink Reply by RJ Johnson on October 22, 2010 at 11:15am

Ben,
Thank you for your substantive and well thought out comments. Thank you so much for your various ideas on how to create and share graphics. I also checked out the website that you mentioned and really like the way items are categorized on two dimensions. Thank you!

I didn't realize until you mentioned it that the richness of the text might substitute somewhat for the table graphics. I have also been entertaining the idea lately of not leaving a table host behind but having everyone rotate. This might especially apply to when creativity and innovation are called for. This would keep newcomers in the blind, but it may also lead to some real "out of the box" thinking.
Best regards,
RJ Johnson

Permalink Reply by Ben Roberts on October 23, 2010 at 1:54pm

Glad to have this discussion, RJ. One other element I was thinking about after my post concerned the attention-focusing effect of being f2f for a discrete period of time. My sense is that there is a lot of value in that aspect, and that cross-pollination of ideas suffers if the discussion gets spread over to long a period of time in an asynch format.

Also, you might want to check out this write-up on the main WC website about teaching an OD class using an asynch WC format: http://www.theworldcafe.com/stories/virtualcafes.pdf

Cheers,

Ben