sandra del soldato's Page

Was finally looking at my comments section - was sorry that I had missed your reply! Perhaps now that I've experienced a couple of World Cafe events by telephone I can answer better about judgment via David Bohm style dialogue... Suspending judgment doesn't seem to be a factor in the small group tables, really. It becomes important in the harvest phase when people get to speak one at a time & time becomes a scarcity. As Rebecca Costa pointed out in "Watchman's Rattle" it's easier to be oppositional and dismiss a proposition or a point of view than it is to design a way forward in working agreement. There is always something else to say - and it sounds as if it's a objection when it may not be. Bohm dialogue takes opposition out of the running by suspending the need to convince as a rule of participation. The people who want to Do Something can get together and do it - there is no need to convince the whole group for something to get done. But I think Edward de Bono's solution is elegant: changing the activity of discussion from oppositional to parallel, (with his routine of Six Hat Thinking.) So if the particular Cafe is being held to address a practical problem - Six Hats is a great tool to be used during the harvest phase...and it doesn't have to be introduced as an activity - the "conversation starters" merely asking questions from the point of view of the Six Hats would be enough.

It was that charming icon of your upside down yawning kitten that made me accept your overture of friendship. Also, I once studied Brazilian dancing to help out in the San Francisco Carneval event decades ago and still love Brazilian jazz probably better than any other type of music.
Whatever made you choose me as your first person to "friend"?