When convening, a whole group conversation as part of a Knowledge Cafe,if its possible try to form a circle as here at a Knowledge Cafe at KM World in San Jose below:
This works amazingly well. Here are some notes:
To my mind it is the best format for the whole group conversation
Surprisingly it takes only a few minutes to do
Just tell everyone to pick up their chairs and from a circle; its chaos for a minute or two then settles down
Tell them to form it nice and tight and pretty much as a circle
The circle in the photo above was a little too large but then it was a large group and we needed a roving mike
In a circle, everyone is equal, no one is left out
In a circle, the facilitator is just another person and people are less likely to try to report back to them
And finally, a great idea, if you have a digital camera, pass it around the circle and let everyone take a few photos of everyone else. It really captures the spirit of the event.
It is not that clear but the photo below is of a circle also at a Knowledge Cafe in Bergen. Here, we took the opportunity to move the Cafe from an indoor setting to an outdoor deck area for the final conversational circle.
Note that I am sitting too far forward as the guy to the right of me is actually behind me Something you should be careful not to do.
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