Well here I am in Zurich. Tomorrow Friday (30th June 2006) I will be running a workshop on "Effective Knowledge Working" for the International Relations and Security Network. But having planned to arrive this afternoon I had decided to run a Knowledge Cafe for my members in Switzerland. Chis Pallaris of the ISN agreed to supply a room and refreshments at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Twenty people turned up which more than pleased me and we have just had a really great evening. I started by explaining the history of my knowledge cafes and community and then moved on to run a cafe on the perennial subject of "What are the barriers to knowledge sharing and how do we overcome them.
This is such a great theme for a cafe and never fails to engage people so I am pretty sure everyone had a great evening. One new feature that I have added to my cafes of late is to get everyone to form their chairs in a circle at the end. Surprising how quickly people can do this - took less than a minute and the disruption is well worth it as wjhen people sit face to face as equals it hugely enhances the quality and longevity of the conversation. This ending may well become the norm in my knowledge cafes from now on.
Chris then took me for a short walk around Zurich and we rounded off the evening with a beer; a good meal and of course some further great conversation.
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