Eugene Peterson on James Joyce and the Magic of the Ordinary

In an interview at a Writer’s Symposium, Eugene Peterson spoke about his ‘imagination conversion’:

“I was a new pastor. I was trying to understand my congregation. They didn’t seem to be very interesting. I’d always thought that when I became a pastor I’d have all the stars in town come—the interesting people. Celebrities. They stayed away in their droves!

And as I was muddling through all this and feeling sorry for myself, wishing I had the kind of congregation that some of my friends always bragged that they had. I later found out they lied a lot!

I was reading Ulysses, James Joyce’s greatest work and it’s about one man, Leonard Bloom and he doesn’t do anything really interesting. It’s just an ordinary day in this Dubliner’s life. I began to see through Joyce’s storytelling how interesting this ordinary life is and I can still remember the page, I think I dog-eared the page—338. I realized this is my congregation—Leonard Bloom sits in my pew every Sunday and it was a conversion, an imagination conversion.”

Source: ‘A Conversation with Eugene Peterson, Author’, by Dean Nelson Point Loma, Nazarene University: The 12th Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, 23 February 2007. Seen on YouTube.

Image: Eugene Peterson; James Joyce and Ulysses.

Journaling Proves to be Valuable Says Cancer Patients

An article in the New York Times (26 February 2008) attests to the value of journaling for cancer patients. It begins:

“When my mother was first diagnosed with cancer, she did something she had never done before. She started to write down her feelings.

My mother had always been too busy for something she felt was as indulgent as keeping a journal, but in the early days of her cancer diagnosis, she found that writing down her thoughts helped her cope with the prospect of dying.

This month, a medical journal confirms what many cancer patients intuitively know. Expressive writing, which involves writing down your deepest thoughts and feelings, may improve the quality of life for cancer patients, according to a new report in The Oncologist.

Previous research conducted in controlled laboratory experiments has suggested that expressive writing helps physical and psychological well-being. However, the recent study was a real-world experiment, conducted in the waiting rooms of an oncology practice."

The entire article can be read at this link:
Tara Parker-Pope, ‘The Power of Words for Cancer Patients’, New York Times, 26 February 2008.

Image: “writing down your deepest thoughts and feelings…”

Sequoyah: The Value of Mixing in Other Cultures

In his book, The Medici Effect, Frans Johansson, encourages people to spend time at the intersections of cultures and the disciplines of knowledge and thought. He tells how this practice was crucial for Cherokee Indian, Sequoyah:

In 1809 a mixed-blood Cherokee Indian named Sequoyah learned to sign his name on his silversmith work. That was his introduction to the written language. A few years later, while serving in the U.S. Army during the Creek War, he saw American soldiers write letters, read orders, and record historical events of the war. Sequoyah realized that his fellow men in Cherokee Nation could derive spectacular benefits from a written language. Sequoyah, whose mother was a member of the Paint Clan and whose father was a Virginia fur trader, spent the next twelve years developing a written Cherokee language. When he was done he had constructed a syllabary that consisted of eighty-five characters representing each syllable in the Cherokee language. The syllabary was so easy to learn that within weeks thousands of Cherokees could read, and it gave Cherokee Nation the ability to create the first Native American newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix.

Sequoyah is the only person in the world known to have created an entire written language on his own and is considered a genius to this day. Sequoyah got the idea for creating a written language after spending time in a culture very different from his own. This is … an example of the force of globalization. That force, as defined by the movement of people between cultures and countries, is regaining a strength it has not had for more than a hundred years.

Source: Frans Johansson, The Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation (Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press, 2006), 22.

Dr. Geoff Pound.

Image: “Sequoyah is the only person in the world known to have created an entire written language on his own and is considered a genius to this day.”

The Importance of Saying Sorry

Barrie Hibbert sent me this comment on the formal apology to Australia’s indigenous people and this powerful story:

[Australian] Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the three little words slowly, deliberately and repeatedly.

It was a dramatic and powerful moment in the history of the parliament and the nation.

Yet there are many Australians who question the "wisdom" of such an apology or the need for it. Like the previous Prime Minister, they feel that it's just empty rhetoric which doesn't achieve anything and is also potentially dangerous...and could end up being very expensive.

But such a viewpoint, either wilfully or out of ignorance, ignores a fundamental reality of our human experience. In both our personal and our corporate life, there are situations where saying sorry is the only way we can begin to address a painful situation. And while those who have been aggrieved need to hear the words said to them, even more does the aggriever need to hear him/herself/themselves say those three little words.

In July 1998 at the memorial service in Westminster Abbey for Bishop Trevor Huddleston, Alan Webster, the former Dean of St. Paul's shared this story:

Following the end of the Apartheid era in South Africa, arrangements were made for the inauguration of the new President, Nelson Mandela.

One of the overseas guests of honour at the inauguration ceremony was Bishop Trevor Huddleston, the English Anglican priest who had fought tirelessly against the old regime, and whose book, “Naught for your comfort” had been so influential in awakening the wider world to the suffering and injustices endured by the oppressed non-white majority of the South African population.

Though he was by this time an old man and confined to a wheelchair, Huddleston was determined to be part of the historic occasion. Arriving from the U.K., he was given a room in a top-security hotel: a necessary precaution in this time of disorderly transition when there was often chaos on the streets, and much talk of a violent backlash from the extreme right.

As he was being wheeled down to breakfast, a black bodyguard on each side, he saw standing at the end of the corridor, a white soldier with a Kalashnikov sub-machine gun. Everyone, including Huddleston, tensed.

As they came up to him, the soldier said: “I would like to touch the Bishop” whom he had seen on television the previous day.

He went on: “I am an Afrikaaner and I represent my people. I am also a Dutch Reformed minister, and I represent my church. I want to say on their behalf how deeply sorry I am for the terrible things we have done to the black people of this country.”

Trevor replied: “This is now the new South Africa and we must put the past firmly behind us and learn to forget.”

“That isn’t good enough,” said the soldier. “There is need for penitence.”

Then putting his gun down and kneeling on the floor, removing his cap, he asked Bishop Trevor to bless him. Trevor said afterwards that he was so near to tears that he could hardly speak.

Image: Bishop Trevor Huddleston and President Nelson Mandela.

Eden Garden: Beauty Rising From the Rubbish Heap

When I was at secondary school in Auckland, New Zealand, I wrote a geography essay on the topic, “That Auckland is a city of volcanic cones joined together by a sewerage system. Discuss.” I have neither any recollection of what I wrote nor any idea of my argument but it was probably a mountain of crap, like its subject.

I happened to visit one of those volcanic cones recently on the flank of Mt. Eden, a few minutes drive from downtown Auckland.

Some photographs reveal what this area used to be—an abandoned quarry that had not only left an unsightly scar on the mountain but had been used as a rubbish heap.

Today it is called Eden Garden and it is certainly one of Auckland’s best-kept secrets. It has become a modern Garden of Eden containing waterfalls, trees, shrubs and flowers. Such is its horticultural richness (it contains one of the biggest collections of camellias in the southern hemisphere) that this garden is listed by the NZ Gardens Trust as a ‘Garden of Regional Significance’.

From a depressing, disused quarry that stood as tribute to humanity’s vandalism and waste, to a place of beauty, growth, tranquility and healing. No wonder people choose to bury the ashes of their loved ones in these gardens that witness to the amazing transformation of the dead. It is no surprise that people visit these gardens in their droves to drink a cappuccino while watching tuis (NZ native bird) feeding from the Taiwanese Prunus. People drop in after work to listen to musicians playing their violins and flutes against the backdrop of the rhododendrons. Counselors sometimes meet their clients in the outside or inside café, surrounded by so much life, healing, change and promise.

The simple plaque on the gate belies the enormous work of an army of volunteers:

“In 1964 Sir Frank and Lady Mappin gave an abandoned quarry to the nation. Thanks to the vision of a small group of enthusiasts this quarry became today’s Eden Garden. They looked on a wilderness and dreamed of a garden.”

Dr. Geoff Pound

Image: Front Gate to the Eden Garden.

Chinese Say Listening Involves the Whole Person

Man Keung Ho, in Building a Successful Intermarriage, makes use of the Chinese word ting (listen) to explain the complexity.

Ting (pictured) is a composite of four vital parts: the ear, mind, eye and the heart.

The ear is necessary for hearing the words spoken;
The eye, for seeing the message conveyed by the body;
The mind, for interpreting the meaning of what has been seen and heard;
And the heart, for being able to feel what is wanted and needed from the relationship.

Sources:
Man Keung Ho, Building a Successful Intermarriage between Religions, Social Classes, Ethnic Groups or Races (St. Meinrad, IN:St. Meinrad Archabbey, 1984), 98.

This commentary and retelling is found in:
Dugan Romano, Intercultural Marriage: promises and Pitfalls (London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2nd Edition, 2001), 132-133.

Dr. Geoff Pound

Image: Ting (Listen).

Australia Says Sorry

The Australian government made an historic apology this week (13 February 2008), spoken in parliament by the new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.

He said the difficult but healing word ‘sorry’ that started the nation on a new journey toward the future. The Prime Minister continued:

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal
partners, with equal opportunities.

Source: ‘Reconcile’, where you can see and hear the speech of apology to the indigenous people of Australia and look at what it might mean to make another step.

Dr. Geoff Pound

Image: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd giving the speech of apology.

NZ’s Oldest Immigrant Gives Advice on Adventuring

A 102-year-old Briton, Eric King-Turner arrived on the Saga Rose cruise ship in Wellington today, to a media frenzy after spending the five-week trip out here being treated like a celebrity.

Mr King-Turner is New Zealand's oldest immigrant.

He left his home near Southampton to move across the world to be with his New Zealand-born wife Doris, 89, who has lived in Britain since the couple married over 12 years ago.

Mr King-Turner enjoys fishing and cricket, has a great interest in learning and fits in anywhere, his step-daughter said.

Before he left Britain Mr King-Turner told the Daily Mail newspaper: "I'm an Englishman through and through and there will be things I miss such as my friends but New Zealanders are very easy to get on with," he said.

"It's a wonderful new adventure and I would say to anyone that if you want to do something you should do it straight away while you can. What's important is that when I'm 105 I don't want to be thinking `I wish I had moved to the other side of the world when I was 102'."

He advised people never to say, ‘I’m too old for that.’ If you do that, it will be the end of you.

Source: ‘New Zealand’s Oldest immigrant Arrives in Wellington’, New Zealand Herald, 13 February 2008 and CNN International News, 13 February 2008.

Image: “Eric King-Turner arrived on the Saga Rose cruise ship…”

Mahatma Gandhi: the Most Creative Experiences of His Life

Once when Mahatma Gandhi was twenty-four years old he was working as an attorney in South Africa. He boarded an overnight train with a first-class ticket. At Maritzburg a white man got on, looked at Gandhi, and went to get two railroad officers. When they tried to get him to leave the first-class compartment, he showed them his ticket and refused to move. Gandhi was thrown off the train onto the station platform at the next stop.

Years later Dr. John R. Mott, an American missionary in India, asked Mahatma Gandhi what had been the most creative experiences in his life. And Gandhi told him about the experience at Maritzburg. For here it was that the mild little Indian’s life was redirected to fight the ugliness of color prejudice with the most unusual weapons in his history: love and non-violent resistance.

Source: Louis Fischer (paraphrased), Gandhi, His Life and Message for the World (Mentor: New York, 1954, 1982).

Image: Mahatma Gandhi.

Sir Edmund Hillary on ‘The Most Rewarding Moments’

Sir Edmund Hillary (1919-2008), who recently died in New Zealand, wrote these thoughts about the great moments of his life:

“For me, the most rewarding moments have not always been the great moments, for what can surpass a tear on your departure, joy on your return, and a trusting hand in yours?”

Source: New Zealand Herald, Section C, p1, 12 January 2008 and originally found in Edmund Hillary, Nothing Venture, Nothing Win, 1975.

Dr. Geoff Pound

Image: Edmund Hillary.

Steve Martin: Weeping for the Lost Years

In a recent posting from Delancey Place.Com this compelling excerpt appears in which Steve Martin writes of his strained relationship with his father:

"My father died in 1997 at age eighty-three, and afterwards his friends told me how much they loved him. They told me how enjoyable he was, how outgoing he was, how funny and caring he was. I was surprised by these descriptions, because the number of funny or caring words that had passed between my father and me was few. ... When I was seven or eight years old, he suggested we play catch in the front yard. This offer to spend time together was so rare that I was confused about what I was supposed to do. We tossed the ball back and forth with cheerless formality....

"My father was not impressed [with my comedy act]. After my first appearance on Saturday Night Live, he wrote a bad review of me in his newsletter for the Newport Beach Association of Realtors, of which he was president: 'His performance did nothing to further his career.' ... I believe my father didn't like what I was doing in my work and was embarrassed by it. Perhaps he thought his friends were embarrassed by it, too, and the review was to indicate that he was not sanctioning this new comedy.

Later, he gave an interview in a newspaper in which he said, 'I think Saturday Night Live is the most horrible thing on television.'... As my career progressed ... I did [something that] still makes sense to me: I never discussed my work with him again…

"[Years later, just before my father's death] I was alone with him in his bedroom; his mind was alert but his body was failing. He said, almost buoyantly, 'I'm ready now.' I sat on the edge of the bed, and a silence fell over us. Then he said, 'I wish I could cry, I wish I could cry.'

"At first I took this as a comment on his condition but am forever thankful that I pushed on. 'What do you want to cry about?' I said.

"'For all the love I received but couldn't return.'

"I felt a chill of familiarity.

"There was another lengthy silence as we looked into each other's eyes. At last he said, 'You did everything I wanted to do.'

"'I did it for you,' I said. Then we wept for the lost years. I was glad I didn't say the more complicated truth: 'I did it because of you.'"

Source: Steve Martin, Born Standing Up, Scribner, Copyright 2007 by 40 Share Productions, Inc., pp. 19, 171, 197.

Image: Steve Martin.

Blind Singers of Nagpur: Truth in Music

In his memoir of his time running a free medical clinic in one of India’s largest slums, Gregory Roberts recalls the time he first heard the Blind Singers of Nagpur. Stumbling upon a late-closing nightspot on the outskirts of Bombay, he heard a choir of angelic voices singing in Urdu. He describes it this way:

"A gradual silence settled in the room, and then all of a sudden three men began
to sing in powerful, thrilling voices. It was a luscious sound—a layered
gorgeous music of passionate intensity. The men weren’t just singing, they
were crying and wailing in song. Real tears ran from their closed eyes and
dripped onto the chests. I was elated listening to it; and yet somehow I
felt ashamed. It was as if the singers had taken me into their deepest and
most intimate love and sorrow.”

Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram (Melbourne: Scribe Publishing, 2003).

Roberts then retells their sad story. While performing in a remote village, the traveling singers were caught up in a tribal battle and captured by marauding bandits. Along with twenty members of the village, they were captured, tortured, and had their eyes put out with bamboo rods.

Now they travel around India singing Urdu worship songs in nightclubs and cafes. Their effect is mesmerizing. While listening to their breathtaking performances Roberts remembers a local philosopher leaning out and whispering in his ear, “The truth is found more often in music than it is in books of philosophy.”

Source: Michael Frost, Exiles (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006), 22-23.

Dr. Geoff Pound.

Shaikh Mohammad: A Rare Brand of Leadership

Check out the Experiencing the Emirates site to read the stories about the Shaikh of Dubai and his effective style of leadership.

Dr. Geoff Pound

Image: Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

The Challenge of Drowned Hens

A man lived in a very comfortable house, with a large, light, airy cellar. The river ran near by.

One day the river overflowed, the cellar was flooded, and all the hens that he kept in it were drowned.

The next day he went off to see the landlord.

‘I have come,’ he said ‘to give you notice. I wish to leave the house.’

‘How is that?’ asked the astonished landlord. ‘I thought you liked it so much. It is a very comfortable, well-built house, and cheap.’

‘Oh, yes,’ the tenant replied, ‘but the river has overflowed into my cellar, and all my hens are drowned.’

‘Oh, don't let that make you give up the house,’ the landlord reasoned; ‘try ducks!’

F W Boreham unfolds some of the issues of this story in his essay, recognizing the fine art of putting up with nasty things but encouraging the creative juices to flow to see if there is a better way to be living under difficult circumstances.

F W Boreham, ‘Landlord and Tenant’, Mushrooms on the Moor (London: Charles H Kelly, 1915), 52-53.

Check out further stories from master storyteller, F W Boreham at:

The Official F W Boreham Blogspot.

Children Say Combating Inner-City Isolation is a Piece of Cake

Friendship difficult in Apartment Towers
The Melbourne Age has recently run a story on how two children have made a big difference to the people who live in their apartment tower in inner-city Melbourne.

Reporter Winston Tan says: “It isn't easy making friends when you're the only children in a big city apartment block. But that didn't stopped Ali and Nathaniel Holt reaching out to the neighbours in their Little Lonsdale Street block.”

Along with their father, Simon, the kids came up with a plan to break the ice with other residents of the block. "We started to make cookies — we had heaps of fun and got to know people after we did," Nathaniel, 10, said.

With a little help from their parents, Ali and Nathaniel made more than 350 chocolate chip cookies for the building's 130 apartments.

"It took us a couple of days to do everything," Ali, 12, said.

"We made three small cookies for each apartment, so it took us about a full day to get them all cooked.

"Dad helped us wrap them up in cellophane, but we cooked them ourselves."

While there are an increasing number of very young children and teenagers calling the CBD home, Ali and Nathaniel's mother, Brenda, said it had been difficult with no other school-aged children in the building.

Combating Isolation One Cookie at a Time
But the feeling of isolation has now changed for the Holt children. "Since we did the cookie thing, it is amazing how much people look at us and talk to us … that's the best thing to come out of it," Ms Holt said.

The chairman of the apartment block's body corporate, Michael Vukelic, helped the children deliver the cookies to each apartment.

"They were really excited about doing something for everyone in the building," he said. "They carried a whole basketful and had a lovely card and hung it up on the door knobs."

Mr Vukelic said Ali and Nathaniel had brought a "community feel" to the building, showing that city living was no longer just about single people.

The Holts have received gifts and cards of thanks and now know their neighbours much better.

The full article can be found at this link:
Winston Tan, ‘CBD Kids Find Mixing it with the Neighbours a Treat for All’, Melbourne Age, 30 December 2007.

Image: Ali and Nathaniel Holt cooking up a storm.

Every Day is a Blessing

Newsweek recently ran a story about Thomas Garber who got a blood clot that left him paralyzed from the chest down. He thought about giving up.

Garber describes how it happened, how he responded to it, how he had to learn to do everything again and most importantly, how he developed a new approach to life itself.

Thomas Garber says, “I have learned that every day is a blessing.”

For the full story follow this link:

Thomas Garber, ‘Living Without My Legs’, Newsweek, 14 December 2007.

Image: Thomas Garber and friend.

Making Decisions in the New Year

There is something about this time of the year that evokes dismay at some of our past habits, resolve to do some things new and an exploration of future directions.

One of my favourite books is the one written by John Birmingham for children—Would you Rather?

Here are some of his questions:

“Would you rather your house was surrounded by snow or a jungle?”
“Would you rather an elephant drank your bath water or a hippo slept in your bed?”
“Would you rather be covered all over with jam or be pulled through the mud by a dog?”
“Would you rather have supper in a castle or tea on the river?”
“Would you rather be made to eat spider stew or drink snail cordial?”
“Would you rather jump in a thorn bush for $5 or swallow a dead frog for $20?”
“Would you rather play the drums or blow the trumpet?”
“Would you rather be crushed by a snake or sat upon by a rhinoceros?”

These are all fun questions but they remind us of how difficult some life decisions really are.

It is because of this that I wrote the book ‘Making Life Decisions’. It is not a quick fix book that will help you to resolve your 2008 directions on the first day or week but it outlines a process for you to do the important work of discernment.

The book is available online at this link: Making Life Decisions.

You can work through it on your own, with somebody else (even if they are on the other side of the planet) and with a group—group studies are provided.

Dr. Geoff Pound

Image: “New Year…time to explore new directions.”

Storytelling and the Rule of Three

Brian Clark asks in his blog article:

Have you ever wondered:

* What the three little pigs, the three blind mice, Goldilocks and the three bears, the Three Musketeers, the three wise men and the Three Stooges have in common?

* Why the three-act structure is the dominant approach to screenwriting in Hollywood?

* Why three bullet points are more effective than two or four?

The Rule of Three works in stories due to the presence of the concise, memorable patterns…. But even if that wasn’t the case, the number three has been used so widely throughout some of the most memorable works from our childhood, it’s likely that we are preconditioned to respond favorably to elements grouped in threes.

You see the Rule of Three used all the time across diverse areas of life. Why?
Because information presented in groups of three sticks in our heads better than other clusters of items. For example:

“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”

“Government of the people, by the people, for the people”

“Friends, Romans, Countrymen”

Check out the rest of this interesting article and all the other useful tips on Brian Clark’s blog site, Copyblogger.

Dr. Geoff Pound

Image: The Three Amigos

Stories at Old Year and New Year

I have gone through the archives of Stories for Speakers and Writers and culled out any stories that I think could be useful for reflection or for speaking about this time of Old Year and New Year:

Remembering the Future
Tiger Woods on the Joy of Shaping Lives
Give Me Another Chance
Present Moments
Don’t Let the Past Imprison you in the Present
Eternity at Midnight
The Power that Brings Hope
Facing our Wolves
Four-Legged Guide
Open to Wonder
This is a Better World
Knowing where you are going
The Adventurer Spirit
Starting Over
Why Not the Best?
Life is Gift
All-Encompassing Gratitude
Protesting Against Boredom
Dig Yourself Some Memory Holes
Engaging Life Fully
Forgetting the Point
The Answer is in our Hands
If I Had My Life Over Again
The Most Memorable Graduation Speech
Pace of Life
Never ending Story
Asking Questions
I Want Real Human Moments
Getting Use to Being Alive
Teaching People How to Live
The River Has its Bend
Blessing Your Coming and Your Going
Imagining Peace Together
From Bethlehem to Bedlam
Dreaming and Living
Everybody Can Be Great
Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution
Changes We’ve Survived
I Shall be Ready
Hearing the Story for the First Time
Where are you Looking?
Cricket for Eternity
Turning Frustrations into Fortunes
The Business of Being Human
Larry King on the Future
Rose Gilbert: ‘You Either Live Living or You Live Dying’
How to Kick the ‘If Only’ Habit
How Big is Your Vision?
The BBC’s Formula for Happiness
Experiencing Afresh the Joys of Living
Dealing With Day-To-Day Living
Eluding Death the Business of Life
He Will Never Amount to Anything
Living in the Present?—Impossible!
Deciding Not to be Hostage to Hostility
Time Yawned
Sir Edmund Hillary on His Most Worthwhile Things in Life
Groucho Marx on the Subject of Age
Andre Agassi: What’s Better than Tennis
Time Like a Piano Accordion
Why Whiling Away Your Life is So Important
Do You Really Love Your Job?
Make it a Good New Year by Living in the Present

A happy new year to you all!

Dr Geoff Pound

Image: Happy New Year!

World Café: A Creative Process for Telling Stories for Change

Introduction
This is an edited version of an article by Jay Cross entitled ‘Conversations’. He writes about conversation, stories, the World Café and his experience of using this process to revolutionize education in the United Arab Emirates.

Conversations
Conversation has magic to it. Dialogue is the most powerful learning technology on earth. Conversations are the stem cells of learning, for they both create and transmit knowledge. Frequent and open conversation increases innovation and learning. Schooling planted a false notion in our heads that real learning is something you do on your own. In fact, we all learn things from other people. People love to talk. Bringing them together brings excitement.

Stories
Stories are an element of conversation (so long as you don't repeat them word for word). They communicate patterns and give meaning to experience. They are important because we know more than we can tell. They also hold communities together. They are the buzz of the beehive.

World Café
The best approach I have seen for creating value from people's collective intelligence and igniting innovation is the World Cafe.

The World Cafe is a process for fostering conversations that matter. If conversation is the way people create value and innovate in organizations, it is worthwhile to host the best conversations we can.

People spend most of their time at work or at home. Work is a demanding, pressure-packed, rats-in-the-maze race with the clock to get the job done. Home is a comfortable, private space for sharing time with family and individual interests. Neither work nor home, a World Cafe is a neutral spot where people come together to offer hospitality, enjoy comradeship, welcome diverse perspectives, and have meaningful conversations.

First Experience of World Cafe
My first experience with the World Cafe was a meeting of 30 people convened by Brook Manville, McKinsey's first director of knowledge management and later chief Darning officer at Saba, to pin down the meaning and utility of the term 'human capital.' After a morning of thrashing through whether human capital implied that people were property and other cerebral issues, Eric Vogt, the founder of Communispace Corporation, proposed that instead of the usual call to break into small groups, discuss, and then reconvene to talk what we'd talked about, perhaps we should have a World Cafe session.

We covered each of four tables with flip chart paper, and someone assigned each table a different aspect of human capital to discuss. People talked among themselves for ten minutes, after which everyone but the table "hosts" switched tables. Each host summarized the discussion thus far, referring to scribbles and diagrams left over from the previous crowd. The groups continued contributing to the conversations, by now searching for patterns and linkages. We rotated once more and then described the fresh insights we had gained.

Since then I have teamed from World Cafe sessions, with executives and with close friends. Inevitably, I left with new approaches that I would not have come up with on my own.

Origins of World Cafe
The World Cafe started in 1995, when organization development consultants Juanita Brown and David Isaacs were getting ready to host the second day of a discussion with two dozen visitors at their house on the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais in Mill Valley, California. Rain was pouring down. While Juanita prepared breakfast and coffee, David arranged TV tables around the living room. A pal said it was beginning to look like a cafe, but they needed tablecloths; sheets from a flip chart sufficed to cover each table. The friend put a "Cafe" sign on the front door.

Conversation began spontaneously, and people began to draw on the cafe "tablecloths." Excitement built. Someone suggested switching tables to find out what the others were talking about. The energy level rose. After three rounds of conversation, the group shared their drawings and realized they had tapped into their collective intelligence. The World Cafe was born. It works. But was it appropriate for exploring opportunities to revolutionize education in the UAE?

Brown and Isaacs recently published a wonderful book, ‘The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter’. When you decide to host your own cafes, buy the book. For now, I'm going to borrow from it heavily.

The World Cafe technique is best suited for sharing knowledge and stimulating innovative thinking around real-life issues and questions; the UAE situation filled that bill. The cafe is good for conducting an in-depth exploration of key challenges and opportunities, also what we wanted to do. The cafe engages people meeting for the first time in authentic conversation. In the UAE, we had not only strangers, but Emiratis, Italians, Americans, Saudis, Austrians, British, Chinese, and Norwegians, among them government officials, professors, vendors, consultants, and school teachers. There was a fit.

The World Cafe is one of many ways to foster authentic, purposeful conversations. Others are salons, study circles, Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space, strategic dialogues, and wisdom circles. All of these techniques build on similar design principles [Brown & Isaacs, 2005]:

* Set the context. Clarify the purpose and broad parameters within which the dialogue will unfold. Remind participants that they are invited to participate in authentic, active conversation rather than be a passive audience.

* Create hospitable space. Ensure the welcoming environment and psychological safety that nurtures personal comfort and mutual respect. A little music, some posters, and a few flowers always help.

* Explore questions that matter. Focus collective attention on powerful questions that attract collaborative engagement. Be open and non-judgmental, and engage aspirations, not problems. Genuine questions are those we don't have answers for.

* Encourage everyone's contribution. Giving-making your contribution is what brings community alive.

* Cross-pollinate and connect diverse perspectives. Use the living-system dynamics of emergence through intentionally increasing the diversity and density of connections among perspectives while retaining a common focus on core questions.

* Listen together for patterns, insights, and deeper questions. Share attention in ways that nurture coherence of thought without losing individual contributions. Intelligence comes from Latin for "gathering understanding in between." Reflection is the heart of the matter. Leave room between the notes to hear the music of collective wisdom.

* Harvest and share collective discoveries: Make collective knowledge and insight visible and actionable. Use visual memory. Tour the tables.

Experimenting With World Café in the UAE
The day before the eMerging eLearning conference was to begin in 2005, a group of us met in the library of the college where the event would be held. This is not a typical library. There's lots of open space, plenty of sunlight, many tables to sit at, and computers galore. To convert the library into a cafe, we pulled together eight tables and put a flip chart "tablecloth" on each. To make things hospitable, we put flowers on each table. I'd hoped to offer coffee, but the library Starbucks was closed for renovations. I'd also hoped for music to create a mood, but students were studying in other parts of the same large room.

The toughest part of designing an effective World Cafe is figuring out the right question to start things off. You don't want to stifle free thinking or include your own bias. Six of us wrangled over the appropriate conversation for forty-five minutes. Some wanted structure; others wanted free form. Some were concerned with having demonstrable outcomes; others wanted to extract the wisdom of the group, expecting it to be messy. I called for a breather.

We took up the topic of the question again at dinner. Discussion was rich. We were learning about the World Cafe process itself as we noodled on the best catalyst. "How do they become what they want?" "What does the ideal graduate look like?" "If you had a magic wand, what sort of learning experiences would you create?" "If you could build the nation's K-12 system, starting with a blank slate, what would you do?" "What should a graduate be able to do?" "How would you create a way for today's youth to lead more fulfilling lives?" We had our arms around the issues; I suggested we leave the final wording to two of our party, who would be leading the sessions the next day.

After lunch the following day, several dozen people sat down in our cafe. Our moderator explained what we were doing and asked the groups to talk about what questions they would want answers to in creating a better educational structure in the UAE.

My table got off to a roaring start. We wanted to ask about the product, that is, the graduates: What values would they have? What job skills? What life skills? How would they reconcile high hopes and current realities? After ten or fifteen minutes, we rotated to different tables.

Excitement was building. Our session in the library began to capture the energy that Juanita Brown and David Isaacs experienced when rain led to the first World Cafe experience:

The World Cafe reintroduces us to a world we have forgotten. This is a world where people naturally congregate because we want to be together. A world where we enjoy the age-old process of good conversation, where we're not afraid to talk about things that matter most to us. A world where we're not separated, classified, or stereotyped. A world of simply greeting, free from technology and artificiality. A world that constantly surprises us with the wisdom that exists not in any one of us but in all of us. And a world where we learn that the wisdom we need to solve our problems is available when we talk together.

It was my turn to give a presentation downstairs, so I left at this time, re-joining the second cafe right before closing time. I returned to find people suggesting how we might visualize the discussions.

More people came to a follow-up panel session the next day. Dr. Kamali had highlighted the activity in his summary of the day. Conversations at the tables began spontaneously. Our moderator told us what had come the day before and explained that we had put sheets containing graphics picturing the day on three tables: "Today's Challenges," "What We Need to Do," and "Future Goals."

We invited people to take a look and talk about what they'd seen. Then they were to write their own ideas on sticky notes and stick them on the tables. The moderator would call time-out after three minutes. People excitedly flocked to the tables. New ideas were flowing fast and furious. We announced they had another ten minutes.

Beehive, Buzz and Honey
An effective community of practice is like a beehive. It organizes itself, buzzes with activity, and produces honey for the markets.

Conversations take place among people with shared interests, that is, communities.

Source: The entire article can be found at Jay Cross, ‘Conversations’, ed. Tayeb A Kamali, 20: An Anthology Celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary of the Higher Colleges of Technology, United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi: HCT Press, 2007), 103-111.

Image: World Café graphic.

Kent Nerburn on The Value of Travel

Kent Nerburn in his book Letters to My Son writes about the value of travel:

"Because I have traveled, I can see other universes in the eyes of strangers. Because I have traveled, I know what parts of me I cannot deny and what parts of me are simply the choices I make. I know the blessings of my own table and the warmth of my own bed. I know how much of life is pure chance, and how great a gift I have been given simply to be who I am.

"If we don't offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don't lift to the horizon; our ears don't hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting."

Kent Nerburn, Letters to my Son, New World, 1994, pp. 114-115.

Source: Delancey Place which gives a helpful story excerpt to your inbox every day.

Image: “The blessings of my own table.”

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