worldcafe_europe

Welcome to World Café Europe!

Welcome to the World Café Europe blog, which started as a way to harvest and share our collective experiences, thoughts, and insights from the first World Café Europe gathering, hosted in Dresden 3-5 May, 2007.

Since then, World Café Europe has continued to thrive and this year's World Café Europe Gathering was held in Bilbao, Spain on June 5-7th.

One of the primary design principles of the World Café is to welcome and encourage a diversity of perspectives, so please help make this space a true café expression by adding your voice to the conversation (in whatever language you choose) through the 'comments' link below. Your contribution is very much appreciated.

The Conversation Continues in Bilbao

Inspired by the achievements of the Basque government and a number of the world’s renowned architects,  World Café Europe held its second European Gathering in Bilbao, Spain from June 5 – 7th. The Gathering’s theme “Looking at Renewal with New Eyes: The Bilbao Experience” attracted participants from as far away as Australia, Bolivia and the United States to join in the conversation with citizens from all over Europe.

This year 11 local World Café conversations with representatives from a broad spectrum of sectors from society were held: education, health, business, R&D, business, city and regional development, youth, social services and the arts. Over 770 people from Bilbao and the Basque country participated in these local World Cafés.

Two local World Cafés offer a special insight to the spirit of these conversations with the citizens of the Bilbao and the Basque country: a World Café with the Basque television (EiTB) and another in the Prision Nanclares de Oca.

The topic of corporate social responsibility was the topic for the Basque television’s World Café conversation.  This tri-lingual World Café – Spanish, Basque and English – engaged 120 individuals to reflect upon how the television station could more effectively fulfill its purpose as a supporter of the Basque culture and community. Results of these conversations will serve to inform the EiTB’s strategy for the up-coming years.

The prison of Nanclares de Oca provided a unique setting for a World Café conversation. The director of the prision welcomed the proposal by prision’s psychologist to host a conversation to discuss the topic “Enhancing the atmosphere of the prision environment”.  Over 120 people from in and outside the prision walls - prisioners, guards, administrators, politicians, family members and victims – engaged in a lively dialogue to voice their thoughts and recommendations. The graphic recording for this conversation was a joint collaboration between a current prisioner and a graphic recorder. Both the graphic recording and harvesting of ideas will be used by the prision management to create a better environment for everyone living and working in the prision Nanclares de Oca.

Over 100 participants joined the conversations of the central World Café on the topic of renewal. Using Bilbao as an inspiration, this World Café was designed to inspire renewal in communities, cities, and/or organizations by exploring their unique creative potential.  The questions were aimed to generate energy and “chispa” in the participants for renewal, enable them to “live” renewal on a personal and collective level,  as well as enable them to jointly create new knowledge and know-how to lead the renewal process. The  innovation of a “Walking World Café” made its debut in Bilbao during this central World Café. Based on questions about the renewal process formulated by the participants themselves, the role of innovation, creativity, nature and tradition in Bilbao’s  renewal process were explored by teams of 4 people. The  Guggenheim Bilbao (by the Architect Frank Gehry), the Zubizuri Bridge (by the architect Santiago Calatrava), the park of Doña Casilda and the Palacio Euskalduna (former site of Bilbao’s shipyards) all served as inspiration for these conversations. Jumping into the Cypernetic Fountain in the park added to the joint learning experience for one group!

World Café Europe is thankful to innobasque – The Basque Agency for Innovation - for their sponsorship of this year’s Gathering.

Mark your calendars! Next year’s Gathering will be held in late May 2009 at a location to be announced this fall.

Bilbao Through Ana Cristina's Eyes

Palomilla Ana Cristina Maldonado sent this story about her experiences right after she returned from the 2nd World Café Europe event in Bilbao:

Bilbao was different from Dresden's *POW* of seeing café writ large for the first time, and I have a deeper reflection after having been working on this (the World Café) for a year now - and then renewal in Bilbao. 

The community cafes reached 12,000 people again.  I went to a cafe on gender hosted by an NGO and a cafe at the Universidad de Deusto with 4th year business students (~85 of them, plus ~25 faculty/staff). The conference cafe had about 100 from 15 different countries, many new faces and many returning ones - there was a 10 person crew from Brazil (from a German auto parts factory with factories in Brazil).  The theme was 'renewal' and Bilbao was the perfect space for it.  Highlights include playing in the Guggenheim sculptures with some fellow cafeistas, dinner with Pat and Jeff about their corporate work and perspective on cafe, and talking to Andri and Thomas about the cafe in the prison and especially meeting Donatella and (briefly!) Edgar Gouveia live and in person -- Edgar jumped in and did a closing piece/movement which everyone loved. 

Perhaps my biggest insights/reminders came at the end from my conversations with Tom Hurley and the subsequent Harvesting cafe-- that TWC is a fermenting process, not about instant outputs,with results (many unexpected) that emerge over time and out of everybody's offering.  I needed that reminder to stay in the storm's calm eye, that refresher on how time and even mistakes are fine and part of the process.

un abrazote to y'all!!!

For a photo slideshow

Radio Euskadi

by Jeffrey Beeson

This year was the 25th anniversary of Radio Euskadi – one of the largest radio stations in the Basque country.  They had been wondering how they were going to celebrate such an important anniversary.  The company EiTB – which not only owns Radio Euskadi but also owns 2 Basque television channels - was approached by World Café Europe in November of last year and asked whether they might want to be part of the 2nd World Café Europe Gathering taking place in Bilbao on June 5-7.  EiTB agreed and came to the kick off World Café event in January of this year which included another 12 other local organizations.  They were very favourably impressed by the experience and realized that this could be the type of format to invite the listeners of Radio Euskadi to a celebration of its 25th anniversary.  So the beginnings of the 1000 person Café in front of the Guggenheim were born…

On May 18th, 1000 people sat down at 200 tables to talk about the past, present and future of the Basque country.  Coffee was of course served directly at the tables.  There were 3 rounds of conversation of 30 minutes a piece.  The whole event was televised as well as broadcast live on the radio.  World Café seems to be on the lips of all the citizerns of Bilbao as we approach our gathering on June 5-7.  It was wonderful to see young people, old people, traditional Basque people sitting next to new age people – all having intense and rewarding conversations.  At the end of the event, people did not want to leave and kept conversing at their tables for quite a while longer!  The event was such a success that Radio Euskadi is contemplating doing it again!

Planning Team invites you personally to come to Bilbao in June 2008

See the World Café  in a New Light

You still have the opportunity to join three days of eye-opening World Café conversations during the 2^nd World Café European Gathering from June 5-7, 2008 in Bilbao, Spain!

These World Café conversations will be unlike any you have ever experienced.

Juanita Brown, one of the founders of the World Café, considers World Café Europe’s engagement with an entire city such as Bilbao a significant step in the on-going development of the World Café. 

Both small and large scale World Cafés will inspire you through their creative  approaches to the design and hosting of conversations that matter in all sectors of today’s society.

We would like to extend a very personal invitation to you:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=The+World+Cafe+Europe&search_type=

Take advantage of this unique opportunity to join the dialogue in a city full of world class architecture and Latin joie-de-vivre.

The Planning Team for the 2^nd World Café European Gathering-Bilbao 2008 would be delighted if you would  come and join us.

¡Bienvenidos a Bilbao!

Curious?

Registering and reserving a room is only a click away:

www.theworldcafe-europe.net

Have a question?  

Tel. ++49-89-74 75 39 87

questions@theworldcafe-europe.net