Meetup

Facilitation Lab: Introduction to the Knowledge Café

David Gurteen

David Gurteen has been running Knowledge Cafés worldwide for the last 20 years and, more recently, on Zoom.

The Knowledge Café is a conversational process that brings a group of people together to share experiences, learn from each other, build relationships and make a better sense of a rapidly changing, complex, less predictable world to improve decision making, innovation, and how we work together.

The process designed by David is similar to the World Café, with which you may be familiar. It is, however, different in a few significant ways.

David will briefly describe his Café process and the principles underpinning the Café and compare it with the World Café.

You will then have time to discuss the Café concept in small groups, followed by a Q&A.

Date

April 7, 2022

Time

1pm - 3pm CT​

Location

Live Online

This event is happening again!

You should join us on April 4

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What to expect

What to Expect

We offer opportunities for facilitators to gather in a safe judgement-free zone to learn from experts and one another. Our community offers many levels of engagement and exclusive resources for facilitators, whether you are a beginner or a Master Facilitator. Our weekly Facilitation Lab makes up 5 key segments: impromptu networking, our guest facilitator session activity, community critique, a weekly giveaway, & After Hours. Come & network with facilitators from around the globe and expand your facilitator toolbelt from each Lab experience!

What You'll Learn

You have the power as a facilitator to inspire participants to be either in their heads thinking analytically, or in their hearts participating intuitively. You will experience both types of participation invitations. We'll discuss the benefits of each, followed by an understanding of how and when to use them.

How You'll Learn

The workshop will be activity-based with facilitation simulations and collaborative sessions. You’ll recognize, practice, and design your workshops based on key learning experience design principles. We won’t just talk at you — you’ll learn through doing, work with other participants, and get feedback. There will be plenty of time for Q&A, so you can learn in real-time from a master facilitator with tons of experience running hundreds of workshops at some of the world’s largest institutions and enterprises.

Agenda

Impromptu Networking

Engage with everyone in the community during a quick round of introductions to network and begin our time together

Guest Facilitator Session

Experience the lead facilitator's activity & method to engage together as a community.

Rose, Thorn, Bud Critique

Share your feedback as a community and offer expressions of tangible takeaways to our lead facilitator.

After Hours

Stay awhile & chat post-session about your experience in the Lab.

Who Should Attend

Team Managers & Leads

who want to learn more & benefit from the power of facilitation practice

UX Designers

who want to expand their facilitation skillset while gaining inspiration of new approaches

Experienced & New Facilitators

who want to level up their facilitation skills and enhance their facilitation tool belt

Teachers

who want to gain feedback & uncover new resources with forward-thinking activities

Key Takeaways

Understand how the questions you ask direct people to use different parts of their brains

Identify the role of each part of the brain in the workshop experience

Experience the power of three different participation invitations

Share ideas on this strategy with your peers

This event has ended

Interested in hearing when this workshop will occur next?

Hassan Ghiassi

Hassan Ghiassi is the Vice President of Relationships at Voltage Control and has the exciting role of diving deep to truly understand what our partners and facilitators are experiencing and how we can best serve them. Our leadership team is made up of master Facilitators in Design Sprints, Innovation Acceleration, Team Alignment, Meeting Systems, Culture Transitions, and Change Transformations. Motivated by a mission to rid the world of horrible meetings and offer meaningful magical meetings in their place, Voltage Control is calling upon fellow facilitators to transform meeting and innovation culture. From free weekly community meetups to Control the Room–the annual facilitator summit, Voltage Control is building a community of facilitators to change the world. Outside of Voltage Control, I’m also the Founder of Aristotle’s Cafe where our mission is to improve community, state, and national discourse with Facilitation, questions, communication, and empathy..

David Gurteen

David Gurteen is the founder of Gurteen Knowledge and the creator of the Gurteen Knowledge Café.

For the past six years, he has been researching and writing a blook (a website that is a cross between an online book and a blog) on the emerging field of Conversational Leadership, which he feels has the potential to address many of the issues faced by humanity.

Conversational Leadership is about appreciating the transformative power of conversation, practicing leadership, and adopting a conversational approach to the way we work together in a complex world.

His community forums, known as Knowledge Cafés, are David’s means of bringing attention to the global problems we face, encouraging people to take action, and accelerating what he believes to be an emerging second “Age of Reason”.


What People Are Saying

"I always enjoy the opportunity to network with other facilitators in the Facilitation Lab. I've gained so much knowledge from other attendees' insights & experiences each and every week in our community."

Anonymous

Facilitation Lab Attendee

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A key part of our mission is to support diverse facilitators from different methodologies, backgrounds, races, genders, sexual orientations, cultures, and ages. If you are a part of, or serve, a traditionally underrepresented group and feel that this scholarship would allow you to amplify this mission, please apply now.

Photo Disclaimer

Please note that photographs, video & audio recordings will be taken throughout this event. These will be used by Voltage Control for marketing and publicity in our publications, on our website and in social media, or in any third-party publication. Please contact us via email if you have any concerns or if you wish to be exempted from this activity.​

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