I and my friend Daniel Norman arranged a Green World Café last week at the Red Cross in our town. It was the first in a series of four, with the last one taking place in November at a big sustainable fair in Umeå. We had a great time with every one actively exploring the two questions of the night; they were “what is a sustainable lifestyle?” and “What is our personal responsibility?”. It is all too easy to get paralyzed or passivated concerning environmental issues, believing that it is only experts, politicians and technology that can make a change. No, we can make a change if we are many and if we begin to think together!
What is a World Café, you may ask? It is a way to have conversations in small groups and explore a given theme. It was originally “invented” by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs. They put together a number of proven principles about dialogue, creative thinking, appreciative inquiry and collective intelligence and it has been used successfully, world-wide in different contexts. The conversations in small groups build on each other as people move between groups (tables), ideas are cross-pollinated and people discover new insights into the questions that we choose to discuss. Seeing things from a broader perspective is a key.
We tried to create a relaxed and inviting café-atmosphere. The age-span was wide and we had people from all kinds of backgrounds. It is very exciting to look at diversity as strength. By having these cafés we hope to inspire people and help them to become more active to explore a sustainable lifestyle on their own. I really look forward to the next meeting, Oct 8. We have a swedish site about these meetings. You will find it here.