Bringing community members together for respectful, inclusive conversations is fundamental to building healthy communities. Conscious community conversations can take the more free-wheeling form of a community salon or the more deliberate and meditative form of a talking council or circle in the spirit of indigenous wisdom traditions. Please visit group wisdom for general group conversation resources on dialogue, council/circle work, nonviolent communication, etc. Below we set out a number of innovative approaches specifically designed to facilitate large, creative, public community conversations.

The World Café (www.theworldcafe.com)

The World Café format brings a large group of people (anywhere from 12 to 1200) together for a conversation around a topic that matters to them. People sit at different tables, with four to five people per table, and, after talking for twenty to forty minutes about the topic, they move to a different table to continue the conversation. Many ideas are thus weaved together in a fascinating web of connection and stimulation. One person from each table usually takes on the role of table host, and stays in one place throughout the event, maintaining the thread of conversation between groups. The final stage involves making the patterns of wholeness visible to the entire group by holding a conversation between the individual tables and the whole group. Since the World Café concept was born in 1995, it has been used by hundreds of thousands of people from governments, corporations, communities, and NGO's in six continents.

The website provides concise guides for hosting World Café events (http://theworldcafe.com/twcrg.html). A more comprehensive description of the method can be found in the book The World Café: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter. Juanita Brown & David Isaacs. 2005. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Commons Café (www.commonway.org)

The Commons Café is an experiment in public dialogue developed by Sharif Abdullah, author of Creating a World That Works for All (1999). Ten people are selected from four very diverse groups (e.g., an inner city church and a golf club) and convened such that one person from each group is at each of ten four-person tables. Each table has cards with questions on them, designed to provoke conversation about topics we normally avoid such as issues concerning race, class, and politics. The atmosphere is informal, like a café, yet participants are encouraged to be mindful of speaking and listening respectfully in a shared search for collective wisdom.

Conversation Café (www.conversationcafe.org)

A Conversation Café is a one and a half hour hosted conversation, held in a public place like a café, where anyone is welcome to join. The host sets some basic guidelines and structures the conversation around several lightly facilitated rounds. The website provides host kits, promotional resources, and guidelines.

Open Space Technology (www.openspaceworld.org)

Open Space technology was created in the mid-80's by organizational consultant Owen Harrison, although he graciously acknowledges that its present form has been collaboratively developed by thousands. In Open Space conferences, participants create and manage their own agenda of parallel working sessions around a central theme of strategic importance, such as: What is the community that all stakeholders can support and work together to create? There are no keynote speakers or pre-arranged presentations. The process is chaotic, highly productive, and fun. It can work with groups of 5 to 2000+ people. It usually results in an exuberant sense of community amongst its participants and incredibly fast and efficient synthesizing of multiple perspectives into a coordinated plan of action that would otherwise normally take months to achieve.

For the definitive manual on the method, see Open Space Technology, A User's Guide. Harrison Owen, 1997. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Future Search (www.futuresearch.net)

Future search is a planning meeting that helps people transform their capability for action very quickly. It brings together 60 to 80 people in one room or hundreds in parallel rooms. Future search brings people from all walks of life into the same conversation - those with resources, expertise, formal authority and need. They meet for 16 hours spread across three days. People tell stories about their past, present and desired future. Through dialogue they discover their common ground. Only then do they make concrete action plans. The cooperative planning that emerges from the meeting tends to last for years.

Future Search has a voluntary world-wide network that offers public, non-profit, and NGO future search processes and training for whatever people can afford.

For a detailed description of the method and its applications, see Future Search: An Action Guide to finding common ground in organizations and communities. Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff. 1995. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.