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Legal Notice Number of comments: 10
 Chris Macrae , 25-May-2005 
coffehouse challenge cafe
Mr Chris Macrae
About 100 cafes 'challenges' around the UK are being sponsored until end of June by a combination of Starbucks, BBCIcan and the Royal Society of the Arts. Each last for 90 minutes, on a theme that passionately matters to a convenor and the people who come to debate it. see eg
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ican/A3953216
http://www.rsa.org.uk/chc2005/greater_london.asp
The RSA is an extraordinary network/club of people concerned with the connection between business and society/community. Hitherto, a venerable, 250 year old British Institution, itself started in a cafe by William Shipley, RSA is now developing worldwide (I can put people in touch if you or your region may be interested)
Having attended 4 of the cafes, I am hosting one myself to debate whether people wearing the cap as future pensioners take an active a role in demanding investment business with uniquely sustainable long term purpose and human KM as we would or should.
Strong societal belief of this direction precedes strong economy in every history book and place I have read about.
A growing network of us will be helping people discuss and storytell this theme anywhere they wish. So please contact me if interested, and if in London on this date, you'd be most welcome to join in
London
Pensions for people
Starbucks 51 Great Russell Street London WC1
Tuesday 7th June
5.30 p.m.
Contact:
Chris Macrae
wcbn007@easynet.co.uk
Extract from following source
It is not surprising that William Shipley, founder of the Royal Society of Arts, spent much of his time reading and talking in coffee houses. Such places were a lively source of vibrant and democratice debate in 18th Century London.
In 1753, William Shipley, travelled from Northampton to London. The 38 year old's mission was to promote a scheme for encouraging arts, manufactures and commerce by seeking the support of "gentlemen of fortune and taste". Although he was only a provincial drawing master, at the time virtually unknown, he was certain his idea could benefit the whole nation if it could be developed.
Shipley's Society took off after a meeting with his fellow gentlemen activists and his loudest supporters among the nobility - Lords Folkestone and Romney. On 22 March 1754, Shipley met with 10 mena at Rawthmell's Coffee Hosue in Henrietta Street, Convent Garden.
By the mid 18th century, the coffee house was central to London's social life. Splendid coffee houses had sprung up around centres of financial, intellectual and political power, providing an arena in which the capital's cultural life could flourish. Visitors were struck by the sheer number of such places -estimated at over 2000 - and bemused by the extraordinary fondness Londoners had for their three pleasures: coffee, company and conversation.
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Chris Macrae , 14-May-2005
cafe script part 1.2
Mr Chris Macrae
Now, we need to open source the most valuable learning networks so as to avoid Orwellian Big Brothers making learning slaves of us all. This idea virus actually came to me from one of Japan/China’s top experts in KM. There is a whole social ambiance view of KM in Japan that isn’t very easy to search through the word BA; when I worked in Japan in the 80s the key term connecting KM and Leadership Learning Organisation was Hoshin Planning.
As a Scottish Brit, my family and I have through generations been @ the search of how to translate diverse cultural ways of linking meaning through organisations mapped as human relationship systems back into my lazy mother tongue of English. It is not a very good language for sustaining or systemising tacit (emotionally intelligent) constructs, and if possible American and legal Englishes are even sadder in this regard. For example, on key human relationships words, the Japanese often have 10 words where the English (eg love) have one. Of course real cafes enable you as people to translate the living word in the way that computer mediated screens will not.
No wonder London’s value as a collaboration city in world trade has always been correlated with how well the hi-trust promise “ a gentleman’s word is his bond” has been openly actualised and compounded over time. Trust-flow compounds more valuably than any other human proxy including money. Teach your 8 year old that before any other current affairs curriculum if you believe leaders and student can systemise the value of goodwill.
Since 1984 the UK’s senior economist and I have been storytelling preneurial & post-industrial open futures* -open source, open space, open transparent boundaries, open all – we have been advocating learning networks as the high way above zero-sum economics as passionately as anyone. Mapped in terms of how all our productivities can be connected in every more health and wealthy trading patterns. But we have never meant organising around technology alone. To clarify networking economics as a genre means blending both real and virtual ways of spending your time in deepening network relationships around your own deepest competence. Knowledge collaboration cafes provide a way of doing that. Fringe them in every city, community, near wherever summits and large expert meetings meet and maybe 6 billion beings will echo John Lennon’s Imagine sustaining hopes and turning dreams into the realities of 21st localities worldwide.
By all means edit the above “Café Script” to be polite to whomever you are seeking to influence as Dale Carnegie used to say but rehearse those parts of it which you might later be greatest risk of forgetting before trashing them from your brain’s association with true and fair play.
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Chris Macrae , 11-May-2005
2 tacit points
Mr Chris Macrae
Something very tacit that I probably haven't voiced before but that all cafe hosts know:
there is nothing like hosting a cafe for strenghtening your network connections; think of it this way, discovering what people care so much to learn about or serve that they come to a place with their time gives you far more knowledge on what depths of experience they have than reading hourws of virtual threads
this brings us to some hard nosed truths; in metacommunities I see 3 different roles among others -
thise who truy and manage other's conversations - I leave that to others more expert than I
those who are just there, with an aim to help people lay out the cafes and fringes they want to gravitate
those who also cross borders between meta-communities
Probably the skills, behaviours, styles of all 3 of those roles need to be different.
I (or we should you be willing) have been rehearsing this feeling or action learning on how collaboratiion cafes and fringes work on and off the board
on
off
in between
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Chris Macrae , 28-Apr-2005
may update part 2
Mr Chris Macrae
OurIntercity friends also catalogue megatrends in the questions cafe-netizens are most urgently asking and searching fior people to connect in action project franchises. Examples:
1 Who's Sustainably Who? ie Who helps make leaders for global sustainability? 1 |
2 Where to find frames for educational diversity? 1, 2,3,4 |
3 What models of system can scale globally other than corporations? 1 |
4 How do we transparently encourage everyone (1,,2,,3) to experiment with, participate in and share elearning on how to map above zero-sum economics |
5 London is pioneering some of the world's best linked meta-networks -eg the 300 national and 5000 worldwide NGOs of MakePovertyHistory- how can every person who wants to actively link through the world's greatest action projects |
6 How do we transform the world's largest public broadcaster to be fit for 21st C world service and learning-up instead of dumbing down celebrations of humanity |
7 In which contexts - eg World Health Care - have people the world over had enough of the status quo - and how can we link transparently to do and know better |
Inquiries - chris macrae wcbn007@easynet.co.uk |
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Chris Macrae , 28-Apr-2005
May's worldwide update -part 1
Mr Chris Macrae
London (1)is the world's open source franchise centre for the Collaboration Cafe Format, also know in honour of our most active hi-trust network franchiser as SIMPOL CAFE.
The connecting benefit of co-producing this cafe series is to inter-link networks across all the cafes' deepest action learnings ...and these days we're starting to linkin connections around 50 cities
We're interested in sharing practices with any cafe producer, we are helping annual conferences add on Fringe events.
The Learning Network surveys of WCBN ( World Class Business Network) also helps map back some world congresses where our core networks can provide world change scale and open space links. Many collaboration cafe producers have well over 1000 personal permissions to search through in making sure cafes have the best possible mentor cluster acessible by time, place and context, and indirectly belong to networks with reach to dozens of countries and diversities of culture.
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Chris Macrae , 22-Apr-2005
news from a recent open space cafe
Mr Chris Macrae
I have just been privileged to receive these report from one of Club of London's collaboration knowledge cafe members. Maz became inspired to do some value exchanging between his Pakistan friends in England and in Pakistan. Here's part of his updating story:
After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1990, my professional life has been spent in large corporates. The vast majority of my time has been spent on the initiation, design and execution of performance improvement projects seeking to either improve revenues or reduce operating costs. In 2002 I set myself up as an independent management consultant in order to bring myself and my values to bear fully on the work that I do - it has been a roller coaster ride.
From an existential perspective I personally find the 'western life style' lacking in terms of meaning and spiritual filfilment. Through my participation in The Curriculum For Living delivered by Landmark Education, I found the courage to set-up Humanity In Action in 2003.
Humanity In Action is a small charitable organisation - it has no employees, and I pay all of its administrative expenses. As a charity, Humanity In Action is focussed on Education, Healthcare, Poverty and Human Freedom. The best way to give you an idea of what it is to tell you of my latest field trip to Pakistani occupied Kashmir:
1) £5,000 was available to 'invest' in actioning the causes of the Charity;
2) My cousin and I flew to Pakistani - paying all costs out of our own personal pockets, and met various people to determine where to 'invest' the available funds;
3) We saw a primary school that has 128 children and yet not a single toilet for these children to use. We provided £750 for two toilets to be built - we are monitoring progress. We gave £1,000 to a girls college to build a long and tall wall that will prevent land from sliding away - a major problem in the area - that is vital for access to the college. The same college received another £500 to purchase computer books, networking equipment and black and white laser printers.
4) We provided £1,000 to a medical trust (funded by donations) that provides the only 24 hour medical service in Islamgarh - a village. This money has been earmarked specifically for the poor - those earning less than 2,000 rupees a month (roughly £20).
5) We have given £500 pounds to a young school teacher - a female teacher - to use to assist the 'poor' that she is aware of or becomes aware of in Islamgarh
more here
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Chris Macrae , 5-Apr-2005
Sami
Mr Chris Macrae
If you're in London this year and have an hour, let's do your cafe eg around what future innovations are clearest if you are resident in Nordica region
As far as I know Blogwalk and KCC emerged about the same time. Blogwalk (from the one I went to) seems to be a circle for people interested in Blogs and the types of learning flows they report but where identity of being a blogger is the loose network. KCC aims to connnect every network a person uses.
I formally started hosting KCC about a year ago as did a pilot start up team of 6 other Londoners. We pooled our home networks in terms of aiming to find the participants that best matched the table expert guest. We experienced that city and virtual network multiply each other's advantages for any person who sees them that way.
Cities have different advantages in this respect and London wishes to share such findings with other cities. London's particular advantages include:
a lot of expensive conference where we can borrow a star speaker gratis
founded or has very active branch of some of the world's most extraordinary network or virtual communities ranging through http://www.ecademy.com http://www.simpol.org http://www.bethechange.org.uk
Perhaps the most amazing surprise is how network models involving collaborations of hundreds of organisations have reached a tipping point in London:
there's huge learning to be had from the collaboration of www.makepovertyhistory.org - just think of how 300 organisations develop new team processes when committed to joint actions
also: newly compounding associations such as fair trade movements which are changing product categories; large companies that thought they dominated with these advertised brands are in effect missing the tidal wave in every way (so suddenly the internet's sclae which some have written off is coming back to change everything and the dirtier an industry sector's big secrets the more I would take your pensions out of them because transparent networks will change knowledge flows irrevocably)
Incidentally KCC are of course good wherever large people are present at the sanme time; so you can change C of city to C of annual conference. We were specifically modelling this cafe on parallels with Open Space, which my hero Harrison Owen founded 25 years and 50000 stagings ago. A real open space typically lasts 3 days , invites people to one big challenge - if 100 people are there, aims to maximise 100*100 converation flows (where everyone's proposal of an agenda within the overall challenge is equal say 18 hours=11 minutes speaking time each if everyone was on a podium). The KCC cafe has the same invitation process as open space; but is a 9 meet 1 format; which is why we can do it in an hour but still can depend on facilitation expertise if the chief guest doesnt have her own favourite style
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Abdul Samad (Sami) Kazi , 5-Apr-2005
On What, When and Where is the next KCC?
Dr. Abdul Samad (Sami) Kazi
Interesting idea Chris. Was wondering if this has any connection with Blogwalk? In either case, for starters at least, would be nice to take part in a KCC. Any idea as to on what, when and where will the next KCC will be held?
Cheers,
Sami |
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Chris Macrae , 5-Apr-2005
KCC- What, Why, Where
Mr Chris Macrae
A Knowledge Collaboration Cafe (KCC) can be held in a city (home where you live or away while your visiting) or at large conferences where your sort of network is meeting. It takes the form of a roundtable with usually 10 people maximum, with one person moderating a Q & A session on a specified subject that everyone has come to network around. It usually is timetabled for 60 minutes. That's just the tangibles- what is the Community of Producers of KCC learning by experience?
WHAT
1 Does the prospective moderator have a topic she or he openly wants to share so that it sustains a new network or connects existing networks ( or the infrastructures that supprt networks such as cities and savvy conference producers such as those who trust open space)
WHY
2 Why might this be an hour to die for being there? Is there a societal application? Does the convenor want to start a local alumni chapter or other communal practising ceell? Will there be a chance to co-agent each other's work? Is this going to be a meeting of the 10 greatest networkers on the planet relating to a subject that's core to my competence?
WHERE?
3 It seems the where involves a place where a lot of people are naturally congregating. Anyone can find an hour in their diary for the most urgent elarning experience they need if they are already within leg's reach of the place and the time and are in the networks or virtual communities that co-produce the world's most interesting KCC.
So this begs a circle of questions. Good ones may be analagous to those that open space alumni ask when staging 50000 cases so far that are 3-days long not one hour fun. Which virtual communities stage the best KCC? What topics are they going to be on? Will you contribute one of the topics by moderating a cafe- what, why, where? What experiences with linking networks do co-producers of KCC have and what drives them to do the kind of connecting work needed to match the 10 people who turn up?
Now this thread would very much like to hear from anyone who wants to moderate a cafe - tell us the what and why and we can then think about the where. (Or if I havent sufficiently explained how KCC multiplies deep networks- how about asking a caring question?)
Chris KCC co-producer Club of London and InterCities
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