How to Make the Most of Meeting Time?   2022 Latest Answers  

In 1995, a small group of business and academic leaders started meeting at the home  

of Juanita Brown and David Isaacs in Mill Valley, California. They were planning  

for a morning large-circle dialogue that, though being disrupted by rain, welcomed  

two dozen participants. They spontaneously formed into small, intimate table conversations about the questions that had drawn them together, recording their insights  

on makeshift paper “tablecloths.” They periodically interrupted these conversations  

to switch tables so the insights and ideas that had real power might circulate, deepen,  

and connect. Harvesting the table conversations enabled them to notice the emerging patterns in their thinking, which then enriched subsequent rounds of conversation. Over the course of the morning, the innovative process they improvised gave  

birth to an experience of collective intelligence that transformed the depth, scope,  

and innovative quality of their collaboration. They had discovered the World Café.