Gurteen Knowledge Letter: Issue 296 - February 2025

Gurteen Knowledge Letter
Issue 296 – February 2025

I have an online workshop, “How to Design and Host a Gurteen Knowledge Cafe,” coming up on Thursday, February 27, 2025, from 15:00 to 19:00 (London time) via Zoom.

This practical, interactive workshop will teach you how to create open, engaging spaces where ideas are shared freely, barriers come down, and collaboration happens naturally. You’ll learn simple, effective techniques to run your own Knowledge Cafe, encouraging trust and thoughtful dialogue within your organization.

Here’s how one past participant described the experience:

“I recently attended the virtual Knowledge Cafe Workshop. It was one of the most interesting and beneficial virtual sessions I have ever attended. We, as participants, were fully engaged and enthusiastic until the last minute. It was an amazing experience that made me rethink the value of human conversations.”

You’ll leave with a solid understanding of the Cafe process and real-world examples. This workshop is for anyone interested in fostering learning, building connections, and sparking change through meaningful conversation.

Join me online later in the month to explore how meaningful conversation can make a difference. You will find more information and register here.

1. Knowledge Summit 2025 in Dublin
   Trinity College Dublin 23 - 24 June
2. Why History Matters
   Understanding how change shapes our world
3. Bringing My Blook to Life
   Midjourney is my go-to for impasto-style images
4. The Comfort of Being Heard
   The simple joy of sharing without judgment
5. Discovering Deepseek
   A free AI language model with impressive capabilities
6. Chatbots and Critical Thinking
   Insights from a successful knowledge café session
7. Knowledge Cafés on Conversational Leadership
   Interactive sessions to spark dialogue and deepen understanding
8. Help Keep My Work Alive
9. Unsubscribe
10. Gurteen Knowledge Letter

The draft agenda for the Knowledge Summit at Trinity College Dublin this June is now available. John Hovell and I will be facilitating the Knowledge Exchange Pods.

When I was in school, my first four years of history were little more than a chronicle of England's kings and queens, from the Battle of Hastings to the end of the 18th century. Modern history was barely mentioned. I found it dull and uninspiring. But in my fifth year, my "exam year," I had the chance to switch to social and economic history, which focused primarily on the British Industrial Revolution. That I loved.

Over Christmas, I've been reading Yuval Harari's Nexus. Early in the book, he makes an interesting point: history isn't just the study of the past—it's the study of change. Looking back, I think that's why I found social and economic history fascinating. It aligned with my interest in science and technology, their impact on society, and how the modern technological world was born.

History isn't the study of the past; it is the study of change.

History teaches us what remains the same, what changes, and how things change.

Credit: Yuval Noah Harari

I primarily use MidJourney to create images for my blook, achieving a distinctive look by appending "in impasto painting style" to my prompts. You can see all the pictures I've generated and used here.

Occasionally, I experiment with DALLˇE, now integrated into ChatGPT, and I've recently started exploring Google's ImageFX.

However, MidJourney remains my favorite—it consistently produces the best results in the impasto style, a technique I love.

Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.

Credit: Dinah Craik

This quote speaks to the kind of trust and openness that meaningful conversations rely on. It highlights the importance of creating spaces where people feel safe to share their thoughts honestly, knowing they will be heard with understanding and respect.

I have nearly 500 quotations on my blook website; the above quote is one of my favorites. You can register here to receive one or more quotations by email each week.

I recently discovered DeepSeek before it went viral. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a free-to-use AI language model with an interface and functionality that feels quite similar to ChatGPT. I’ve only explored it briefly so far, but it’s impressive in terms of both its responsiveness and the quality of its outputs. It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re interested in AI tools.

You can learn more about it in this Wired article.

My recent online Knowledge Café on How Can Chatbots Aid Critical Thinking? was a great success, with 78 registrations and 52 attendees on the day—a good turnout, as anything over 50% is generally strong in my experience.

If you couldn’t attend but are interested, I asked NotebookLM to create a podcast version of the session from the transcript. You can listen to it here: Knowledge Café Podcast. NotebookLM is an intriguing AI tool. I have written more about it here, including several podcasts that it has generated for me.

You can also download my PowerPoint presentation from my Café here.

Since 2014, I have dedicated myself to developing and spreading the concept of Conversational Leadership. Much of this work has involved writing my blook on the subject and using my blog, knowledge letter, quote of the day, and social media presence to share my ideas and connect with others.

In addition, I have hosted many public Knowledge Cafés and workshops focused on Conversational Leadership over the years, including both open and private events. If you are interested in me facilitating a private Knowledge Café for your organization, club, or network centered around an aspect of Conversational Leadership, see here for more information and a catalog of potential themes.

These interactive Cafés can be held in person or online over Zoom or Teams. Typically, I introduce the theme, pose a question to spark discussion and divide participants into small groups for multiple rounds of conversation, followed by a whole-group dialogue. The goal is to make the experience as conversational and participatory as possible.

However, I'm happy to adapt the format to suit your needs - even running it as a more traditional webinar. I'd love to discuss the benefits of Conversational Leadership and how it can support your organization. If you have any questions, just let me know. I'd also gladly share how this approach can be customized to fit your needs.

Help Keep My Work Alive
For almost 25 years, I’ve been sharing the Gurteen Knowledge Letter each month, and many of you have been reading it for five years or more. My Knowledge Café also reached a milestone, celebrating its 20th anniversary in September 2022.

If my work has made a difference to you, I’d be grateful if you could consider supporting it. A small monthly donation or any one-off contribution would greatly help cover some of my website hosting costs.

Thank you to the 50+ patrons who already support me – your generosity means a lot.

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Gurteen Knowledge Letter

The Gurteen Knowledge Letter is a free monthly email newsletter designed to inspire thinking around Conversational Leadership and Knowledge Management. You can explore the archive of past issues here.

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David Gurteen
Gurteen Knowledge
Fleet, United Kingdom