I ran a
Knowledge Café Debate at the KM Legal UK conference in London a few weeks back.
The debate format is still a bit of an experiment and so I was delighted with the feedback. Carol and Claire my two debaters did a fantastic job!
Many thanks again for your participation in the recent KM Legal UK event.
Please find your speaker feedback below. Overall speaker average was 5.8.
12:15 – David Gurteen, Gurteen Knowledge Community
Carol Aldridge, Burges Salmon
Claire Stripp, Browne Jacobson
Presentation style - 6.4/7
Content - 6.1/7
Comments
- Thought-provoking and stimulated good debate.
- Great, very interactive.
- This was fun – and a good opportunity to share and chat with others.
- Very good; well-structured, good presentations, thought-provoking discussion.
- Excellent presentation/debate style, dynamic. Topic to be discussed could be less determined (i.e. difficult to argue ‘against').
- Loved this session, really effective.
- Another of my favourite sessions, entertaining and genuinely got us talking amongst the room and meeting others.
- Liked the interactivity of the format.
- Really enjoyed this – a bit of fun and meant the audience mixed which was very useful from a networking point of view.
- Very engaging style. Felt having two debaters with opposing views gave the right environment in which to contribute freely. Credit to the debaters too - they were excellent.
But this piece of feedback hit me the most - the debate format seems to help reduce
social silencing.
David's Knowledge Café, rather than just bringing up a topic for discussion, began with a debate.
The two excellent debaters provided polar opposite views on the topic as a starting point for a larger discussion.
These views, I felt, established the environment for the larger discussion – encouraging honest and more provoking conversation than expected.
It effectively gave permission for us all to push the boundaries, and feel safe to do so.
Personally, I felt more confident to offer left-field views to the group than I would have done during a normal conference discussion.
Credit: Andrew Pope, Consulting Partner, Innosis
Andrew, wasn't the only one to comment on this. I am going to experiment more in light of this feedback.
