You are invited to attend a knowledge café as part of a world-wide set of meetings being held in November, coordinated by the Association of Knowledge Work, to explore possible roles for and establishment of a knowledge-based futures centre.

KMLF member Bill Hall has volunteered to help organise this activity.

Details are as follows:

• The East Melbourne Library, 122 George Street, East Melbourne (See map)
• Friday 16 November, from 5:30-8:00 PM

As you may know, AOK is an online community founded in 2000 by Jerry Ash, where a number of KM thought leaders from around the world have been sharing ideas and experiences on the role of knowledge and learning in organisational life.

There is a wave of enthusiasm for reinventing the community as something more than an online forum – where we can use our capabilities and networks to explore some of the larger problems facing our societies and organizations as we move into the future. The proposal is to reshape AOK as a Future Centre, one definition of which is a physical and virtual environment for empowering innovation.

Ron Dvir sees future centres as superior “engines of innovation” in the public as well as the private sector. Together with 10 European organisations, Dvir established a European Commission-funded research consortium, Open Futures, which explores the essence, operating principles and methods of Future Centres. One of the key partners, Hank Kune from the Netherlands, describes FCs as: facilitated working environments which help organisations prepare for the future in a proactive, collaborative and systematic way. They are used to create and apply knowledge, develop practical innovations, bring citizens in closer contact with government and connect end-users with industry.

Edna Pasher (based in Israel) has offered to facilitate an online café in December to develop the vision for the Future Centre and a number of us have volunteered to facilitate face-to-face cafés before then to get the conversations going. Read more about knowledge cafés at the Gurteen slideshow and at World Café.  

Whether you are an active AOK member or not, you are most welcome at the Melbourne café to explore what a global future centre developed by KM activists like yourselves might do and how it might be established. 

Together we will consider questions like:

• What is the most exciting possibility you see for the Future Centre we are inventing together?
• In one year’s time, what would you like it to have achieved?
• What could we do together as a global community that we couldn’t do independently?
• Who would you like to see involved in this Future Centre and how?

Our conversations will be relaxed and informal, and the ideas that emerge will be fed into the wider dialogue. Your participation does not imply any commitment to be involved with further developments although all café participants will be kept informed of progress.

Light refreshments will be available, and gold coin donations would be welcome. Please RSVP to Bill by email at: william-hall -at- bigpond -dot- com.