Terra Madre Lessons
What can we learn from trying to get over 5000 people talking about how to change something as big and complex as the world food system? It turns out quite a bit! Here are some take-aways from my week in Turnio, Italy as a moderator for Terra Madre 2006.
- Let people tell their story. The act of speaking truthfully from one’s individual perspective is incredibly powerful both for the speaker and the listeners
- Draw out dialogue with good questions. This requires knowing something about the topic, but more something about good open-ended questions.
- Be prepared. One of the most effective things I did was simply to create a slide that was shown as people walked in that had who was speaking and when.
- Be calm. Managing a conference for 5000 was at times a strain for the organizers of Terra Madre. I worked hard to make my sessions be a serene corner in the event, usually by doing nothing more than assuring that we started and stopped on time and that everyone got a chance to speak. This created a calm in the room that deepened dialogue.
Filed by Joseph McIntyre under Facilitation