What makes people walk into a congregation? What motivates
them to rather participate in a session during the time which they would otherwise
be reading the newspaper or catching up with the grapevine? What makes them leave the warmth of their
chairs while sipping a steaming coffee and walking into a room full of
strangers to hear about something which they have no clue about?
Could it be personal enlightenment?
Is it the realization that the need of the hour is to learn
something new, constantly?
These are the questions I ask myself every time at the end of each of our cafes. We borrowed and customized the café concept from Gurteen.
It’s not a lecture and it’s definitely not training. It’s about experts
casually conversing about some areas of their expertise or about the lessons
learnt during a series of projects which they were part of. The experts are more than willing to please
and the participants are always more than what we estimate.
We never send out any
personal invites or meeting requests but the idea is to send open invitations where people feel free to walk into
the venue, pull a chair, hear the expert and by the end of the session share a cup of
coffee with the expert and network. So each time at the beginning of every session, we are nail biting and anticipating whether people will turn up or not and (at least till now) it ends up with all of us running around to arrange for additional chairs. It’s been working out well for us. We have an enthused participation without any compulsion, bonus or relation to KRAs. Perhaps at the end of the
next session, we could interview people and ask them what motivates them to be
there.
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