Fielding Press Publishes "The World Café: Social Innovation in Action", a Comprehensive Guidebook on Collaborative Dialogue

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., June 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Fielding Press is pleased to announce the publication of The World Café: Social Innovation in Action (ISBN: 979-8-9959888-1-6; 325 pages; $34.95), its first monograph published in color. The book is edited by Dr. Katrina Rogers and associate editors Drs. Frederick Steier, Flavio Mesquita da Silva, and Elena I. Nicklasson, and features significant contributions from 20 scholars worldwide.

The World Café: Social Innovation in Action is an in-depth reference work and comprehensive guidebook for organizing and leading World Café encounters, a distinctive dialogic approach that, for more than 30 years, has been employed by tens of thousands of groups globally across corporations, nonprofits, government offices, community organizations, educational institutions, and other settings to help transform how people relate to one another.

World Café methodology, co-founded in 1995 by Fielding Graduate University alum Juanita Brown, PhD, and her spouse, David Isaacs, is an organized conversational process for bringing people together through meaningful conversation, collaborative dialogue, and shared inquiry.

The World Café: Social Innovation in Action showcases this unique methodology through scholarship and case studies. The book's structure itself mirrors the experience of a World Café gathering, with each section intentionally drawing on one of the Café's design principles.

At the heart of the World Café is the belief that meaningful connection is possible, even across deep divides: that when people are invited to collaboratively explore powerful questions, new understanding can emerge. These conversations can lead to varied and rich outcomes, from a way forward for a complex problem, to a deeper understanding of relationships with others, or a new strategy that shapes next steps, or a pathway to healing among diverse groups and cultures.

"We first began experimenting with World Cafés three decades ago in small gatherings of 30 or fewer to huge ones of more than a thousand," says Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline, Founder of the Society for Organizational Learning, and co-founder of MIT's Systems Awareness Lab. "The simplicity and natural intuitiveness of the process became a godsend for meetings that created both substantive spaces for inquiry and connected spaces for deepening relationships. We need both today, more than ever."

Praise for The World Café: Social Innovation in Action

"The editors have brought together an important collection of articles on the World Café—its origin, rationale, development, and practice. It ranges from deeply emotional stories of Cafés in conflict zones via tips on good practice to academic analysis and typologies of World Café. An inspiring read for practitioners and participants alike with valuable insights on the importance of methodological purity and razor-sharp focus on harvesting and artifacts." —Ian Andersen, European Commission Participatory Leadership Adviser (retired).

"This book makes the quieter case our current moment requires—that the knowing-doing gap cannot be closed by more knowledge, but only by a different quality of conversation. Thirty years of practice, across six continents, is gathered here in voices that are grounded, honest, and hopeful for the times we're in." —Otto Scharmer, Author, Theory U; Co-Founder, Presencing Institute; Senior Lecturer, MIT.

"The World Café: Social Innovation in Action captures one of the most effective and humane methods I have seen for fostering meaningful dialogue, shared discovery, and practical results across diverse professional communities. This book will be of great value to both scholars and practitioners who want to engage people thoughtfully, surface important ideas quickly, and turn conversation into lasting impact." —Wit Ostrenko, Former Chairman of the Association of Science Centers, Washington DC

"This is a rich and insightful account of the World Café, from its serendipitous origins to its many uses as a scaffold for collective intelligence, as a cornerstone of community building, and as a vessel for the cross-pollination of ideas and perspectives—all nourished by the transformative power of dialogue." —Laurence Habib, Professor, Oslo Metropolitan University.

The World Café: Social Innovation in Action is available on Amazon.

Available at Amazon USA here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2D9NV68
Available at Amazon Canada here: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0H2D9NV68
Available at Amazon UK here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0H2D9NV68
Available at Amazon Japan here: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0H2D9NV68

SOURCE Fielding Graduate University