Cliff Penwell – författare

This volume contains abundant evidence of Putting Dialogue to Work in commercial, governmental, and social organisations to the benefit of a wide range of activities like education, health, community welfare and public safety. The 39 Case Studies were considered at the fourth annual conference of the Academy of Professional Dialogue and describe work designed and delivered by 58 authors working across the globe - in the USA, UK, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Argentina, South Africa and Sierra Leone. The pre-written case studies are accompanied by extracts of their conversations with conference participants as well as postscripts with reflections about their ongoing learning from first doing to work to sharing it with professional colleagues at the conference and later reflection.

This inaugural volume records the Gathering of the Field of Professional Dialogue. It acknowledges and celebrates the work of 25 Professional Dialogue Practitioners, and the wide variety of good work they have delivered. Some have been actively developing their Professional Dialogue careers for decades, whilst others add the innovative energy of being relative newcomers. Their combined work has provided a unique service, addressing and resolving fragmented situations in hundreds of organisations and communities in different sectors and countries around the world.

The publication is the first collection of such accounts and thereby provides the first benchmark for the field. It records the stateof Professional Dialogue in 2018, setting a standard that others will emulate and no doubt surpass in the future. The authors had their work considered at the first international conference of the Academy of Professional Dialogue, The World Needs Dialogue! Their papers were written and circulated to participants before the Academy''s inaugural gathering. Extracts from the considerations with participants at the conference are included, along with their subsequently written postscripts.

The Academy continues its steady progress with this volume of working papers that were considered at the second international conference in 2019. The proceeds of the previous year''s inaugural annual conference were subtitled Gathering the Field.

The current volume, Setting the Bearings, demonstrates the Academy''s intention to provide ongoing developmental learning and professional affiliation for those working in this essential discipline. The accounts contained in this publication reveal the recent work of 13 Professional Dialogue Practitioners from Canada, Finland, The Netherlands, Norway, UK and USA. As before, the papers were circulated prior to the conference to replace the typical presentational monologues, which freed up time for dialogues amongst the participants gathered.

Authors were present throughout the full three days of the conference to rub shoulders with the other participants and learn from them too. You will find extracts from these conference sessions following the papers, and postscripts written by the authors to describe their own learning as a result of writing their paper and considering it with experienced colleagues.