MonoLogs, DiaLogs, TriaLogs

Monologues

Monologues are a way to share knowledge or realization which are crystalized enough. They take the form of a snippet of text, all the way to a TED-style presentation or an interactive workshop. The person talks about life, realizations, teaches, or showcases or something known or realized, and deemed relevant to others. Although the topics and context are set, monologues could lead to very diverse conversations and Q&As with multiple peers.

As self-contained sessions, monologues are often audio/video-recorded or transcribed in the forum so that everyone will be able to participate asynchronously.

Dialogues

Monologues are not necessarily the best way to share ideas and knowledge. They do not allow debate, it requires lots of preparation and presentation skills. Furthermore, monologues do not enrich personal relationships, and any gap in the knowledge of the audience will most likely not be addressed during the monologue (eg: “what’s blockchain?”).

The informal setup of dialogues allows the participants to go deep into a personal conversation, and establish trust links between the people. They can speak at any lengths about their lives, their projects and anything else that’s relevant to both of them. Gaps in knowledge are quickly filled by directly addressing each question. Assuming there is enough time to have multiple dialogues with the participants, dialogues enrich intrapersonal relationships and trust between the participants.

The Buddy System can be used to facilitate dialogues between two or more people while performing the same task.

Trialogues

Trialogues are three-way conversations. The dynamics of these conversations are very different from dialogues, as they do not usually allow for deep personal conversations and knowledge sharing. They are, however, very useful for brainstorming (two people discuss a topic, while the third one takes one side or the other, or proposes a new perspective)

Forums Forums are moments and places where an undefined amount of people get together to share what they deem relevant for everyone. Forums can be both synchronous (eg: an announcement after breakfast) or asynchronous (eg: writing an item on the local board or an online forum). The content should be kept as distilled as possible to avoid turning into a monologue or public dialogue/trialogue.

Learnings from monologues, dialogues, and trialogues should be logged in an asynchronous forum (eg: under the DiaLOGs category) so that interested people can learn and participate in the conversation.

#kudos @ome @joshafairhead