How we became who we are…
It all started with the Round Tables in 2002.
Through the hazy confusion that followed 9/11, Karl located a series of people, all of whom - in one way or another - were experts in the field of having conversations when the stakes were high.
He hired La Maison Verte - a big house owned by friends Teddy and Nicola in South West France - and brought together an extraordinary group of people for three days to openly share their approaches to their work. Everyone said yes. Such were the times. And so a Lebanese Peace Negotiator, a Primary School Teacher, a Psychologist, a Cancer Surgeon, an Army Officer, an Advertising Executive and a few more besides, spoke and listened to each other for three days.
“It wasn’t just that I heard others differently,” said one of those around the table, “It was that in their presence, I heard myself differently.”
Everyone went home.
Karl stayed on for a day by himself. And realised that in The Dialogue Project he’d found his thing.
How he was going to make it work, was a whole other question.
In 2005 we were invited (by Tania Harrison) to be part of the very first Latitude Festival.
Not having been part of a big festival before, Karl somewhat naively turned up with a suitcase on wheels, five small iPods and some recorded conversations. ‘The Listening Booth’ had been built; just. In the form of a shed. And on the first morning of a fairly chaotic weekend (it was after all the first Latitude!) no-one really found our hidden location in the woods at first. But then, slowly, people started to appear through the trees. Within a couple of hours they had outgrown the shed and were sitting on blankets and camping stools in the woods, listening to some of the first series of conversations we’d recorded and edited. On the Sunday morning towards the end of our slot, a lean, tall, slightly worse for wear looking guy with black hair almost covering his face appeared. He asked if he could have a listen and - even though we were packing up - of course we said yes, keeping a careful eye on the iPod in case his idea was to nick it. Turned out he was Arts Editor from the Observer. And he gave us an amazing review. And The Dialogue Project had become something more than just a different way of teaching people how to communicate. We’d become a source of inspiration and intrigue to the general public.
And we’d learnt never to judge on appearances.