The fishbowl ex

Pbowl discussion.

Five chairs are placed in an inner circle, in the centre of a room. Those running the discussion occupy these chairs. The audience present forms part of the outer circle. Anyone can choose to enter and leave the discussion, the five chairs, as they please. Once a person leaves the discussion, one of the five chairs is freed up and anyone else from the audience can join in the discussion and sit on the free chair. The discussion is based on questions, answers, debates and all sorts of feedback. These are used for large, participant-driven discussions and events.

Why does online training, that involves discussions, have to be boring? Training sessions that are interactive, include discussions and debates. How is the fishbowl discussion any different? The fishbowl experience serves its purpose in that it is original. This innovative approach to a discussion provides uniqueness and particularity. Why? Since it limits the amount of voices and opinions in the discussion, it avoids having irrelevant input to the discussion.

On a Saturday night in November, instead of watching another movie, like I had done for the previous eight months on Saturday nights, I decided to see what the world was up to. I found myself in a fishbowl discussion going on, on the other side of the Earth.

A heated discussion on a delicate topic was happening, and the organisers of this event decided to approach this discussion by using the fishbowl experience. The ses