The authors show, through its structure and form, what it means to open up a collaborative conversation. This chapter developed from a number of conversations that took place at the Fourth International Conference on Value and Virtue in Practice-Based Research, the twin themes of which were 'openness' and 'criticality'. These chance and often fleeting conversations focused on ideas explored in the keynote address that Jon delivered at the conference, but spanned out into a wider discussion of the relevance of those ideas within different areas of professional practice.