euforic blog

Connecting and engaging with research audiences: Oxfam social media mix and strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:44:00 +0000

Earlier in April 2012 the third and last R4D peer exchange meeting took place in DFID. After having discussed issues related to measuring the success in research uptake and understanding audiences behaviours in accessing digital content, this third session looked into how to connect and engage with research audiences. Joel Bassouk, Digital Communications Manager at Oxfam International, presented the great work that his organisation is doing, how they are using social media and the results they are achieving.

Connecting with audiences with social media

View more PowerPoint from Euforic Services

Oxfam social media mix and strategy may be fairly similar to what others are doing but clearly the scale of the results achieved by the organisation is impressive. Some key points and practises are definitely worth mentioning and highlighting.

According to Joel, connecting and engaging with users online means first and foremost to know the audiences you are targeting your communication to. Google Analytics, user surveys and regular content audits are key elements of this process.

Once you have clear who you want to reach, the next step is to create good and engaging content: research reports, articles, policy papers, blogs, press releases, photos, videos, infographics, presentations, case studies, op-eds, interviews - these are all content items that need to be taken in consideration. But equally important, it's to define clear guidelines, workflows and sign-off process that each staff member can easily access through the corporate intranet.

However, it is not enough to have great content if this just sits on a website. Therefore, Joel reminded us how important it is for this content to be findable, searchable and shareable. In Oxfam's experience, as for may other organisation, visits from search engines represent the first source of inbound traffic. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and writing for the web need to be taken seriously if you want make sure Google search works in your favour and not against you.

Additionally, one key element that emerged from Oxfam experience is the need to repackage and cross post content on the different social media channels in use. Oxfam produces a lot of research reports and the digital communication team accompanies these with additional outputs such as infographics and images but also sound bites and 'three things about the report'. These additional outputs are tweeted and posted on the appropriate channels.

But with all the social and digital media available, how do you choose the right mix? According to Joel, there's a clear A-list that forms Oxfam social media portfolio: Facebook, Twitter YouTube and Flickr are clearly the must-have channels. Additionally, Oxfam makes also use of Google+, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Scribd.

Last but not least, RSS feed should not be forgotten - and I cannot agree more with this: as an old colleague of ours used to say, "RSS are really the blood of the social web."

Participative Video & learning participatively

noreply@blogger.com (pete cranston) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 11:07:00 +0000

I spent a week with InsightShare learning how they facilitate participative video projects. The programme itself was a model in participative learning and facilitation. As well as learning a lot about using and editing video films the excellent programme made me reflect as much on participative learning and appraisal as on using video in our work.

InsightShare is an acknowledged leader in this small, specialist but influential field. Over their 15 years they have developed a robust methodology for people with any level of skills, including no previous experience of ICT, to be able to appropriate video story telling. In this context that means finding ways to ensure the people involved in a programme not only know how to use technology but packing a lot into a small number of weeks. For example, understanding and learning tools to develop storylines collaboratively with other people – members of a community or a team – is as important as learning how to use the technology. Transcribing and translating interviews accurately for subtitling is as important as learning to tell stories in images. And, as InsightShare emphasise in their introductory video, "it is about more than video, it is about getting people to unite and plan together to make change in their communities."

The emphasis on collaborative development of the story and the film is one of the things that sets it apart from social reporting and citizen journalism, two developments in which we’ve been very involved. The other touchstone issue is control of the editing process, and the amount of editing that is involved. For the kind of rapid-fire, low tech, mobile phone or digi-camera style approach that we have promoted simple editing packages such as Windows Moviemaker (found on any Windows PC), and iMovie (the Mac default editor), are quick to use for basic web publishing. InsightShare have generally aimed to produce higher quality video, better suited for displaying at conferences or events, or indeed broadcast. That means they use better quality cameras which have connections for external microphones. That opens up the process massively, since shotgun, boom or handheld mikes make possible the development of storylines involving multiple people, groups and locations (though attaching mikes to phones is also possible as I was taught at MobileActive 08) For editing, InsightShare encourage the use of packages such Final Cut Pro (for the Mac) or a package of a similar quality for the PC, starting with software like Sony Vegas going up to the achingly expensive Adobe suite.

InsightShare started before the term citizen journalism appeared, indeed before the mobile-phone explosion, and their approach is based on the idea that good quality video films enable people to tell their own stories effectively. Their innovation was to integrate long-standing good practice in participative facilitation, exemplified in resources such as the excellent Participative Learning and Action publications, with grassroots documentary making. They have developed tools that help people not only take good quality video but to structure stories meaningfully and take control of editing. And they have demonstrated how this can work with the complete range of development actors, as can be seen from the many superb examples on their site.

Participative Video (PV) has its drawbacks and critics, of course. The approach maximises the likelihood that there will be a genuine handover of control from the facilitators to the participants, and that they will have the skills and resources to appropriate the media properly. However, as in all participative processes, external facilitators and projects are presented with a power structure and culture to which they react. Increased ownership and control is at the core of PV but we have to ask by whom and how widely. And PV is a large investment for the institutions and people involved, not only in equipment but in the time involved. InsightShare’s introductory courses range from two to four weeks, and they support the groups they have worked with over a much longer period of time, trying to develop hubs to support programmes in other parts of the world. But sustainability is nonetheless a major issue. Maintenance and replacement of expensive equipment is a standard constraint for any ICT4D project, while the process itself, the collaborative story creation and film development, is a hard ask for small NGOs or busy communities. But then neither of those is a reason not to provide opportunities for people to learn new skills and stretch their understanding of how they can communicate what is important to them.

I am particularly interested in the space between citizen journalism or social reporting and PV. The approach and tools for engaging people in a longer-term, deeper communication or KS process which InsightShare have fire-tested over the years are applicable in a wider set of contexts, using a mix of technologies. That is the area I shall be exploring in a second post. Meanwhile, sit back and enjoy.

How ODI uses digital tools for measuring success in research uptake

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 21:00:00 +0000

A fascinating peer exchange last week in DFID discussed issues (and possible solutions) to the challenges related to monitoring and evaluating research uptake and communication efforts. The session, facilitated by my colleague Pete Cranston, was the first in a series of 3 meetings organised as part of the R4D project, to address different aspects of social media and engagement in and around development research.

The conversation was started by an excellent presentation from ODI’s Nick Scott. Over the past months, Nick has put a lot of effort into looking at how ODI was doing its own M&E of research uptake. As a result, the organisation has adopted a new analytical framework - and a new set of tools to track usage and uptake of their research outputs. The ODI approach and dashboard is well described by Nick in a recent post and presented in the slides below - if you have missed them and are interested in the subject, make sure you have a read both of them.

ODI's M&E approach and dashboard on Prezi

What the ODI’s experience shows is why and how research organisations should escape the “tyranny of downloads”. Downloads and pageviews alone are simply not enough to capture the different ways in which users interacts with the digital content in today’s social web. For example, for ODI a good 10% of their traffic is generated by social media. Tweets, shares, Facebook likes they all add a new layer of information that needs to be taken into account. An efficient use of digital tools can help in capturing much more of this information and do a better job in assessing the uptake and impact of research outputs.

Additionally, even when you are able to track all these elements, you need to make up your mind and decide on which metrics you are actually going to focus. When it comes to Google Analytics for example, ODI focuses on just a couple of the many different things you can track - unique visitors, entry pages, country of origin and a few others. But the choice of metrics and indicators is very much related to the goals you want to achieve, and how the information gathered can be put to use.

But why track stats and pile up information if you can’t make use of it? ODI M&E reports are now more intuitive to read, more colorful and graphic and able to present insights in easy formats. They are shared throughout the organisations in a much more open way. Further, because the different statistics are tracked at the level of the single outputs produced, they provide ODI’s communications team with the evidence to back up what its already known, but not always proved: using a balanced mix of channels and a more comprehensive communication approach creates a positive circle that gives more mileage to the research outputs. ODI researchers are now more inclined to write opinion pieces and blog posts that complement research reports, or to tweet about their new publications.

Finally, looking at the specific technical implementation that ODI has put in place, this seems to be rather advanced and complex. It uses APIs, servers logs and business intelligent applications to combine a set of different statistics into a structured dataset that can be enquired at any given moment though a dashboard interface. This is the result of 6 months of work and quite some investment in time and technology, so it wouldn’t probably be a viable solution smaller organisations. However, as Nick suggests in the video below, there is a huge need of a ‘think tank M&E’ tool that is affordable and allows to track the footprint of research outputs across the social web. Hopefully we won’t have to wait long before such an application is available.

e-Diplomacy: The complexity of influence

noreply@blogger.com (pete cranston) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:47:00 +0000

'Twitter Diplomacy', an article by US NPR (National Public Radio) sparked a flurry of interest on Twitter itself. The original article posed both sides of the case for 'Statecraft 2.0'. It highlighted the view of John Brown, from Georgetown University, that "what's most important about public diplomacy.. is not Facebook to Facebook, but face to face".

However, the article also talked at length about blogging ambassadors such as Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria, who is using Facebook intensively even while he is out of the country, for example posting satellite images of tanks moving on cities in Syria, and ambassador, Michael McFaul in Russia, 'who is using social media to counter what's being said about him in the Russian press'.

Influencing people, their perceptions and their behaviour is the target for all those investing huge resources into social media. Careers, and possibly fortunes, are being carved out in the wake of our mass migration online by pundits and experts mapping our social footprint and telling us how to increase the potency of our media profile.

Facebook rescues the Euro

Unsurprisingly, platforms like Facebook are keen to encourage us to spend even more, in our own interest. Facebook commissioned research from Deloitte - 'Facebook's economic impact on Europe' which claimed that for Europe as a whole, the economic impact of Facebook was an estimated €15bn in revenues, supporting 229,000 jobs. The report was published a day ahead of the annoucement by the European commission of plans for a "comprehensive review" of the EU's 1995 data protection rules "to strengthen online privacy rights" and "boost Europe's digital economy". John Naughton was among many who smelt a rat in the timing, and scorned the disclaimers from Deloitte that they couldn't be held accountable for its accuracy.

Complexity and influence

Ben Ramalingam, a visitng fellow at the UK Overseas Development Institute, does a more thorough debunking of the report and locates his analysis in a wider critique of claims by social media giants to enormous influence. Ramalingam researches and writes on the implications of complexity science for climate change and international development. He quotes approvingly from - and summarises - a piercing analysis by Philip Sheldrake in the Guardian newspaper, illustrating how the ideas and tools of complexity science are abused to lend an air of credibility to claims of social media impact. While not at all denying the power and influence of social media he urges reason and caution:

"Overall, it seems that each of us is more influenced by the 150-odd nearest to us than by the other six or so billion combined. Influence is truly complex. And this is a considerable challenge – and opportunity – to marketing and public relations firms. So far, many have claimed to be able to identify the influentials, get to know them, and influence them. They are effectively claiming to be the influencer of influencers, a sort of influencer-in-chief if you like".

And he urges us to " avoid such simplistic thinking, such hyperbole, and recognise complexity and navigate it appropriately". Diplomats need no introduction to complexity. Perhaps their increasingly wholesale adoption of social media will provide a better opportunity to explore cautiously the subtle interaction of communication and influence.

(Cross-posted from the Diplomacy Foundation website blog. We support Diplo in communication)

User personas and users journeys for website review and design

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:29:00 +0000

In January I had the opportunity to spend three days in the office of our friends and colleagues at CommsConsult to plan the future development of the Research to Action website.

Research to Action was set up in the context of the DFID funded R4D project, managed by CABI with CommsConsult and Euforic Services. It continues what we had started in 2009 with the CommsCorner blog, a simple website to provide examples of good communications practice to support research uptake.

The site has seen its audience steadily increasing over the past months. Some specific contents have proved to be rather engaging for the site readers, being read, shared and commented on several times. The growing number of Twitter followers are helping to establish the site niche, and give the contents produced more mileage through different communities. More important, several guest bloggers have contributed their experiences and cases through the site.

The way the site has developed over the past year, required us to re-look at it, its value proposition, the audiences it intends to speak to and, equally important, the ‘online neighbourhood’ in which it coexist with many other initiatives. Ultimately, we want to redesign the functionality and usability of Research to Action to ensure it provides a useful online space to access resources and commentaries on maximising research uptake and impact.

As Betty Allen explains in her blog post on Research to Action:

We underwent a process of user experience modelling by creating fictional profiles of a group of R2A users. These so-called ‘user personas’ are a well-known method for ensuring that the content of a website meets the needs of those that will be using it. [...]With the user personas we were able to create five different typical user journeys to the R2A site, while taking a step back and approaching the content from different perspectives. This enabled us to truthfully asses whether the content is structured in a clear and beneficial way for our users.”[read on...]

While I enjoyed very much this process and the results it brought in terms of reviewing the site plan and developing update wire frames, I also found it challenging at times. Especially because we were reviewing an existing site. we always had to remind ourselves not too look to much at what we had, but at what we aimed to have. The possibility to look at the uses cases and journey as we progressed in the review helped us to keep the focus on the different audiences the site intends to speak to.

Canute, Plato, Theuth and Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (pete cranston) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:45:00 +0000

This analysis by Portland Communications and the platform Tweetminster gathered data about Africa's use of Twitter. The unsurprising details, such that the continent's richest country, South Africa, is by far its most prodigious producer of tweets, are less significant than the overall trend illustrated by the mapping. Twitter is as useful and important for active users on the least e-connected continent as elsewhere. Usage patterns of any platform tend to adapt to local circumstances. A companion survey of 500 of Africa's most active Twitter users found that the vast majority of those users -- roughly 80 percent -- use the service primarily for communicating with friends. But 68 percent of those polled said they also use Twitter to monitor the news, an interesting finding in a context where media are often highly restricted. The US-based platform dominates local alternatives in most territories with the notable exception of China. But the most significant overall trend is the exponential growth in adoption of this simple, to many baffling, tool, where anyone can make short announcements about anything to a world audience. Twitter has spawned a sub-economy, of tools to make use easier - such as Hootsuite or Tweetdeck - and many others to help understand what it all means - such as free tools like Tweetreach, Klout and a galaxy of subscription services such as Radian 6. And I am only quoting those tools that I have personally used. David Higgersons Social Media Advent calendar has a great round up of useful tools.

I am hesitant to enter a dialogue that starts with Plato and the great God Theuth but in this context I want to comment on the exchange between Jovan Kurbalija and Aldo Moretti on Twitter. Part of me is fascinated by the story that Jovan tells of how he uses twitter and the way that it is becoming integrated into his everyday routine. Part of me is puzzled that there should still be debate about the utility of Twitter, and that it should still be subject of mockery when its global adoption is rising like the tide and many diplomats and MFA are active on the space (see #ediplomacy #digitaldiplomacy).

The mockery of Twitter as trivial misses the point, in my opinion. Jovan mentions tweets that say, "I just left my home" and adds " (who cares?)" The answer is, of course, the people in that person's network. I think neither author gets under the skin of Twitter. It can be used to broadcast, but it is first and foremost a social media. Examples range from the dramatic to the banal: from the brave, Egyptian, dissident blogger in the time of Mubarak who tweeted precisely, 'I just left home' and repeated his progress through the day (he was talking to the people who feared and cared what happened to him) to the myriad of less dramatic examples where daily - hourly - updates serve a social purpose: families, work colleagues, lovers, travellers all use the medium simply to keep in touch. This openness and accessibility is of course why so many are worried about Twitter’s recent moves towards country level blocking. And its social genes are why organisations - including MFA - who don't allocate resources to engaging a community fail in online social spaces. It is also where we find the latest expression of the fuzzy thinking which, in his later blog, Aldo celebrates as one of our essential survival skills as a species.

There is something very powerful about age in this debate. The division between digital natives and migrants can be – and has been – overplayed. But there is more than a grain of truth in the assertion that people who have grown up using digital media take it for granted as an integral part of their daily life. That is a different starting point from those of us who grew up in the pre-Internet era of fixed-line phones and broadcast media monopolies. That doesn’t mean older people can’t become fluent in the new languages and integrated culturally, and indeed change the culture as we join in numbers. But we are startled and disbelieving as a result of the pace and scale of changes, and the sheer innovation of something like a broadcast status message – and who on earth would have known what that meant in the 20^th Century?

But it doesn’t take much reflection to understand why so many are taking to Twitter and other social media like ducks to water. We evolved, from before Teuth and his ilk, in small groupings, hamlets and communities. We are used to phatic and social communication, reassuring us of presence, contact and caring. So why not tweet a picture of a glistening chocolate mousse from a Brussels restaurant? People will know where I am, and tease me in the way that people tease me in the pub. And I know at least one other person – a manager in a large UN agency – who also tweets her puddings! We also spread a lot of news about how technology supports and challenges professionals in development and diplomacy but does it matter if we also stay human?

(Cross-posted from the Diplomacy Foundation website blog. We support Diplo communication)

Is Google doing evil, and does it matter for the development of the Internet?

noreply@blogger.com (pete cranston) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:39:00 +0000

Jaunty young Google’s public mission, ‘Do no Evil’, had a charm that seemed so fresh in the face of technology giants such as Microsoft which had morphed grotesquely into a simulacrum of the IBM whose traditional, monopolistic business model a fresh-faced Gates appeared to challenge in the 1970’s. On the one hand, it is hardly surprising that Google is regularly shown to be as ravenous a hegemonic exploiter of its market dominance as many other capitalist companies. Google plays dirty in Kenya is today’s news, closely following Twitter’s outrage at Google’s apparent skewing of search to favour its own competitor in the social stakes, Google+. These seem part of a pattern, as described by Diplo’s Mary Murphy, in which Google’s skill and pre-eminence in managing search, is in fact altering the very nature of the way that information and knowledge travels. From the zealous free-market right too, there has been a steady stream of criticism for Google’s anti libertarian and monopolistic position, as in 2011's, "Search & Destroy": Why You Can't Trust Google Inc"

On the other hand, in our intricately connected world, management and control of Information and Knowledge is a critical issue, especially in the context of Global Development. In small and developing states, diplomats, academics and, indeed, anyone active on the Internet needs no reminding of the power in Google’s algorithm. Try searching for any development related term – say Banana Leaf Wilt disease – and see how many references on the all important first page come from outside the richer countries in the OECD? The results change to some extent depending on location – as long as you accept Google’s offer to acknowledge location – but this bias to better resourced, longer-established Northern institutions has a profound impact on Development knowledge and policy. Civil servants who advise ministers are as busy as the rest of us and not necessarily more aware of how to combat Google’s bias (through using specialist search engines or custom search). So policy development advances on a narrow, self-reinforcing knowledge base.

More specific to eDiplomacy, try searching for ‘Bahrain latest’. From the UK, as shown opposite, there is one Bahraini source on the first page. What’s a nuisance or disturbing personally, and dysfunctional – at best – in global Development, becomes a significant challenge for MFA and other Government agencies seeking to promote national agendas. At the same time, social media is changing the search agenda, since behaviour on the sites replicates online the standard human pattern that we trust the opinions and advice of those we know more than anonymous sources. The geographical spread of social media is transforming these tools into a global public space. However, as is still being demonstrated in the continuing ferment in the Arabic speaking countries, nations have little control or sometimes influence on the news which spreads across the networks, which of course is then reflected in Google and other search engines.

None of these are particularly new challenges: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has gone from a dark art to a mainstream commercial service, and is well understood within Government technical teams. While the increasing activity on #eDiplomacy and #DigitalDiplomacy within Twitter by MFA staff demonstrates the growing recognition of the need to invest in these channels. However, as in so many things, the resources available in small and developing nations for technical interventions or simple commercial operations, such as buying search terms, is severely limited. And it is no coincidence that it is the larger, better resourced MFA such as in the US, Canada or the UK, that have invested the most in the new digital channels.

And what links this to the power of Google is illustrated in a provocative piece from the always insightful Evgeny Morozow who sees huge risks in the coming together of the globally powerful US digital industries and US digital diplomacy. What is new are signs of a significant backlash, according to Morozow:

Democratic and authoritarian states alike are now seeking "information sovereignty" from American companies, especially those perceived as being in bed with the U.S. government. Internet search, social networking, and even email are increasingly seen as strategic industries that need to be protected from foreign control. Russia is toying with spending $100 million to build a domestic alternative to Google. Iranian authorities are considering a similar idea after banning Gmail last February, and last summer launched their own Facebook clone called Velayatmadaran, named after followers of the velayaat, or supreme leader. Even Turkey, a U.S. ally, has plans to provide a government-run email address to every Turkish citizen to lessen the population's dependence on U.S. providers.

But then today is Friday 13th, in the last year of the Mayan calendar. By this time last year Tunisia's Ben Ali was on the brink of resignation and no-one, least of all the protagonists, expected the upheaval that was to sweep to the East along the North African coast during the next few months. Could this be the year in which the configuration of the Internet's key players changes as dramatically? All we can say for sure is that Google's share price is sliding!

(Cross-posted from the Diplomacy Foundation website blog. We support Diplo communication)

Social media for outreach and engagement. The e-Agriculture platform

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:52:00 +0000

During the KM4Dev meeting held at IFAD in Rome last September, we had the chance to sit with FAO Michael Riggs for an interesting conversation on social media, and what benefits it brings to the e-Agriculture platform.

e-Agriculture is "a global Community of Practice, where people from all over the world exchange information, ideas, and resources related to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for sustainable agriculture and rural development." In this sense, e-Agriculture is essentially a web platform where users can register a profile, or simply browse content without loggin in onto the site.
Michael explains which social media channels they are using and what strategy and purpose each of them respond to. Michael also reflects on the issue of social media engagement and define what this means for the e-Agriculture platform. Further, he touches upon the resources they are investing in these efforts. He concludes with three top tips for effective use of social media:

Make it look human - There needs to be a person behind the accounts and you cannot just feed the different channles in fully automated ways.
Reach out to different communities - Using multiple platforms allows to create awareness of what your are doing to users beyond your website visitors; it also allows to reach different demographics.
Be strategic - It is good to 'play around' with social media tools but eventually you have to strategically look at how they fit into your toolbox, and what they can help you achieve. Specific implementation depends on your context and your objectives.

AgriKnowledge Share Fair 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:50:00 +0000

The second AgriKnowledge Share Fair is about to kick off next week, hosted by IFAD in Rome (from 26 to 29 September).

It's going to be packed: "this four-day event will provide a forum to learn and share knowledge, experience and innovations on emerging trends relating to agriculture, food security, price volatility, climate change, changing demographics and other rural development related issues".

Having participated in two previous Share Fairs, in Rome in 2009 and Addis Ababa last year, I know this is going to be a very exciting gathering, with 160 presenters from across the planet, discussing their experiences and innovative ways to share knowledge in the agricultural and rural development sector - see the final agenda here.

We'll be in Rome for the whole week and we have a very exciting agenda ahead. More importantly, we look forward to meeting old and new friends.

To start with, on Day 0, Monday 26 September, we'll be facilitating several modules on knowledge sharing tools and methods:

Collaborative writing (1100-12:30, room B400)
Microblogging (14:00-1530, room C400)
Video production, storing and sharing (14:00-1530, room C200)
Open space (16:00-1730, room C500)
Dgroups (14:00 to 15:30, room B500)

From Tuesday to Thursday, we will provide support and facilitation to the following sessions:

On 27 September, Dgroups annual members meeting (14:00 room B100);
On 28 September, Sensemaking: The cognitive map of farms - Experiences of sharing agricultural knowledge in Southern Africa (171) (11:00, room C400);
On 29 Septembers, Helping farmers identify fake or genuine agro-inputs using SMS (138) (14:00 room C300)

We'll be also collaborating with the #sfrome social reporting team. We will focus on sourcing and aggregating the content that is produced during the event, so we can deliver it to users into a consolidated information product. Here's the link to the aggregated Share Fair newsfeed and email alerts. You can also take a look at the Netvibes dashboard we've been playing with: it still needs some work but we think it can be useful to keep track of the different "#sfrome" conversations in one single window - feedback and comments are most welcomed!

Finally, the week climaxes - for us at least - with the KM4DEV members meeting!

Follow the event remotely, comment on media and share your reactions with us.

Share Fair news and updates

Cotton Dialogues 2011 - The face-to-face meeting of the Global Organic Cotton Platform

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:06:00 +0000

After having supported the 2009 World Congress on Organic Cotton, we've recently collaborated with Helvetas for social reporting the Cotton Dialogues 2011, held in the context of the 2011 Sustainable Textiles Conference in Barcelona.

The meeting served as an opportunity for the Global Organic Cotton Platform to meet face-to-face and help improve the future sustainability of organic cotton production and trade through dynamic discussion. Three 'roundtable discussions' took place during the day, addressing the key topics: shaping the future of non-GM seed supply; Developing guidelines for responsible business practice and trade; Supporting sustainable growth.

Each session, featuring world experts from a diverse background and different sectors, saw a rich dialogue and constructive ideas to move from discussion to action.

We supported the event through blipping most of the event speakers and facilitators. After each session we shot short, unscripted video interviews capturing first hand ideas and comments from participants. We edited the clips on the spot and shared them with the broader audience on Blip TV and through Twitter. Ultimately the final product is also shared online with the organic cotton community members by archiving it in the platform library.

The following content is available:

Building a social media strategy one block at a time

noreply@blogger.com (Vanessa) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 21:37:00 +0000

A twitter block here and a yammer block there... Photo: flicks-of-micks/flickr

Coming up with a social media strategy for your work can be scary. "Where do I start, and what tools do I use?" are two good questions to start with. It's easy to jump on the bandwagon and set up a Facebook page and twitter account, and quickly get lost in the details of retweets, "likes", and followers. But what about the big picture? Is this helping you reach your goals? And how do you convince your boss that managing social media is time well spent?

After last year's experience, I facilitated again for Euforic Services the second edition of the UNITAR Innovative Collaboration for Development course. Quite a number of participants in the course had gone down a familiar path, experimenting here and there with social media but asking themselves how it all fits together and how to really achieve their goals. Most of them entered the course with specific objectives in mind: promote their charity's work and raise awareness; get a geographically-dispersed team to work together better; build a network for individuals with similar interests and concerns. They were eager to get the answers so that they could get on with their work.

The ICfD course is simply structured: expose participants to an array of social tools for different contexts; learn about the ups and downs of using these tools, and issues around privacy, intellectual property, and incentives; and then challenge them to build a social media strategy that helps them achieve the goals they've identified.

As in any diverse group, there was a range of experiences, and some people may have felt they were going back in time when asked to learn about "what is a blog" and "how does a social networking site work" -- but this was all part of the course's methodical approach. As facilitator, I did my best to guide the discussion to the 'next level' when I noticed that the more advanced participants were staying silent. That's one of the great features of this course - it lets you get as much out of it as you put into it. Some participants asked fantastic questions like "how can multiple collaborators contribute to a youtube channel" (hint: use dropbox) and "how to get everyone on their team on board with the strategy" (hint: focus on leadership buy-in, and make sure that tools are selected based on needs, and don't be too ambitious at first).

Participants were especially interested in the way the course introduces tools according to a context. For example, rather than starting from the tools themselves ("here's how to use twitter") the course starts with "what tool is best for capturing onfield updates?". As eager as you may be to get on with using tools, thinking about context first will save you time and headaches. (By the way the Knowledge Sharing Toolkit also offers a context-based approach - check it out!).

What emerged at the end of the nine weeks was a collection of very solid social media strategies, put together by participants who were eager to learn, ready to experiment, and thinking about the big picture. I'm looking forward to seeing these plans take life!

The next UNITAR ICfD Course runs from 25 July to 23 Sept 2011. CTA will grant a limited number of scholarships, covering the full course fee, exclusively to candidates from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. The application form and procedures are available on the UNITAR website. Registration closes 11 July, so don't miss out!

Social reporting at ABCDE 2011 in Paris

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:22:00 +0000

The 2011 Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) took place in Paris from 30 May to 1 June 2011, co-hosted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, the French Ministry of Economy, Finance , and Industry, and the World Bank.

ABCDE is the world’s best-known conference for the presentation and discussion of new knowledge on development economics. The conference aims at promoting the exchange of ideas among researchers, policymakers, and students interested in development issues. The theme of this year’s conference is Broadening Opportunities for Development and the specific sub-themes are inequity, job creation, youth, social protection and gender equity.

Euforic Service, with GDNet, collaborated to the social reporting of the event, working with colleagues from the OECD and the World Bank to capture the conversations and shared them across the social web.

Tools for 21st Century Diplomats

noreply@blogger.com (pete cranston) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 13:20:00 +0000

Stephano Baldi, Counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Italy to the European Union, has been active in using new Web and eMedia since the Web 2.0 wave gained strength over the past 10 years.

Stephano showed this, his basic e-toolbox.

The tool-kit contains basic, easy to use and manage tools like Wikipedia and Doodle (the free online meeting planner). It also includes tools which, although easy to use, require a little more understanding about how the modern web works.

RSS – the blood circulation system of web 2.0

Stephano himself uses Netvibes to manage the flood of information washing over already busy people in this era of User Generated Content, Citizen Journalism and constant connections. It works in the same way as other aggregation applications such as iGoogle. The key to using Netvibes is understanding that the majority of news and information sites provide a service called RSS, sometimes taken to mean Really Simple Syndication (explained well in this video from the excellent commoncraft site. This service sends updates of new items added to the site to other websites registered to receive these updates. It is one of the key ways that news and information circulates across the web and can be used by individuals to bring together news and services they want to track into a tool like netvibes. The system is straightforward to use, and participants learnt how to set up a netvibes sit in one of the practical sessions at the conference.

However, Stephano is interested in keeping up to date with new technology and has put the time to learning how to integrate them into his daily workflow. But the discussion surfaced one of the key questions from the workshop:21^st Century diplomats can be more efficient and effective through using these tools but it takes time and training to appropriate them, even for those who are interested. What strategies can be used to demonstrate how these tools ultimately save time?

(Cross-posted from the Diplomacy Foundation website. We support Diplo communication)

Social media masterclass @EADI

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:35:00 +0000

On May 12 and 13, 2011, Euforic Services facilitated a social media masterclass organised by EADI in Bonn. This workshop built on previous introductory and basic web2.0 trainings we had co-organized with EADI in 2008 and 2009, as well as on the one day advanced session with the NEDS network in Switzerland in 2010.

The session was designed to be participatory, more of a peer exchange than a formal training. We knew that participants had a lot of experience already in social media, with most of them having using it for several years in their daily lives and work. We wanted to tap into their experiences and make sure they had space to share knowledge amongst themselves as well as hear our ideas.

A pre-workshop survey helped us to assess participants’ level of knowledge and understand more of their expectations. Once we met face to face, we started off with a new (to us) icebreaker, adopting from Beth Kanter the ‘twitter on paper’ exercise.

The main focus of the first day was on what it means to be online today, what has changed in the past two years in terms of the social media toolkit and approaches to using the tools. We brought in examples of how other organisations are leveraging social media to strengthen their online presence, showing which channels they use to communicate and converse online. In particular, we looked at how to set up your social media management centre. We use the term to describe a simple but effective listening dashboard which can be used to tap into conversations on the social web; to select, share and archive relevant content; and to aggregate, curate and republish to reach and engage with your different audiences.

On the second day, we started with a discussion on tools and approaches to measuring online activity, on your website as well as on other social media channels you might use. Among others, we discussed the concept of Crowdmarketeers that our former colleague Chris Addison (now at IFPRI) had presented just one week before during the KM Impact Challenge unConference.

Last but not least, a discussion on social media strategy and policy gave participants all the elements to define their own social media projects. Participants then split into 3 groups and worked on a fictional scenario. Their task was to define a social media strategy to support a specific business process. A plenary discussion of the working groups closed the workshop.

The format, design and content of the workshop worked well. Participants were actively engaged throughout the two days and they all felt they had either learned something new or seen different aspects of using social media that they were not aware of or hadn't paid enough attention to. They all went home with clear, actionable ideas and it will interesting to keep track of how these develop, and what useful lessons can be shared back again with the rest of the group.

From our side, the feedback received was very valuable and we’ll use it in the design of future sessions.

Social reporting at the KM Impact Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Tue, 10 May 2011 18:22:00 +0000

The KM Impact Challenge is a collaborative learning process that has brought together practitioners to describe and share their experiences in assessing their knowledge and learning initiatives. Over 70 practitioners from different fields of expertise attended the unConference that took place in Washington, DC, on May 5 and 6, 2011, to discuss these experiences and debate tools and approaches to measure the impact of KM activities.

Euforic Services worked with GDNet to provide coordination and support for the social reporting during the face-to-face event.

We started with a core team of 3 to 4 social reporters, but soon after the event started, many more joined in the effort by sharing their impressions, particularly via Twitter, and contributing to the digital footprint of the event #tag #kmimpact.

During the two days, we recorded some 30 video interviews with speakers and participants, capturing their stories, impressions and what they had been learning at the event. We also posted several updates on the KMIC blog, featuring some of the stories emerging from the different sessions and embedding videos and presentations shared. Lastly, we produced a daily summary of the highlights from the unConference, aggregating and curating the best of the social content produced by us and others around the event and publishing it online.

You can see more about the event on the KM Impact Challenge blog and read this post from Sophie Alvarez from CIAT where she reflects on the event and share her main takeaways.

You can stay connected with the KM Impact Challenge by joining the online community, conversing on Twitter (#KMImpact) and Facebook, and subscribing to the RSS Feed and email alert.

Social reporting at 2011 ERF Annual Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:20:00 +0000

The Economic Research Forum (ERF) Annual Conference has become a leading platform for the discussion on economic development in the Arab Region. It draws together ERF affiliates, international scholars and guests, all interacting and learning from each other. The 2011 ERF Annual Conference took place in Antalya, Turkey, on 20-22 May 2011. On the agenda, issues such as : “Democracy and Economic Development: the Politics of Policymaking”; “Do Institutional Constraints on Policymakers Work?” and “Political and Economic Transformation.”.

Euforic Services worked with GDNet to support ERF colleagues with the social reporting of the event on the ERF blog and other social media channels.

Social reporting at the Global Development Network conference

noreply@blogger.com (pete cranston) — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 12:05:00 +0000

We have been working with CommsConsult to support GDNet at their 12th Annual Conference in Bogota. Together we provided training for GDNet Awards and Medals Finalists in presentation skills and the use of social media before the event so they were among the contributors to the conference reporting blog.

This followed our collaboration at the AgKnowledge Africa ShareFair in October 2010. We are plan to use that experience to review approaches to evaluating the impact of social reporting at events as well as their longer term impact in supporting communication programmes such as R4D, on which we also collaborate.

Evaluation of AfricaAdapt

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 17:47:00 +0000

"AfricaAdapt is an independent bilingual network (French/English) focused exclusively on Africa. The Network’s aim is to facilitate the flow of climate change adapt
ation knowledge for sustainable livelihoods between researchers, policy makers, civil society organisations and communities who are vulnerable to climate variability and change across the continent." (Source: AfricaAdapt website)

Projects like AfricaAdapt are a crucial means of sharing knowledge and building capacity across complex networks of researchers, policy makers, civil society organisations and communities through an interconnected approach to knowledge sharing.

CommsConsult Ltd and Euforic Services, together with John Rowley, are carrying out an evaluation of AfricaAdapt. The aim of the evaluation is to:

Improve understanding about how knowledge sharing leads to change in the context of climate change adaptation, and identify what the network has contributed to influencing change among boundary partners and beyond;
Evaluate the extent to which the network has achieved its objectives and any reasons why objectives have not been met.
Evaluate the extent to which the AfricaAdapt Network is ‘fit for purpose’ and identify recommendations for improvement going forward.

Amongst the different tools and methodologies chosen to conduct the evaluation, we have launched an online survey that will help us profiling current and potential users of AfricaAdapt, trends in the usage of the AfricaAdapt website, and AfricaAdapt's role in supporting networking and knowledge sharing on climate change adaptation.

If you are familiar with AfricaAdapt, please take a few minutes of your time to fill in this online survey (see also French version here).

Social media masteclass @ NEDS

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 13:28:00 +0000

On 29 November, 2010, we facilitated a one-day masterclass on social media for the NEDS network. The session was organised with our colleagues at EADI and was hosted by the Graduate Institute in Geneva.

The Network of Swiss Development Documentation Centres (NEDS) comprises the 20 most important Swiss development cooperation libraries and documentation centres. It's an informal network. Its members meet twice a year to exchange professional and technical information and look for ways to improve development cooperation documentation. They also organise group trainings and awareness sessions on issues realated to information, knowledge sharing and communication.

All the participants already had a basic knowledge of social media and collaborative tools: what they felt they were missing was a wider perspective and knowledge of what others are doing. They wanted to compare notes and get some guidance in thinking about social media from a more strategic perspective.

A pre-workshop survey helped us in profiling the group, so we could tailor the session as well as try to match objectives and expectations in the limited time available.

In terms of session design, we divided the time available in 2 parts:

The morning session provided users with background information on what social media means for an organisation, explored how you define a social media strategy and shared examples of success stories and case-studies. We then moved onto the tools, and had a conversation about how different tools have been introduced and are used in different organizational contexts, including small non profit organisations, research institutes, academia and international organisations. While we were providing examples of different business process and activities where social media can add value, participants presented their cases and experiences. Together we started surfacing challenges and opportunities that social media brings, in different organisational contexts.

For the second part of the session, we identified different cases, or 'organisational problem examples': participants formed groups around the issue most relevant to them and together defined a social media strategy to tackle these issue. Taking this further, they looked at how to work with social media to reach a specific, defined outcome. The result of the 'think-labs' was then shared back in plenary, for a final round of feedback and discussion.

Even if the time available was limited for such an exercise, having different tables working on pre-defined, fictional but yet realistic scenarios, proved to be very engaging for participants. For us, the design and facilitation of the session was very different from workshops that we have been running for several years as introduction to web2.0 and social media. We'll probably be expanding the programme and developing two day master-classes, to be held in 2011.

The teacher gets schooled in social media for development

noreply@blogger.com (Vanessa) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 12:46:00 +0000

Social media for whom? photo by meaduva

One of the best things about being in a training or facilitation role is the learning experience. In addition to learning new things about the subject at hand, I always learn unexpected things, for example about how people interact with technology.
For the last four weeks I've been facilitating for Euforic Services the UNITAR/FAO Innovative Collaboration for Development course, an online training programme which introduces social media concepts and tools to development professionals. The course is very hands-on, and challenges participants to use tools in a way that's appropriate to their context. I find that selecting the right tool for any context to be the trickiest part of using social media, and can really make or break a communications strategy. Many organisations are responding to this with resources to help guide people through the minefield of tools and approaches; one example is the very helpful Knowledge Sharing Toolkit (a wiki produced by various agricultural and development agencies such as the CGIAR and FAO).
The challenge of helping people choose the right tool is compounded by the fact that participants come from a range of contexts and backgrounds. Most of the participants in my section come from Africa: from Jos, Nigeria and Maseru, Lesotho to El Fasher, Sudan and Creve Cœur, Mauritius (just for example). Cultural differences have not posed a challenge, but rather been the source of interesting insights. The main barrier to overcome in our group's context is the availability of high speed internet varies, and access to a computers with a reliable connection.

...read the full story on Vanessa Meadu's blog

Listening to the Roots - Focus group on indigenous knowledge #SFAddis

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 11:28:00 +0000

What are the areas of integration of indigenous knowledge in different African contexts? How can indigenous knowledge be active content in future farmer's mind and actions? What can we do to conserve indigenous knowledge for its fair, ethical and active use by all? Indigenous knowledge work is scattered and project based: How can we bring it together and permanent?

These were the leading questions that informed the focus group session on indigenous knowledge at the Agknowledge Africa Share Fair.

Convened by Anke Weisheit (Mbarara University, Uganda) and facilitated by Pete Cranston, the session followed the world cafe methodology, with five speakers offering food for thought with short 5 minutes presentations. The majority of the time available was left for participants to discuss around tables and address the leading questions.

Sylvia Nyana from Penn State University presented on the role of libraries as centers for the dissemination of Indigenous Knowledge. In her view, African libraries should be reinvented from the current Western model to better serve the needs of the communities they want to support.

A different experience was shared by Luke Olang from the IGAD Climate Prediction & Applications Centre (ICPAC) in Kenya. In the initiative he presented, he explained how they are trying to compare traditional ways of 'rain making' or rain forecasting with modern science information, and harmonize the two for climate forecast adaptation at the user level.

Anke Weisheit addressed the issue of institutionalizing indigenous knowledge. The model she presented aims contributing to a better awareness and valuation of Indigenous Knowledge Systems with the aim to harness the potential of Indigenous Knowledge for socio-economic and political transformation.

Three other presenters shared their experience on:

Traditional ways and processes that knowledge is created and shared in Africa;
The Mwana Alirenji multimedia community project;
Indigenous knowledge in utilization of local trees shrubs for Sustainable Livestock Production in Central Tanzania.

You can read more about these experiences on the Agknowledge Africa Share Fair wiki.

The discussion from the session will continue online, using a wiki to write a book to be published in open access.

Slow Knowledge and McK snacks at AgKnowledge Africa

noreply@blogger.com (pete cranston) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 13:30:00 +0000

Although a lot of our work in Euforic Services is to do with the use of new media and ICT tools we also get involved in Knowledge Sharing activities, including of course IKMemergent. At the AgKnowledge Africa ShareFair we joined a group of vintage and 'novello' KM4Dev members to organise the face to face Knowledge Sharing stream on the initial training day. As I describe in this post on the IKMemergent Giraffe blog, it was a great opportunity to reflect on how new media tools need to be integrated with more traditional knowledge sharing and communication tools.

Interview with Owen Barder at the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:11:00 +0000

After his inspiring talk during the opening session at the AgKnowledge Shair Fair, Owen Barder took few minutes to sit with us for a 'coffee-blip' - a short video interview over a "bunna", the Ehiopian traditional coffee.

In the interview, Barder he defines development as an "evolutionary process", where we have to "try, fail and learn", a process that begins with variation and then selection."

In this process, we need to have a diversity of ideas and therefore we need to have access to open, free information and knowledge on which we can form our ideas and discuss around issues.

AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair: Training on video sharing

noreply@blogger.com (Pier Andrea Pirani) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 20:15:00 +0000

It has been a busy day today at the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair taking place in sunny Addis Ababa. The event will officially open only tomorrow, but today already more than 180 participants gathered at the ILRI campus to attend the training and learning day 0, or as it has also been dubbed, the "Day Oh, now I now how... !"

The day has been divided in 2 blocks of 8 parallel training session, each focussing on different tools and methods to share information and knowledge, collaborate and co-create content. These sessions covered topics such as working with audio and radio, making the best out of the media, face to face methods for knowledge sharing, working with Mendeley, using Google Geo products and Google Apps, blogging and collaborative writing. The day was then wrapped up by our social media 'elder' Peter Casier who brought all these different tools - and more - together to provide participant with the broad perspective on social media and how they can be applied to support, enable and make our daily work more effective, as individuals or teams - video recordings will follow.

In the context of this training day, I facilitated 2 sessions on video sharing. Both sessions where really well attended: in fact, with around 25 people in each group, at first I wondered how I could manage such numbers, given the fact that I planned for a very hands on training. Eventually, besides some technical problems with participants not having the possibility to install editing software on their machines, it all worked out for the best.

I kept the introduction part at the minimum, just some 20 minutes to provide participants with a quick intro to video sharing, or 'blipping' as we like to call it. We are not professional filmmakers, but we think there's a great value in recoding short video interviews (on 'blips', indeed) during face to face events, to record a meaningful comment, a provocative thought, or an interesting experience. After the intro, participants divided into small groups and went around the campus, interviewing each others. When back in the room, we went through the editing process together, and then each group tried out editing their videos by themselves, adding subtitles, transition effects and music with Movie Maker. Finally, they uploaded thier content on the Share Fair training account in Blip tv. Check out some of their products, and see how far some of them when in just a couple of hours training.

At the end of the session, I did some blipping myself with 3 of the participants, to capture what they have learned, and get some first impression about how they think they could use video sharing in their work.

Event tought quite intense, the training and the all learning day was agreat success. Now waiting for the official opening of AgKnowlege Africa Share Fair tomorrow morning and the rest of the programme of what promises to be a be a great event.

The US State Department and 21st Century Statecraft

noreply@blogger.com (pete cranston) — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 13:16:00 +0000

Hilary Clinton launched the US State Department's 21st Century Statecraft initiative earlier this year, using of course social media to spread the word and engage the different target audiences of Public Diplomacy.

This video clip can be found on the US State site, on YouTube and on Facebook

One of the central themes of this initiative, according to Richard Boly, Director of the Office of eDiplomacy, is that the traditional engagements of public policy - Government to Government, and Government to citizen - can be 'sliced and diced' in myriad ways using social media. Interviewed at the 2010 IFDT conference in Malta, Boly described how he and his colleagues are promoting the value of social media tools as "a natural extension of what we do as diplomats and how it can make us more successful". He stressed the importance of engaging experts outside the specific public diplomacy field and also of trusting the "bright, competent young people" who are employed in Diplomatic Services.

US State Department guidelines for Diplomats using Social Media, are also available on the open web, as are examples of their more experimental work such as using blogtalkradio as a channel

(Cross-posted from the Diplomacy Foundation website blog. We support Diplo communication)