Gauri's mumblings..

Best Knowledge Management book for the holidays?

2011-12-29T12:42:00.000+01:00

Recently, @jschunter asked a question on the KM4Dev mailing list on recommendations for KM related books to read during holidays. In the true spirit of knowledge sharing, he received a series of recommendations. I put together a summary of the recommendations for my own benefit but have decided to share it via the blog for others who are not on the list but are interested in KM/Leadership/Change Management. Enjoy!

Recommendations in no specific order:

Everything is Obvious by Duncan Watts
The Strategic Management of Intellectual Capital and Organizational Knowledge (2002) by Choo and Bontis (ed.)
The Way of Knowledge: Managing the Unmanageable. Stowe Boyd 2000.
Implizites Wissen in Organisationen. Konzepte, Methoden und Ansätze im Wissensmanagement. Olaf Katenkamp. VS Verlag, 2011
The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life by Robin Sharma
Squirrel Inc.: A Fable of Leadership through Storytelling by Stephen Denning
Building the Knowledge Management Network, Figallo and Rhine (2002)
Net Work: A Practical Guide to Creating and Sustaining Networks at Work and in the World by Patti Anklam
Overcoming Organizational Defences: Facilitating Organizational Learning by Chris Argyris and Donal Schön
Practical wisdom: the way to do the things the right way by Berry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe
The Power of Positive Deviance: How Unlikely Innovators Solve the World's Toughest Problems by Richard Pascale et. al.
On Organizational Learning 1975 and 1995 by Edgar Schon and Chris Argyris
A Wiki for Business Rules in Open Vocabulary, Executable English, Adrian Walker
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter
Pedagogy of the Oppressed is the most widely known of educator Paulo Freire's works.
Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia - John N. Gray
Anything goes, Paul Karl Feyerabends Argumentation in "Against Method" - Paul Karl Feyerabend
Beyond Knowledge Management: What Every Leader Should Know Jay Liebowitz (2012)
Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society - One of the authors of Peter Senge of The Fifth Discipline.
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath
The Ten Faces of Innovation: strategies for heightening creativity by Tom Kelley with Jonathan Littman

These books were recommended by: Adrian Walker, Boris Jaeger, Charles Dhewa, DaanBoom, George de Gooijer, Jaap Pels, John van Kooy, Malaika Wright, Matt Moore, M Taher, Richard Lalleman, Yaelle Link.

Do you have a favourite KM/Leadership book which has not been mentioned here?

You can be part of the #sfrome social reporting team. Here is how..

2011-09-20T13:24:00.005+02:00

As you may already know, we are counting down days to the Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair which is scheduled to take place at IFAD from 26-29 September. This event, jointly organized by Bioversity International, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and World Food Programme (WFP) brings together colleagues from Rome-based agencies as well as partner organizations to share projects, lessons learned and emerging trends in the areas of food security, price volatility, climate change, ICT4D, social media and green innovations.

The Share Fair promises to deliver a wealth of knowledge featuring over 160 presenters from all over the world who will share their creative and innovative experiences and knowledge. Participants will have an opportunity to learn, share, connect and influence future direction.

We encourage all participants to use social media channels and report live from the event. Here is how you can engage:

Tweet and Retweet content from Share Fair: http://sharefair2009.blogspot.com/search/label/sfrome
Share your own photos and images from the event by joining the Share Fair Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/sharefair09/
Presentations will be shared via: http://www.slideshare.net/sharefair09/
Follow our tweets: http://twitter.com/sharefairs/
Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/sharefairs
Blog from sessions you attend either through your personal blog or by sending your posts to share-fair@cgiar.org

When tweeting, please use the following hashtags:

#sfrome

The organizational tags are:

#ifad – Twitter account @ifadnews
#unfao – Twitter account @faonews
#wfp – Twitter account @wfp
#bioversity

The draft agenda for the event is available from: http://t.co/KYK73dqp

For more information, contact us at share-fair [at] cgiar.org.

Tips and Tricks for working with Wikipedia

2011-08-04T11:55:00.005+02:00

Wikipedia -- the free online multi-lingual collaborative encyclopedia -- is a treasure trove of information about food security, crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries and other " FAO subjects." FAO staff are now being encouraged to edit Wikipedia articles in their areas of technical expertise. To this end, we organized a discussion session on the basics of Wikipedia for which I prepared few "Tips and Tricks" (PDF) on editing and working with Wikipedia. They are based on experiences our team had while organizing the social reporting for the WSFS 2009 as well as those shared by my colleagues Michael Riggs, George Kourous, Mehmet Korkmaz and Alexander Jones.

References:

FAO Web Guidelines on Wikipedia
CGIAR/FAO/UNICEF Knowledge Sharing Toolkit on Wikis
Wikipedia 101 for Brands
What Wikipedia is not
Wikipedia Policies and Guidelines

If you have additional tips please share them here.

Publication compiling case studies of the 2010 Latin American and Caribbean Knowledge Share Fair now online

2011-08-02T12:24:00.000+02:00

This publication, Feria del Conocimiento América Latina y el Caribe: Casos destacados en agricultura, desarrollo y seguridad alimentaria, only available in Spanish, is now available on line. The publication gathers the highlights and conclusions of the Knowledge Share Fair Latin America and Caribbean, held 25-27 May 2010, at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Cali, Colombia.

The main objectives of the Fair were to demonstrate how the active and strategic participation of knowledge improves the effectiveness, efficiency, and impact of any work, while giving participants, some 200 professionals from over 70 organizations and 18 countries, an opportunity to experiment with knowledge sharing tools and methodologies and share and learn good practices. Participants were also able to socialize experiences related to knowledge management in agriculture, development, and food security.

The event, organized by the Information and Communications Technology and Knowledge Management (ICT-KM) Program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), and the Knowledge Management for Development (KM4Dev) community, served to gather experiences related to rural development, mainly agriculture and livestock production, and exemplify what’s happening in terms of knowledge management in Latin America.

Of the numerous case studies presented at the fair, eight related to agriculture, development, and food security—key issues addressed during the event— were selected for inclusion in the publication and serve to illustrate how knowledge-related processes involve complementary technological, technical, and human factors.

Five case studies (Condesan, Prodarnet, Preval, INIA, CIAT) illustrate purely regional experiences while three (CIARD, Vercon, and SGRP) provide an interesting global perspective.
As matter of conclusion, the authors pose the need that knowledge sharing be explicitly used to promote learning between actors. “Knowledge currently plays a key role in many development policies, accompanied by a important effort of the informatics sector and ICTs in general. Nonetheless, the learning and social engineering that accompany knowledge should become the main forces promoting knowledge and innovation, not the contrary, which is what happens nowadays.”
Although the publication is in Spanish, a translation of titles of sections and case studies has been provided.

Click to download:

Complete publication (11 MB)

Individual sections:

Cover
Content
About the Fair (by Simone Staiger-Rivas)
Introduction (by Camilo Villa)

Condesan: E-forums of the Consortium for the Sustainable Development of the Andean Ecoregion: 17 years of learning between people and tools (by Musuq Briceño and Alejandra Visscher)
Prodarnet: Virtual networks for promoting rural agribusinesses in Latin America (by Hernando Riveros and Marvin Blanco)
Preval: Image assessment: A communications proposal for social learning (by Emma Rotondo)
INIA: Participatory research as a knowledge management process (by María Marta Albicette)
CIAT: Innovation facilitators in rural agribusinesses: Market knowledge as a compass for innovation (by Érika Eliana Mosquera and Jhon Jairo Hurtado)
CIARD: From words to action: Information on agricultural research available to the public, fully accessible and applicable (by Nadia Manning-Thomas and Enrica Porcari)
Vercon: Knowledge sharing among agricultural research and extension systems (by Sophie Treinen)
SGRP: Motivating scientists to share knowledge in the Global Public Goods (GPG2) project (by Maria Alejandra Jorge)

Conclusion (by Sebastião Ferreira, Simone Staiger and Camilo Villa)

The Fair’s organizers gratefully acknowledge IICA’s collaboration in the design and layout of the publication.

Registration for Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair, 27 – 29 September 2011 is still open!

2011-08-01T11:47:00.003+02:00

The Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair will be an exciting and “out-of-the-box” event, offering participants creative and innovative learning and sharing opportunities, and equipping them with tools to better influence future rural development activities.

This three-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.

It will feature: talks by renowned practitioners in different fields; a vibrant market place; interactive sessions that will apply knowledge sharing methods; and a series of trainings on knowledge sharing methods/tools that will be offered on day zero.

You can start planning now!

Call for Proposals is now out for the 2nd Global Share Fair in Rome!

2011-05-27T11:14:00.004+02:00

** Call for Proposals **

Second Global Knowledge Share Fair

27-29 September 2011, IFAD headquarters, Rome, Italy

www.sharefair.net

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), World Food Programme (WFP), and Bioversity International in partnership with regional and international partners are jointly organizing the Second Global Knowledge share fair from 26-29 September 2011 at IFAD headquarters.

Building on the success of the First Global Knowledge Share Fair, this event will provide a forum for participants to learn and share their knowledge, experience and innovations on emerging trends relating to agriculture, food security, price volatility, climate change, changing demographics and other rural development related issues.

Like at the first event, the sessions will use a number of interactive knowledge sharing methods such as TedTalks, world café, chat shows, peer assist, fish bowls, open space.

Abstracts and Proposals

We are inviting proposals based on the following specific themes:

new trends and thinking on coping with market access challenges and developing markets for small farmers
innovative use of mobile technology and/or social media in the agriculture sector to enhance food security and nutrition
the impact of migration and population growth to feed future population
new technologies and innovative agricultural and farming practices to increase productivity
opportunities for innovative partnerships including with private sector, farmer organizations
environment-friendly and green innovations.

Call for Proposals is available here.

Proposal submission and deadline: Proposals should be sent to: share-fair@fao.org (please write in the subject line “Abstract/Proposal”) by 1 July 2011.

For future updates about the Fair please visit: www.sharefair.net

Sharing Knowledge for Better Aid - A Knowledge Fair takes place at EuropeAid

2011-02-14T16:58:00.005+01:00

A day long event dedicated to knowledge management, in the format of a Knowledge Fair, took place on the 3rd of February 2011 at the at EuropeAid headquarters in Brussels. The aim of the event, as Anna Bertele, coordinator of the K-DAY (as the knowledge fair was called), explained to me, was to raise awareness on knowledge management and encouraging the culture of sharing.

She further elaborated..

We didn't know very much about the Knowledge Fair format so the Share Fair in Rome was really inspiring. Then some contacts with the KM4Dev network followed and finally on 3 February of this year the first Development and Cooperation Directorate General of the EU (DEVCO) K-DAY was organized.

The organization of an event like this was a real challenge for many reasons, the biggest of them being that we were just running into a big reorganization, including the merge of two different Directorate–Generals, the arrival of a new Director and the departure of some colleagues. Getting people on board, both as contributors and participants, wasn't easy and we had limited resources, so some sessions were more successful than others, and the lessons learned are many.

One of the best results was having our hierarchy discussing informally about opening up silos and building the new DEVCO.

Other sessions were less successful because expectations were not always met as objectives were not made clear enough. There was a high percentage of external participants from partner organizations or consultancy that drove the discussion on quite general issues while some sessions should have been focusing on internal needs of the fresh new organization. - Anna Bertele.

You can find more information about the event, on their blog: http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/k-day-2011/.

Well done to Anna and the Team!

Facilitating a culture of innovation - NRCan Knowledge Share Fair - another story of impact!

2011-02-11T10:33:00.009+01:00

Often I get asked, so what's the impact of all the Share Fairs (and in general the KS work I do!)? Impact assessments are difficult, especially for interactive events such as the Share Fair - how do we know who met who? what was learned that results in innovation, etc. One visible impact, however, is the adaption of the "Share Fair" format! A format that promotes networking, trust building, sharing and learning in an informal yet interactive format.

I recently read Simone's example of Central American A4N Project Share Fair – A story of impact where Enrica rightfully comments "good ideas travel", I thought of asking Simon Bridge, whom I only know through his twitter account, to tell us a little bit about a Share Fair he organized in January 2011. I was curious to know more about it as we had been "tweeting" to each other since some time about Share Fairs. Motivated by Simone's post, I asked him a few questions about the Share Fair he organized:

1) How did you come about organizing the “Share Fair”?

At Natural Resources Canada we have invested significant resources into developing technological tools to share knowledge. We have internal blogs, a wiki, discussion forums, and other tools to share what we know. But sharing knowledge - our information, skills and expertise - requires more than technology. There must be a culture of sharing and trust within the organization as well.

There are also numerous communities of practice (CoP) in Natural Resources Canada - groups of individuals who share a common interest in a specific area of competence and are willing to work together. These communities exemplify the culture of sharing and trust, but in most cases, members in these communities are working off the side of their desk. They are doing work that is not part of their regular work duties, but are nonetheless contributing to the goals of the department. Within these communities there are many different models for how they manage themselves and the value they bring to the organization. As a member of several communities of practice, I felt that there was value to be gained from just bringing communities together to share experiences in how they formed, sustained themselves and, in some cases, dissolved. I wanted participants to have the opportunity to find and connect with communities, to share their knowledge and experience about being in a community, and to demonstrate the relevance of their community to Natural Resources Canada.

I first read about the idea of a share fair in a book about knowledge management. The book referred to a marketplace with booths set up by employees of The World Bank in the atrium of their building in Washington. As staff arrived at work in the morning, there was no way to avoid walking through the market and finding out about all the innovative work going on in the bank. As I researched the idea further, I came across the Share Fair Websi te and similar innovative events hosted by the UN, FAO and others. I felt the time was right to bring this idea to Natural Resources Canada.

2) How was the event organized?

I had no mandate or budget for this event, I just thought it was a good idea. But when I started talking to people about it, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive and people were ready to pitch in with time and money. A planning team of about 20 people from the various communities of practice in the department was created. Effectively, we created a small and very ephemeral community of practice to organize the event. We wanted an event planned by communities for communities.

We followed the advice on the Share Fair website and broke the planning team into four sub-groups: Content, communications, logistics and training/facilitation. We started off with a vision for the fair based on suggested formats on the Share Fair website, but we built on peoples expertise to shape our own version of the event.

The bilingual morning session, which was also webcasted, featured a keynote presentation by Dr. Kimiz Dalkir – an expert in knowledge management from McGill University – and a panel discussion featuring three leaders from Communities active in Natural Resources Canada: Philippe Dauphin (Learning Organization CoP), Mark Kennedy (Managers’ Community) and Douglas Bastien (Web 2.0 Practitioners CoP). These speakers touched on the short-term and long-term value of CoPs and networks to both the organization and individual members – values that include improving business outcomes, developing organizational capabilities, improving the experience of work, and fostering professional development.

In the afternoon, participants broke into focused discussion groups to identify “quick wins” to maximize the value of CoPs and networks for both the department and the individual members. Quick wins were defined as things that could be done right away, with existing resources and that would have an impact in the next 6 months. Dozens of ideas were generated such as using collaborative tools and Share Fairs to share, learn and grow; incorporating CoP membership into learning plans; and telling success stories via our internal newsletter, at the management table, or via social media. Of particular note was the call by communities of practice for senior managers to more explicitly recognize the successes of CoPs and support practitioners’ participation – in essence, to create the space for CoPs to flourish.

There was also a community market place containing booths set up by CoPs to demonstrate their work and connect with staff, training sessions offered by communities, a "classified ads" wall where participants could write what they had to offer or what they were looking for, a giant calendar where communities could write down their upcoming events and a twitter wall where tweets from the event were projected.

3) What were for you the successes for the event? What would you do differently next time?

Based on feedback we received, the Share Fair was a resounding success, bringing together 80 registered participants, 16 diverse communities active in Natural Resources Canada, and four guest experts. We identified many ideas for CoPs to connect with new members, to collaborate with one another and to raise awareness about the relevance of CoPs to the department. On that last point, the Deputy Minister has since acknowledged the Share Fair and CoPs for their contribution to creating an collaborative and innovative workplace.

For me, the discussions and outcomes from the Share Fair reinforced a view that despite all the technological tools at our fingertips, public servants are, more than ever, clamouring to be connected to one another in meaningful ways. This, for me, is the longer term legacy of CoPs. They help foster a culture of collaboration by forging relationships that produce results and that integrate a diversity of experience and perspectives. They help engage employees by connecting people’s passions to their work and by fostering professional development and leadership experiences beyond the sector level. And they strengthen knowledge management by enhancing and deepening skills and expertise in the workforce and strengthening a culture of sharing that complements our wiki, blogs, forums and other knowledge sharing tools.

If there is one thing I would like to do differently next time, it would be to better involve off-site participants. Natural Resources Canada has offices across the country and there was also an opportunity to engage staff from other government departments. While we did webcast the plenary session and used twitter and our wiki to encourage off-site contributions, we still need to better engage those staff who are unable to physically travel to the event.

4) Where can we find more information?

Anyone seeking more information about the event can contact me directly by email at sbridge [at] nrcan.gc.ca or contact him via twitter @srjbridge!

Want to create successful knowledge networks and communities? Here are some tips!

2011-02-08T13:58:00.006+01:00

This is cross-posted from Nadejda's blog and was originally prepared for the internal Knowledge Sharing Blog of Food and Agriculure Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Nadia is my colleague and Knowledge and Information Management Specialist in FAO's Office of Knowledge Exchange Research and Extension.

One of the characteristics of a learning, or a knowledge organization is, of course, learning from experience. In other words, we do something, we evaluate what we have done, we draw lessons learned, good practices and recommendations, and then we apply them in our work. Clearly, this process should not only be circular but also on-going.

My colleague Gauri Salokhe and I recently completed one such learning loop with regards to our work in supporting and sustaining FAO knowledge-sharing networks and communities. In particular, we were both part of the 2008 FAO Thematic Knowledge Networks Review process described in detail in this Knowledge Café blog post (internal). The Review process yielded nine recommendations (which we later came to call Nine Keys to Cultivating Knowledge Networks at FAO) for enabling and cultivating knowledge-sharing networks and communities, and indeed knowledge sharing initiatives, in the organization. To reiterate, these recommendations are, as follows:

Nine Keys to Cultivating Knowledge Sharing Networks and Communities at FAO

Sponsor from top - Ensure that sufficient resources are available to create and sustain knowledge networks.
Support demand - Create networks as a response to a real need, rather than in a top-down way.
Ensure right blend of membership - Where possible, membership should be at least partly external.
Develop a business case - Organize consultations with potential network members to establish an appropriate business case for the network.
Select appropriate methodologies and technologies - One size does not fit all. Different types of networks need different methodologies and technologies.
Facilitate continuously - Provide continuous facilitation for helping and supporting network members to work together and achieve their goals.
Recognize staff time - Staff members should be recognized for their contribution to knowledge networks.
Promote - Sponsors and facilitators should share their experiences and promote knowledge networks.
Monitor and evaluate - There should be on-going monitoring and evaluation of knowledge networks.

The Result: FAO Knowledge Network and Community Purpose Checklist

Gauri and I then took to develop a FAO Knowledge Network and Community Purpose Checklist based on the above recommendations. Our idea was to develop a tool through which use to embed the lessons learned that had emerged from the Knowledge Networks Review. In order to achieve it, we took material from two other checklists: Nancy White’s online community checklist and another checklist provided to us by Lucie Lamoureux. To this we added our own thinking, knowledge and understanding of the FAO context.

The result is a network and community purpose checklist that has been created to cater specifically for the context of FAO. It has nine sets of questions, one for each of the above recommendations. By going through these questions, networks and communities sponsors and coordinators are able to ensure all aspects of the initiative (sponsorship, membership, demand, business case, facilitation, methodologies and technologies, time, promotion and monitoring and evaluation) are examined, understood and provided for. Doing this equips the owners and coordinators of the network or community with important understanding about the nature of knowledge sharing, and therefore enables them to succeed regarding time, resources and effort invested in the initiative.

You can download the FAO Knowledge Network and Community Purpose Checklist here.

In our minds, this is a fine example of learning from experience and integrating what has been learned! This checklist can be extended to other types of initiatives such as Web sites, portals and databases. Now it remains to put the checklist to work and evaluate its use and impact!

If you find the checklist useful or use it in any way, please do let us know!

Brain Writing: quiet creativity

2010-12-13T13:42:00.003+01:00

This is a guest post by Meena Arivananthan, my colleague and Knowledge and Information Management Specialist in FAO's Office of Knowledge Exchange Research and Extension.

Brain writing as a facilitation method is an excellent way to get creative juices flowing in a group with individuals who tend to be introspective in their thinking. A time-saving method to obtain solutions for several questions or issues at one-go, brain writing enables people to share their ideas in a quiet, conducive environment.

At last week’s OEK Knowledge Sharing Team’s Trainings, Gauri and I organized a session on brain writing as a method to share knowledge in a calm, structured way (as opposed to Brainstorming, its anarchic cousin!).

What better way to learn a method other than to let people try it out? Once the introductions were out of the way, the sixteen participants who sat in groups of 5 or 6, were asked to write out their individual problems on A4 paper provided. For this session, we asked all participants to focus on questions related to knowledge sharing and communications. Each participant then shared their A4 paper with the person sitting next to her, who in turn would read the question and try to write a suggestion or an idea to solve the problem. Each A4 paper was passed around the group every few minutes to allow the next person to provide their suggestions on it.

The point here is to build on the suggestions being written on the A4 paper. So in effect, the second person who looks at the A4 paper will see both the question and one suggestion to solve the problem. This person now has the choice of either:

a) developing on the suggestions written by an earlier colleague or
b) writing out a completely new idea.

In this session, participants took home at least 4 ideas/ suggestions to help solve their problem.

That’s a total of 64 ideas churned out in 30 minutes!

As always, there were very interesting discussions with the participants around the use of this method:

Everyone agreed the problem question being written on the A4 paper is of utmost importance. How the question is worded determines the quality of the ideas received. Unlike methods such as brainstorming, there is no opportunity to discuss the issue/ problem.
After the first round, where participants see a question for the first time, more time should be allocated for the subsequent rounds in increments, because each person now has to read the question and the suggestions written below it.
Brain writing is useful to overcome conflict within a group. Being a non-verbal session, each individual sees only the question before them, and not a specific person.
Some participants saw its potential for use with online tools such as Twitter and Wiki, mind maps and other facilitation techniques.

Here are some of my insights from facilitating this session:

When new groups are formed, there is what I call a teething period, when people are unsure of the individuals in the group. Brain writing helps keep the calm and allows all voices to be heard, without anyone feeling left out. It’s a great way to build trust!
Brainstorming is a method people turn to when they want creative solutions to problems, and that’s fine. However in a brainstorming exercise, people who enjoy speaking, who have louder voices tend to drown out the more introspective thinkers. Brain writing eliminates that problem while still being a creative technique.
Being such a simple method, it’s easy to over-use it. I’d suggest, use it sparingly and in groups of no more than 6 to maintain creativity. Any more, and you risk exhausting the participants.

To know more about Brain Writing, please visit the CGIAR/FAO/UNICEF Knowledge Sharing Toolkit: http://www.kstoolkit.org/Brain+Writing

Image Credits: http://www.innovationtools.com/Articles/ArticleDetails.asp?a=298

TECA - Technologies for Agriculture - at the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair

2010-11-22T14:52:00.005+01:00

At the AgKnowledge Share Fair, FAO showcased some good examples of knowledge sharing initiatives. One such is TECA – Technologies for Agriculture. TECA, managed by Ms. Karin Nichterlein and Ms. Estibalitz MorrasDimas from the Research and Extension Branch, Office of Knowledge Exchange Research and Extension (OEKR), is an information and communication system for proven technologies for smallholders. TECA consists of an online library for documenting and sharing of proven technologies and exchange groups for discussion, exchange and learning about challenges of agricultural producers, their information and knowledge needs and experiences addressing these challenges.

TECA is an FAO initiative that aims at improving access to information and knowledge sharing about proven technologies in order to enhance their adoption in agriculture, livestock, fisheries and forestry thus addressing food security, climate change, poverty alleviation and sustainable development.

A few years ago, TECA was evaluated by DFID, that engaged DFID’s project leaders to screen their project portfolio for technologies validated at farm level and document them in TECA. They noted that TECA consisted of useful information but lacked interactivity allowing users to raise questions and provide feedback on technologies. As a consequence of this evaluation, a new interactive TECA platform was launched in 2009, followed by field pilot in Uganda in 2010 to test the sharing of information and technologies on the new TECA platform with different rural users.

The Uganda exchange group, as its facilitator Mr. Bruce Kisitu explains, consists of a range of stakeholder (NGOs, researchers, private/public advisory services, private sector, etc.) and aims (1) to make available “shelved research results” so that they can benefit others and (2) to ensure knowledge from Uganda, on agricultural technologies, is shared with others around the world.

“So far this relatively new project has received very positive feedback”, said Bruce. However, one of the key challenges is to get engagement from researchers to share knowledge. If they do share, it is often in hard copy format which then needs to be digitised.

To know more about this project and what ideas the TECA team got from participating in the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair, please watch the short interview of Estibalitz and Bruce, by me and my colleague Elena, below.

Knowledge Mela – how can we make most out of it?

2010-11-19T11:03:00.006+01:00

At the UNKFair in Turin, one of the methods used was called Knowledge Mela (which in Hindi means a fair!). So it was a Knowledge Fair in a Knowledge Fair!

This method builds on the method of Day 1 where we had a marketplace with some UN money to invest. About 20,000 UN francs were invested and the projects with top 7 funding were selected for presentation at the Knowledge Mela.

The method is divided into three steps:

1) Collecting of questions to be asked for each of the 7 selected presentations (60 mins)

The winning 7 presenters had to go back to their boards in the marketplace and explain their projects once again to who ever came.
Those who were not presenting were encouraged to visit as many booths as they could and ask as many questions as they wanted about the project. However, there was a hitch - each presenter was assigned a facilitator who made sure that the presenters did not answer any of the questions. Instead, the questions were written down on a half-A4 sized card for discussion (part 2).

2) Group discussion of the questions (45 mins)

Once the time was up, the presenters and their respective facilitators were asked to sit at one of the 7 tables.
The rest of the people could choose to go to any table where they wanted to know more about the project.
The idea here was that for the first 5 mins the presenters would go through the questions that were written down by the facilitators and pick the ones they wanted to answer.
Once the session started, the presenter answered some of the questions in the given time (20 mins).
At the end of the 20 mins, we were asked to move to another table with topic of our choice for similar discussion.

3) Presentation of insights (35 mins)

After the two discussions, each presenter was given 5 minutes to speak on the insights (and “aha” moments) they learned from discussions at their table.

My thoughts on this method:

Having been one of the presenters on the previous day, I had not been able to visit any of the booths. So, when I went to visit the booths (part 1), I (and others who were also in my shoes) were completely lost and could not really understand the project because some facilitators did not allow the presenters to answer even the clarification questions.
Then, when we went to tables for more in-depth discussion, on both the tables I visited, the presenters/facilitators did not really make use of the questions that were collected in part 1. Instead, the discussion just started around the topics that those at table wanted to have covered. In my opinion, this made the writing down step redundant and useless.
All in all, the whole method seemed rushed and there was not enough space for participants to give feedback to presenters and/or to learn about a project in a more organized way. All the learning was ad-hoc because the discussions were all based on ad-hoc questioning.

Have you participated in a similar event? What made it work? Maybe a solution could be to have the discussions of part 2 in plenary with each presenter getting about 15 mins to answer questions in a quick round?

Summary of group discussion around learning before, during and after

2010-11-18T15:29:00.006+01:00

This afternoon, we had a group discussion/peer assist on how we can improve learning before, during and after within our organizations.

We often have problems with externalizing our knowledge and have limited social interaction across units – in form of both face-to-face and virtual form. The other problem is also that KM is seen as an add-on instead of being seen as an integral part of what we should do.

Some methods/techniques that came out for the following stages of learning were:

Learning before

access the existing lessons learned, strategy papers, guidance notes, publications (journal articles to theoretical)
search for content on relevant networks
stakeholder analysis
peer assists
assessment

Learning during

do regular/continuous evaluation at all stages of project
after action reviews/ appreciative inquiry
peer assists and regular during action reviews
regular team meetings
study visits

Learning after

capturing of lessons learned
briefing and debriefing
most significant change
exit interviews and hand-over strategy

Study/learning circles, knowledge fairs, etc. are other examples of how knowledge sharing can be encouraged at all stages. Make the environment within the organization conducive to knowledge sharing and asking. Management should also support by giving time for learning before, during and after.

One thing the group agreed on was that a lot of learning is personal effort and those individuals who walk the talk should be encouraged and supported.

The group observed the common principles as:

Make learning explicit
Buy-in from the team
Provide a safe environment in which staff can fail
Delineation between learning and performance assessment
Donors also need to give opportunity for us to learn
Learning happens by interacting between people as well as through codified resources

Some of the action items that came out from the group to encourage learning before, during and after were:

Recognise and acknowledge what people do – knowledge promoter award, thank you email, etc.
Embed learning before, during and after in the project implementation/processes of the organizations work
Provide templates for capturing of knowledge such as through good practices and other knowledge sharing formats
Increase social interaction at workplace and engage constructively
Create a KM taskforce to ensure that KM is embedded into work of the organization
Codify knowledge and make it available for those who are afraid to ask
Make our stakeholders that learning is part of the way we work in our organization
Support and create environment for people to interact
Push/train management to understand that we do better if we give time for reflection/analysis of situation and learning
Make staff members aware and responsible for knowledge sharing/management in the organization
Balance codification of knowledge and social interaction/networking

Summary of World Café discussions on good/best practices identification, codification

2010-11-18T09:26:00.007+01:00

One of the KM/S methods we struggle with is the capture, sharing and use of good practices. At the UNKFair, Steve Katz facilitated a World Café session to discuss issues around the topic. We were divided into two groups. The first group discussed the following questions and this is a brief summary of their outputs.

A practice is a replicable action that you can use in your own work environment. Good practices are results that are replicable, from which we can learn and has benefits (operated in a value system and without harm to a community). A good practice can be identified by the community itself and/or an expert panel (could involve different stakeholders). The expert panel could also be involved in designing guidelines for identification/capture, etc.

The target audiences (users/beneficiaries) for good practices can be identified on a case by case basis. In the first discussion, they were identified as basically everyone ranging from decision makers to programme designers and from operational staff to academia/researchers. What we need to look at is our sharing demand or supply driven – what do which users want? If sharing is demand-driven, we need to make sure that the beneficiaries know about the knowledge we can provide to them. In relation to this, one participant asked if we need to advocate and create demand ourselves. Our own organizations were also identified as users of good practices – taking examples of what worked in a country/project and applying it to a similar problem.

As the participants were from UN organizations, they identified the following roles for the organization as:

facilitate the identification, analysis, capture, coding, storage, sharing/diffusion and ensuring good practices are converted into policy implementation of good practices
assess demand and raise awareness about the availability of the knowledge and ensure local experiences are shared globally
know where to replicate what at the right time, supporting south-south collaboration
provide normative support – in terms of definition and guidelines – around good practices
provide technical assistance and, where appropriate, support capacity building in all or most of the above activities so that stakeholders and partners also learn about the importance of and methods for capture, sharing and reuse of good practices

A very regularly asked question around good practices is also its quality. There was no clear checklist for that but most agreed that it is easier for technical organizations such as FAO to identify them through its projects and activities.

Given that we have identified a good practice, the participants identified the following mechanisms and formats for sharing them.

Roster of experts
Events - knowledge fairs, trainings, workshops, study tours, farmer-fields schools, etc.
communities and networks
publications – reports, briefs, posters, magazines, etc.
Multimedia – photos, videos, audios
mapping/sharing within UN/our own organizations what we know
creating knowledge sharing culture in the organization and highlighting success stories
Media – TV, Radio, etc.
Share/embed them through educational curricula – schools, universities, etc.
there are many challenges in the actual identification and capture of good practices, some of which were noted as:
how we match the demand to supply
identification and codification
loss of context
knowledge loss when short-term staff complete projects
trickling up of good ideas and examples

The challenges continue even after the identification such as:

language coverage and translation
technical language of the content
identification of potential beneficiaries and challenges to reach them (ex. putting info on the net for decisions makers who don’t use internet is not a correct approach)
not correct format/package – we need to ensure that we have right format for right person
political will and support
document lessons learned from application of good practices so that they can be improved and become live
NIH – not invented here syndrome
first hand knowledge of those who share is missing for those who apply
bandwidth and access of online information issue
feedback mechanism to see who is using a good practice, how and if they have new lessons learned
institutional arrangements to share knowledge and adapt good practices
lack of follow-up/feedback strategy from pockets of innovation to the users of good practices

We briefly touched upon the issue of up-scaling of good practices and some ideas came out as:

use multiple channels for innovation and adoption (which costs resources)
provide incentives to adopt
focus resources on early adopters
form peer group – networking/communication

The success and impact can be measured through planning and allocation of resources for monitoring and evaluation.

One UN Intranet – example of intranet for One UN Pilot Team - Sharing lessons learned

2010-11-17T14:59:00.007+01:00

Eddy McCall from UN Vietnam presented a Joomla-based One UN intranet tool for 650 staff from various UN organizations. I don’t want to go into the tool itself but just share the lessons learned that were presented by the moderator at the end of the discussion of his site:

the social initiative such as intranet or shared space has to be bottom up for it to get buy-in and uptake
the staff should be involved in design of the product from the beginning
lot of people want something like this at the country level but they find it difficult in terms of support from management and thus resources.
often decisions are made at the HQ/IT level – lot of push from top instead of first looking for working grassroots examples which can be scaled up.
leadership is critical - in both encouraging and ensuring participation from staff members
allocate resources to promote (through presentation and training) the tool

I found the site interesting but overall, I am not sure how many new systems we can give to our colleagues before they get overwhelmed...

Marketplace where you have some (fake) money to invest?

2010-11-16T14:13:00.012+01:00

One of the formats in the past share fairs we have struggled with is the “Marketplace”. The method is not unique in terms of format as almost all conferences have booths or posters but what is common is the struggle to get people to engage with the booth or poster.

At the UNKFair, the idea of marketplace was taken a step further. Here is how the marketplace worked:

Selected projects get a space in the marketplace to put up their booth (1 hour).
Each person at the event gets some fake money to invest (we got 300 UN Francs).
Project owners get to showcase/sell their project.
Visitors to the booth get to listen to projects and invest money.
At the end of the marketplace session (1 hour), money collected is counted and top projects are selected for in-depth presentation.

Those who have the money got one piece of advice from Steve Glovinsky: invest your money properly. What do you want to learn more about? Invest money where you want to go in-depth and try and replicate in your own organizations/projects.

The presentations were very animated with participants sharing their experiences. Most participants loved the way it was organized but thought more time should have been given to each project presentation. The money idea was great as it encouraged people to visit booths! ;-)

UN Knowledge Fair opens with "Speed Networking"

2010-11-16T11:14:00.006+01:00

This morning @tomwambeke used the "speed networking" technique to encourage the 65+ participants to get to know each other (to the extent possible) and to dish out their expectations for the next 3 days.

The method

Line participants up in two rows, facing each other
Ask them a question and get them to record key points on a large post-it
After 2 mins, stop the discussion, get one row to move two persons to the left
Ask another question and give 2 mins to record the discussion (repeat this as many times as you like - he did it 3 times)
Go back to table and at each table group the "expectations" into clusters
Once the groups were done, we posted our groups expectations (5) onto a large board. When we were posting to the board, we looked for ideas similar to ours that may have come from other groups.
Create a mind-map of the expectations.

The three questions we were asked were:

What's our KM background and what are our expectations for the next three days?
What do we think are good examples of inter-agency KM activities?
What are our learning needs and motivation for participating for the three days?

Some of the expectations that came out of our group were:

What is the methodology for Knowledge Fairs?
How to systematize KM within our organizations.
How can the UN KM Community stay in touch.
What are the good practices in KM implementation?
Who’s doing what?
Learn about different methods and tools for KM implementation.
Be exposed to innovative KM/KS methodologies.
How to implant KM at and between different levels – global, regional, local.

There were many others which I will share once the mind map becomes available.

AgKnowledge Africa - After Action Review of the organizing team

2010-11-12T19:11:00.007+01:00

An After Action Review (AAR) was carried out by the organizing agencies at IFAD in Rome ten days after the AgKnowledge Share Fair. Those who could not be physically present at the venue joined the discussion via Skype or via audio conference.

Participants: @rsamii @@peterballantyne @petecranston @eporcari_CGIAR @bajan_nads @Willem @elenadip Silvia Sperandini @gaurisalokhe

Here are some key issues (put together with @elenadip) that came out during the AAR.

Day 0 – Learning and Training:

The majority of participants expressed themselves positively about the Training Day, underlining they had learnt new tools. Beginners, though, said they did not have enough time to learn. Longer sessions should have been organized for them to learn new skills and get used to new tools.

AgKnowledge Share Fair:

Majority of the participants appreciated the concept of embedding Ethiopian culture in the different sessions like the marketplace, horn and Bunna!!
In case of the marketplace, the participants thought it should have been made in a smaller space instead of dispersing around the ILRI campus.
Organizers realized that those sessions carefully planned over a longer period of time were superior, in terms of quality, than those sessions which were organized in a shorter span of time
Organizers also decided they should improve the ways to collect content and make it usable for the participants once the event is over.
Social reporters had a key role in covering the event, although some sessions were poorly covered with respect to others. In a brainstorming with the social reporting team, some put forward the idea of having a more structured social reporting plan for all sessions to be equally covered. Others argued this would subtract from the real nature of social reporting which is a spontaneous activity.
One issue all the reporters agreed on is that a stricter quality control should be applied to the social media coverage.
The issue of social reporting vs documenting was also raised. The social reporting at the event was remarkable whereas there was no documentation of the sessions. For the sake of documentation, a rapporteur should have been assigned to each session. Rapporteurs could be recruited among university students knowledgeable about the topics and able to produce first draft documentation to be distributed to the participants before the end of the event.
All the sessions in the Fair were self-organized. Most sessions thus were good, with buy-in and ownership from the participants, but there were a few which could have done better.
Organizers observed there was request for more open spaces - more space for spontaneous discussions.
Each sessions should have a content facilitator and a process facilitator.

Meaningful outcomes of the Fair were:

The funding of 65 participants from various organizations in Africa.
The participation of heterogeneous groups (farmers, researchers, NGOs, etc.) which allowed different parties belonging to the same value chains to interact and talk about common problems.
The presence of farmers was particularly significant and made it clear that they should be adequately represented and that more interaction and space should be dedicated to them in order to understand their needs. The idea was put forward to organize a Farmers’ Share Fair.
The remarkable number of social reporting outputs: blog posts (60+), pictures (470+), podcasts (15+), tweets (2400+) and 50 videos (50+).

The organizers decided to work on indicators to measure the impact of a Share Fair. A “One Year After the Fair” Survey will be distributed to collect feedback and reason upon the metrics of success of a Fair.

Summary of outputs from AgKnowledge Africa - better late than never!

2010-11-05T12:19:00.008+01:00

During the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair few weeks ago, we had a big social reporting team who tweeted, photographed, blogged and interviewed participants. I was tasked with producing a summary report every day which I managed on the first 2 days but eventually ran out of time and didn't get the reports out for day 3 and 4!!

This week, my colleague Elena and I have been tagging everything (well, for the moment blogposts, videos and audio recordings) produced during the event on the Share Fair delicious account. As a result, we are now able to create summaries of all the outputs that came out each of the sessions! You can browse them all on the Share Fair Website.

Summaries of outputs from Day 0 - Learning and Training
Summaries of outputs from Opening and Marketplace
Summaries of outputs from Pathways
Summaries of outputs from Focus Groups
List of the Daily Newspaper - Daily Tails

A list of all known "products/outputs" by format type is now available here.

Event Tweets
Event Photos
Event Blog posts
Event Audio/Podcasts
Event Videos

A clear lesson learned for next time is to tag everything since the beginning! Did you cover any of the above sessions? Is anything missing or amiss in the above pages? Please send me an email or leave a message below!

Day 1 at the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair - Making knowledge travel

2010-10-20T09:47:00.005+02:00

After a fruitful day of learning, sharing and training, we moved into the actual Share Fair on Tuesday (19 October 2010). The opening ceremony in the tent started with Bruce Scott from ILRI welcoming the 300+ participants. This was followed by short statements from Lamourdia Thiombian, FAO representative, Koda Traore, CTA and Roxanna Samii, IFAD.

Bruce Scott on the Share Fair

The guest speaker at the Opening was Owen Barder, is a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development. He made an excellent presentation and more about his presentation and the opening ceremony is captured in impressions of Roxanna Samii.

On each of our badges, along with our name and orgaization, there is a picture of an animal. After the Opening ceremony, Peter Ballantyne from ILRI asked us to find our own species over coffee and mingle and get to know them. Our first time blogger - Camille De Stoop – shares an interesting experience with her “brother duck”.

Once the coffee was over, we separated into four learning pathways – water, climate change, land and livestock. The pathways integrate key knowledge processes and major knowledge spaces in a participatory process of mapping, sharing and connecting the people attending. Each pathway contains three phases: mapping, sharing and brokering. The idea is that at each phase the conversation should explicitly address grassroot spaces, intermediary spaces and research and policy spaces. More about how the learning pathways can be organized and used is available from the AgKnowledge Africa Wiki.

Each of the session’s first meeting is summarized below:

Water

Sliding along the water stream (pathway)

Climate Change

Blogpost by Camille: Changements climatiques et agriculture : session 1
Videos by Seyoum: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaW9v8xKUPA and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzP9eF9Sc_w

Land

Blogpost by Willem: Sharing practices to make land tenure securer #sfaddis

Livestock

Blogpost by Beatrice: Livestock Pathways: Mapping actors and knowledge sharing processes
Videos by Pier: Mapping knowledge sharing at grassroots and organisational level; Using participatory video with pastoralists in Ethiopia

During lunch participants continued networking, learning and sharing. Here is a beautiful story by Grace on how colleagues helped each other and shared their knowledge.

The beauty of this event has been the seamless integration of local culture and traditions in the Fair. The Bunna ladies are constantly serving excellent, and I mean EXCELLENT, coffee! The African horn is used continuously to sound breaks and starts of sessions.

The highlight was the market place which was spread over the ILRI campus. There were “travelling knowledge” donkeys – usually used to transport construction materials – carrying knowledge products, people selling local products, hawkers, shoe polishers and more. This and the spirit of the “market place” is captured by Roxanna in her blogpost. We finished off the day with "tasting session" where we tasted different types of honey and were served local Ethiopian drink and of course, some good African music and dancing!

Stay in touch and tuned!

During the day, there was an extensive coverage on Twitter, and a mass of pictures are being posted on the Flickr group. Have also a look at the mobile reporting via Shot from the Hip. For more information, take a look at the list of social media tools used by the Social Reporting Team.

And, the communications team, true to its words, has released the latest version of the Daily Tail. Here's a link to the Monday edition.

The “Oh I know how to ...” Day – Summary of a day of learning, training and sharing at the AgKnowledge Africa

2010-10-19T12:50:00.010+02:00

The Training and Learning day was first started in the Share Fair held at Rome in January 2009. The overwhelming response and interest has led to a “Day0” at many of the follow-up Share Fairs.

The aims of the Day 0 at AgKnowledge Africa were:

To provide an opportunity for participants of the Share Fair to learn skills, tools and methods that were used in planning and running the Share Fair, and additional tools
To discuss overall concepts and learn how to identify, choose and implement tools and methods to match particular needs, activities and goals
To provide opportunities for participants to learn and be trained in specific ICT tools and face-to-face methods
To expose participants to ways to make their content travel by connecting various tools
To explore social, traditional, cultural and creative forms of communication

The Day started with a opening ceremony which introduced the concepts of knowledge sharing, knowledge management, ICTs, facilitation, social media, online collaboration and networking and more. During this session, Nadia Manning-Thomas from CGIAR’s ICT-KM Program gave examples on how to identify, choose and implement right knowledge sharing tools/methods for their particular stage of work and to help achieve a particular purpose or goal they may have. She stressed that although there is a “overwhelmingly long and constantly increasing list of tools and methods” many of these tools and methods can and should be used for different kinds of activities and for achieving certain aims. For more information take a look at the knowledge sharing framework in research.

After the opening ceremony, over 180 participants split into various sessions. Here is a summary of reports from many of the sessions that took place.

Opening session

Audio by Jan: http://share-fair.podomatic.com/player /web/2010-10-18T01_46_56-07_00

Gladson Makowa, Media and Communications Manager, Story Workshop (trainer for Commonwealth of Learning (COL) - Radio for knowledge sharing

Audio by Jan: http://share-fair.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-10-18T06_44_39-07_00 (how to make good audio and radio interviews)

Tania Jordan (CGIAR ICT-KM) - Collaborative writing

Google team: France, Evans, Jackie - Google tools

Blogpost by Andew: Google Geo Tools: What can they do for knowledge sharing?

Antonella Pastore - Collaborative writing

KM4Dev team: Pete Cranstan , Charles Dhewa, Gauri Salokhe, Willem Bettink, Roxanna Samii – Face to Face Knowledge Sharing Methods

Blogpost by Roxy: Day zero: "I know HOW day" starts at Agknowledge share fair #sfaddis
Blogpost by Ewen: Share Fair Addis: Fishbowl and fishbowl battle

Pier Andrea Pirani - Videos for Knowledge Sharing

Blogpost by Pier Andrea: http://euforic.blogspot.com/2010/10/agknowledge-africa-share-fair-training.html
Videos by Pier Andrea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWIFBn7vRpU

Susanna Thorp, WRENmedia and Pius Sawa - Making the most of the media

Blogpost by Davide: How to deal with journalists

Katarlah Taylor, IFPRI - Mendeley

Blog post by Grace: New Discoveries at #sfaddis: MENDELEY!!!

Maureen Agena- Blogging

Blog post by Davide: The big deal about blogs

The day ended with Peter Casier ran a session called “Making Content Travel”- introducing practical and low-effort tips, tools and tricks to make your content known to the wider public, to “make your content travel through the social media channels”, magnifying the reach of your content.

The rest of the week, the social media team, which now includes some newly trained participants, will be covering the event and documenting everything through Twitter, Flickr, Audio and Video tools, blogs and much more. For more information, take a look at the list of social media tools used by the Share Fair Team.

The communications team on the other hand was busy publishing the daily newspaper called the "Daily Trail". Here's a link to Sunday's edition.

In a very African way, the day ended with drumming and dancing! Lots of knowledge sharing on music from different countries. Great way to end the day!

Social Reporting at AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair

2010-10-18T21:23:00.005+02:00

The Day 0 of the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair started today with introductions to various knowledge sharing and communication tools and a also face-to-face techniques. Every sessions was covered by member of the Social Media Team.

You can follow all the happenings of today's and rest of the weeks sessions via the Social Media Team's coverage on the Share Fair website as well as the individual websites of the various tools used:

Blog: http://tinyurl.com/sfaddisblog
Wiki: http://tinyurl.com/sfaddiswiki
Tweets: http://tinyurl.com/sfaddistweets
Photos: http://tinyurl.com/sfaddisphotos
Videos: http://tinyurl.com/sfaddisblips
Social web: http://tinyurl.com/sfaddismention
Share fair FM: http://tinyurl.com/sfaddisfm

Tomorrow we start with the actual event - check out the agenda and stay tuned for lots of tweeting and blogging from ILRI!

Picture Credits: Roxanna Samii

Knoweldge Sharing - under l’arbre à palabres

2010-10-17T10:04:00.000+02:00

After I saw this photo of “l’arbre à palabres” from Geneviève Renard of ILRI, I was curious and asked her to explain what it was. Here is what she said:

The ‘arbre à palabres’ is dear to me because I lived in West Africa for a long time and miss those baobabs!

The ‘arbre à palabres’, metaphorically the ‘talking tree’ or literally the ‘discussion tree’ is usually found in every village in West Africa where political and social meetings are held under the large canopy trees providing shade. Decisions are taken and issues are sorted out by elders usually. It is said that “What an elder sees sitting on the ground, a younger person cannot see even if he/she is up in a tree."

Interestingly enough, such a tree is popular in many cultures and traditions in Africa (and elsewhere!) and that is how we came up at the Share Fair with the oromo tree, Odda (in Ethiopia) which is a sacred tree for social and religious meetings and the Bazara which is a forum, a meeting place in Swahili.

They are just three traditional meeting places we named after those trees in the AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair, where people can sit and have informal meetings, just discuss and have nice talks.

And jokingly she adds, “We just hope that it does not rain!”

Thank you Geneviève for the explanation! Indeed, as you mentioned, a tree is popular in many cultures. In India, where I come from, the village elders are formed into an elected Gram Panchayat and who share latest news/knowledge and make decisions about local affairs, often meeting under the a tree (although it is changing now).

In the previous Share Fairs, we did not have a "physical" knowledge tree so this is going to be exciting new format for the Share Fair to facilitate knowledge sharing and connecting. Will keep you all posted!

Brown bag lunch on Newsletters

2010-09-28T11:46:00.008+02:00

This is a guest post by Virginie Viollier, my colleague and Knowledge and Information Management Specialist in FAO's Office of Knowledge Exchange Research and Extension.

Last Thursday, my colleagues from the One OEK team and I organized a Brown bag lunch on Newsletters. 23 people from various OEK branches participated. About a third of the audience was familiar with the subject, while the rest was relatively new to it. A Brown Bag Lunch is deliberately informal so that participants can intervene at any moment, ask questions, share success (and failed) stories.

For some time I had been working on Newsletters, most recently for the FAO Country Profiles, therefore this session was an excellent opportunity to share my fresh experience producing and managing Newsletters and to learn from others’. The FAO Country Profiles Newsletters are prepared in HTML format, e-mailed to subscribers (the message body is actually the Newsletter) and made available on the FAO Country Profiles web site for download. While explaining these steps, I addressed the following topics:

1. Technology - Newsletters in HTML format versus Newsletters automatically generated by a Content Management Systems (CMS)

Participants had a mixed feeling. On one hand, HTML Newsletters are often prettier and offer a high degree of flexibility and fine-tuning. But one needs to a) know how to write HTML and b) have a bit of patience while creating a template that looks the same across platforms. On the other hand, CMS Newsletters are automatically generated and hence are not time-consuming. But they lack flexibility as the layout is very much standardized.

2. Layout - Use of text and images versus text only

As a matter of comparison a one-page HTML Newsletter with a few graphics can easily be over 100Kb. The same Newsletter with no images can be around 6Kb.
Therefore it is advised not to use too many graphics in a Newsletter and to always provide alternative texts for those users who deactivate the images display. To avoid font issues it is also recommended to include style elements within the HTML header and not in a separate stylesheet.

3. Testing – Operating systems | Browsers | E-mail applications | Handheld devices

Before sending a Newsletter to hundreds of recipients, it is important to thoroughly check that its layout/style is satisfactory and stable across platforms. Tests to perform can include:

Displaying the Newsletter on a PC and a Mac.
Opening the Newsletter on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.
Sending a draft Newsletter to different personal email accounts (Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, etc.).
Checking how the Newsletter gets displayed on handheld devices (Blackberry, I-Phone, I-Pad, etc.).

One experienced user mentioned that to avoid an inconsistent layout, the Arabic and Chinese Newsletters were emailed as PDF attachments.

4. Subscription - Management of mailing list

This topic was of particular interest. Everyone agreed that maintaining a list of subscribers in an Excel file can quickly become a nightmare in particular if the list expands rapidly. Listserv, an electronic mailing list software application in use in FAO, seems to still be the best supported tool to automatically manage the subscribers’ list.

5. 13 tips for writing newsletters

To conclude this 1 hour lively session, we quickly went through the following 13 tips for writing newsletters:

Use inline CSS styles
Limit the width of your template (600px)
Avoid using too many images
Offer a link that lets the subscribers unsubscribe
Let your subscribers access the web version of the email
Don’t use flash
Suggest to your readers to add you to their contact list
Don’t use forms in your emails
Add the dimensions to images
Provide an alternate text to all your images
Don’t use PNGs with alpha transparency
Don’t use CSS background images
Have a text-only version of your email

What about you? What has been your experience with Newsletters? More specifically, how do you manage the list of recipients?

Using card collection method to ensure participatory decision-making

2010-08-20T11:03:00.003+02:00

My colleague in the Knowledge Sharing Team Meena Arivananthan and I recently organized a training session on a knowledge sharing method called “Card Collection”.

The Card Collection method is not new and was first described by Neill McKee, formerly at UNICEF Bangladesh, in 1993. This method is similar to the ToP Workshop Method currently taught to FAO Staff in the Facilitation I: Guide Group Participation Training Course.

The Card Collection Method is a facilitated process that supports groups with strong hierarchies or diverse ideas. I have also used this method in a setting where participants did not know each other. Personally, I find this method extremely useful for the following reasons:

Allows everyone to share their thoughts, ideas, solutions, suggestions, etc. on a specific topic of common interest
Due to its participatory nature, the results often have a higher buy-in when compared to decisions that are not participatory.
Because no idea is discarded, everyone feels at equal level.

To learn more about this method, please visit the CGIAR/FAO Knowledge Sharing Toolkit: http://www.kstoolkit.org/Card+Collection.

Are you planning to attend the Knowledge Share Fair "AgKnowledge Africa 2010"?

2010-08-19T10:02:00.000+02:00

As we start preparing the Share Fair in Addis, we need to have a general idea about how many people are currently thinking of attending the event.

Are you planning to attend? If yes, please complete this short ‘Expression of Interest to attend’ survey: Expression of Interest

AgKnowledge Africa: Call for Proposals is available

2010-08-18T16:19:00.001+02:00

Like the 2009 edition in Rome, the upcoming AgKnowledge Africa Share Fair will be a ‘fair’ that brings together the diverse knowledge of the continent and the multiple innovative ways it is created, shared, communicated, and applied. We will be sharing the experiences of a wide range of people and organizations: Farmer organizations, extensionists, researchers, students, academia, policy shapers, information and communication specialists, private sector actors, international and regional organizations, and governments.

The heart of the fair is a series of thematic ‘learning pathways’ in a process of mapping, sharing and connecting people and activities. These pathways will showcase how African ‘talents’ are creating, sharing and using rural knowledge - at the grassroots, in research and policy, and through intermediaries. The pathways will focus on agriculture and climate change, land, livestock, and water.

Download the brochure [PDF].

Call for proposals can be downloaded here. Please submit your proposals by sending an email to: sharefairaddis @ gmail.com. The submissions closes on September 5, 2010.

More Share Fairs around the corner

2010-08-17T12:19:00.006+02:00

The first Share Fair (January 2009) was organized to raise awareness about innovative knowledge sharing practices as well to enable colleagues in Rome-based agencies to showcase, recreate and invent ways to share knowledge and improve access to it.

Since the first event, several Share Fairs have taken place in different parts of the world. Here is a list of all the events we organized to date:

Several events were also organized in affiliation with us. These include, but are not limited to:

In the remaining months of this year, two similar events are going to be organized.

The first one, is an Inter-Agency Fair organized by the United Nations Development Group. The event will take place in Vienna from 28 - 30 September 2010. This event will focus on " Policy Advice vs. Implementation: how to find the right positioning for UN development activities at the country level?"

For more information, please visit: http://bit.ly/bzhwZo

The second Share Fair will take place at ILRI Campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The event will take place from 18 - 21 October 2010 and will showcase innovative approaches to knowledge sharing and provide platforms and spaces where these innovations can be shared, spilling over to other regions and countries through partnerships and joint ventures. The subject areas covered are agriculture and climate change, agriculture and water, livestock and fisheries, and land.

For more information, please visit: http://bit.ly/sharefairaddis

To learn more about the Share Fair and how it is organized, visit: http://bit.ly/aboutShareFair

After Action Review - Share Fair Cali and learning from it

2010-06-08T18:44:00.005+02:00

The Share Fair Cali, which took place at CIAT Campus from 25 - 27 May, 2010, was the second Share Fair I have helped to organize. (First one was in Rome, Italy)

We used our expereince from the previous event to plan this one. I was physically not present but was connected to the event through the 2 video conferencing sessions we organized, constant dialog with the organization team as well as the various social media used to share the learning.

My colleagues, Sophie, Renata and Vanda attended the event and came back with lots of positive energy. They also brought along their lessons learned from the event. Based on this as well as the participants feedback and organizing team's after action review, here are a few dos and dont's for us to take into our Addis Share Fair planning team.

What should we continue doing?

Keep the steering committee small with each person in the team having a clear role.
Continue to do a Knowledge Tree – many participants enjoyed putting leaves on the tree. A follow-up visit to the Tree should be also organized.
Participants enjoyed the open space – they had a chance to organize sessions of their interest.
The session on tools worked well because two members of the steering committee showed how the tools were used in real context (i.e. to organize the event itself). Both screens were projected on the wall so participants could see what they were doing on their laptops.
The products which were ordered for the event, such as the conference bags, were all produced by local handicraft organizations. This worked out extremely well as it generated work and therefore income for local communities.
The bar allowed participants to gather together between sessions to talk and network.
Each session had clear objectives and that helped to focus the session.
It was useful to make the thematic workshop sessions longer (2 hours and a half) and to have a content moderator (expert) in addition to the facilitator.
The different formats used for the workshops (talk show, Samoan circle, fishbowl, world cafés, card sorting) were highly appreciated by the participants.

The key lessons learned were:

Create a Steering Committee and clear responsibilities need to be fulfilled by each member of the Committee.
There should be more interaction between the organizers and the participants prior to the Fair (which would need more resources) in order to establish a closer rapport. This would make clearer to everyone the intended substance and format of the Fair and its purpose.
As part of training in knowledge sharing methods and tools during any one of the Share Fair, there should be an introductory session on methods and tools, what these are, how they work, and what purposes they are suitable for.
Ensure appropriate language coverage.
Don’t organize video session unless they are fully integrated into the agenda with facilitated discussions as a follow-up. They could also be part of a discussion session as a different presentation format.
In case of booths, set up a limited manageable number. A game such as scavenger hunt can be organized with a prize to encourage visits to the booths and interaction with the booth owners. A guided tour or random interview of booth owners during a special session dedicated to the booths might also be another option to encourage interaction.
In the agenda, introduce a “morning news” sessions which includes summaries/reporting back from previous sessions. This allows those who might have not been able to attend a session to know what happened as well as who to follow-up with.
Introduce a session on “ABC of Knowledge Management” as many participants want to know more about the theory as well as clarity on terminology.
At the end of each session, if there is no detailed reporting organized, interview (audio/video or both) one or two participants on the key lessons learned from or key issues that came out during the session.
We don’t have a final list of participants because there was no formal registration / reception desk so it is important to register.
Facilitator should be well versed in the methods they use. Success of the session depends on their ability to facilitate, adjust and adapt.
Ensure at all steps (in the announcements, website, emails or guidelines sent to participants, at the plenary session of the actual event, etc.) that participants are aware of the innovative methodology and the objectives of the event (networking, sharing of lessons learned, building of partnerships, learning and training). They should be informed at all times that the event is not like a traditional conference – with series of presentations - and requires their active participation, out-of-the-box thinking and emphasizes learning and sharing.
The video conferencing from Rome added an aspect diversity in the methods/formats used during event. However, it also slowed down the dynamics. Additionally, it would be been useful for (1) all FAO participants to be introduced and (2) if a facilitator on the FAO side also added an element of interaction instead of the FAO speakers interacting only with the facilitator at the venue.
It is important to ensure adequate internet (wireless or internet points) support for the participants.
World café sessions in combination with the presentations worked well. The presentations allowed the stage to be set, then the facilitator identified few streams together with the participants and then discussed them in World Café format. Ideas that came out during the world café session were then captured by one person on a flip-chart and these were then presented to the whole group.

There is no perfect recipe for organizing this type of event - there are many factors that add to its success. The lessons learned here are clearly good tips for us to take into account as we work towards planning the Addis as well as other Share Fairs.

The impact of the event is even more difficult to monitor as it depends on how the knowledge shared and the lessons learned are utilized, how the connections made will help the participants in supporting their work and how they incorporate learning before, during and after into their organizations processes!

Have you organized any Share Fair events? What has been your experience?

Share Fair Cali opens with a video-conference between Cali and Rome

2010-05-25T17:08:00.005+02:00

The Share Fair Cali opened today with a chat show between:

Stephen Katz, Jefe, Servicios de Gestión de Conocimiento y Biblioteca, Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura y la Alimentación (FAO), por videoconferencia
Ruben Echeverría, Director General, Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), por videoconferencia
James B. French, Director, Liderazgo Técnico y Gestión del Conocimiento, Instituto Interamericano de Cooperación para la Agricultura (IICA)
Enrica Porcari, Directora, Programa de Nuevas Tecnologías y Gestión del Conocimiento (ICT-KM) del Grupo Consultivo para la Investigación Agrícola Internacional de (CGIAR)
Esmeralda Solarte, Agricultora, Silvia, Colombia
John Smith, Consultor, miembro de la comunidad KM4Dev, Portland, EEUU

Stephen Katz and Ruben Echeverría participated via video conference from FAO in Rome. The session went well with very few glitches - thanks to two preparatory tests carried out yesterday and about 10 days ago. A big thanks to Elena!

This was a great example of collaboration as well as use of technology.

Key things to remember:

The internet connection needs to support the audio/video connection. If this can't be done, an option could have been to use only audio connection.
Test! Test! Test! We did two tests - one general test to see how the connection works, at what speed we need to connect, what we need to keep in mind as we are connected. The second test was with the participants of the actual event to show / familiarize them with the set up. One tip we had for participants from our side was to keep all the microphones muted so that we would not clog the line.
Stay connected via other means - Simone in Cali and I in Rome were connected to each other via Skype. Originally, we had problems with the sound as we were being fed the interpretation rather than the original voice. As soon as I let Simone know, she helped correct the problem and after that it was a smooth sail.

KSGhana: Feedback from Fishbowl on do we need good/best practices and what FAO can do to share them

2010-05-18T14:21:00.001+02:00

We had a very interesting Fish Bowl on the importance of collecting good/best practices. We divided the 4 chairs into red (against collecting) and blue (pro collecting). Here are some of the thoughts participants shared:

If we were to collect good practices, we would need to do them all the time. Do we have enough time for that? Do we know who/how it is being used?
We often collect them but do not have appropriate sharing plans. We need a blended approach to sharing our knowledge. The terminal project reports would be one approach, but these should be combined with other media (podcasts, videos, summary briefs, etc.)
They are important for FAO but we need to think about the various types of audience for the good practice and prepare the appropriate package for them.
Often projects have technical objectives but do not incorporate knowledge sharing as a logical next steps of the results. The project teams should consist of professional communications experts who can support the "simplification" of the technical knowledge and improve the dissemination of the knowledge. It is important to plan the use of project outputs from the beginning.
Collecting good practices also allow us to get experiential knowledge, not just the technical knowledge.
We need to show staff members the various channels available for sharing. Many technical project staff might not have the experience for using these channels but they will be informed and be able to make possible choices based on their context.
Collected experience should also be translated when appropriate and made available to potential users who may not understand the original language of the report.

The general agreement was we need to think about communications (and knowledge sharing) from the beginning, the teams should consist of people with experience/expertise in communications, and ensure that blended (multi-modal) approaches are used when disseminating outputs. Given that this can be expensive, projects should incorporate KS and communications right from the beginning. We then can design teams with necessary competence.

Are we able to do that? What do you think? Is investing in good practices worth while?

KSGhana: Feedback on Peer Assist method

2010-05-18T13:22:00.001+02:00

Yesterday, the last method we tried out was Peer Assist. We had two Assistees with very different problems. The first one was focused on how to ensure that staff members convey their travel plans to the clerical staff members in time while the second one was focused on identifying possible venues for acquiring funding.

The feedback on the method was:

The method was useful because even if I didn't relate directly to the problem, I learned new things from the answers given by others and as a result both sides benefit from the discussion.
It makes us bind together even if you don't have answer to the specific problem.
Generational gap - asking for help comes easily for younger generation
The asssistee was stressed at the beginning but as the answers/suggestions started to flow, the person relaxed
Empowers younger generation.
People have ideas that can assist you. They are also often willing to assist you - its just a matter of asking.
How to go about organizing it? The informal nature helps and organizing "beer assists" could be useful
New term for brainstorming. However, we are not in habit but should be cultivated.
Encouraging people you don't expect to contribute useful ideas
informal but time is money - is there value in using it?
There is need for humility in asking and helping. There is an element of joy and belonging to the same issue and contributing in way to support the problem.

KSGhana: Chat Show - Collecting good practices/lessons learned and feedback on the method

2010-05-18T13:07:00.003+02:00

This morning we started with a chat show hosted by Lucie. The guest speakers, Justin, Diana and Chris, were invited as panellists to share their experience.

The three experiences were as follows:

KAINET - lessons learned were captured at various intervals in the project. A person was dedicated to collecting the lessons learned. This was integrated into the project so funding was available for this person. AAR was also used to capture lessons. It allowed to identify the issues by seeing what didn't work and why. The lessons learned were shared with key stakeholders within the participating and partner institutions. This way, the future project development would have to take into account lessons learned from the previous experience.

Mainstreaming gender in agricultural projects - The experience was collected and made available through a CD. Data was collected from statisticians in African countries, FAO colleagues and a person was made in charge to create the CD. The process took 2 years. The idea for the CD came when Diana was repeating her experience to different countries. The CD is a collaboration between data producers and collectors and use of the CD will increase the quality of the data.

Aquaculture project - The project is cutting edge so they are looking towards the future. Six project partners (countries) meet regularly and steer the project. The project itself is a case-study for the other regions in Africa. The Aquaculture Networks for Africa (ANA) which uses case studies from Asia and other parts of the world. They look at the good points there and share/propose it to the African region. Staff also have opportunity to meet each other from various regional networks to share experience. This facilitates cross-fertilisation and the network is the body that collects the knowledge.

Key Challenges:

Communication/willingness to share information/knowledge.
Language
Projects are seen as source of income by the participating organizations
Information is not circulated well enough both within and between countries
One option could be to put enough request for funding under the monitoring and evaluation phase of the project

One of the participants said, its not that we do not collect lessons learned/good practices but it is also about sharing them and making them available for future use.

The feedback on the method was:

The method needs good preparation from both host and guests.
Both the host and the guests should put on the "role" of chat show to bring the more technical out in a informal/relaxed environment
There is limited visual information for the studio audience. There should be balance between the visual and the "chatting" part. For example, by using presentation slides in the background or short videos to introduce the topic.
In a more formal setting, rehearsal would help otherwise the guests may feel bit ill prepared.
And more importantly, it is important to know when this method is useful and when not.

KSGhana: Communities of practice and how can it be useful

2010-05-18T00:41:00.004+02:00

The purpose of this session was to introduce to the participants the concept of Community of Practice. Again, Lucie made an introductory presentation introducing the concept of community of practice. This was followed by few questions that were given to the participants for group discussion:

Are you part of a formal/informal community? Do they work? Why do they work?
Can FAO as an organization or you in your specific area benefit from encouraging the formation of COPs?

What can stimulate participation in and success of communities of practice?

When a lot of participants bring their knowledge and share it with the rest of the community
Creation of a core group that supports the COP in addition to ensuring appropriate facilitation
When participants have a common sense of purpose
When they are seen as source of support - getting feedback or answers to problems/questions
When participants think they can support others with their knowledge
When regular summaries are provided as a follow-up to discussions
When there is appropriate language and technological support
Bringing people together for a face-to-face interaction on occasion
Participants are recognized and given visibility for their inputs
Financial guarantee is available for the COP

In terms of the organization, the main issues with COPs were seen as:

there is already too much demand on staff time
lack of funding (for facilitation, face-to-face meetings, etc.)
lack of facilitation training and support

It was also observed that FAO staff would in general benefit from participating in external COPs. They would not only bring FAO's knowledge to the community but also gain from the external perspective of participants.

COPs are vital for knowledge sharing but the organization needs to support its staff by giving them time to participate in communities. In case where FAO needs to create and lead a community, financial support also needs to be provided.

So, is secret to successful COPs - $$, facilitation and core group? In that order?

KSGhana: Network mapping and understanding its benefits to your projects

2010-05-17T16:14:00.003+02:00

This session's purpose was to introduce social network mapping as a tool to visualize networks and support discussion on how they can be strengthened and used in support of our activities. Using paper, pens and post-it notes, participants created an informal map and then discussed it with other workshop participants to see the diagram from another’s point of view. This exercise allowed participants to get a better understanding of their diverse relationships and KS paths, to visualize the linkages that are already strong and find those that need strengthening or building. The discussion with others helped identify missing players and links. The full exercise is available from workshop wiki.

Feedback on the exercise:

The exercise was useful as I wouldn't have taken time to do it. The analysis helps to increase efficiency in knowledge sharing.
The graph also showed how one person can be center of the map. It helped me to understand that I need to develop strategies to start two-way communication.
When should we expect everyone to do this? It can be used at the beginning of the project or over the course of the whole project depending on the activity. For example, for stakeholder analysis at the beginning or for creating communication plan in the beginning/during a project.
This could be a good activity to be carried out by the taskforce at the beginning of a project.
Project beneficiaries are often at the receiving end. This activity could be done with them to increase their input.
Looking at village level - including them from the beginning to increase their participation and trust.

KSGhana: Icebreaker and introduction to Knowledge Sharing

2010-05-17T13:45:00.003+02:00

This morning we started off with a tagging icebreaker. The idea was to get people to get to know each other but also in the mood for the participatory workshop. The first part of the exercise was to tag yourself with a word that describes you at work and the second was to tag yourself with a word that describes you personally.

Once the tagging was done, people were asked to move around and cluster into tags that were similar. The idea of the exercise was to also show people how "tagging" is done in social media.

Following the exercise, Lucie made a presentation on knowledge sharing and its components. Some of the elements covered were:

Differentiating data, information and knowledge
Clarifying the difference between a tool and a method
Why share knowledge? (i.e. the benefits)
KS self-assessment framework
Knowledge sharing success factors

Following the presentation will be a small group discussion and debrief. Participants wrote up their questions and some of the questions that were asked were:

What is the difference between knowledge management and knowledge sharing? - Knowledge Sharing is part of knowledge management which encapsulates other activities such as capture, codification, monitoring, etc. These aspects will be touched only partially as the focus will be more on the interaction or sharing.
Reinventing the wheel - further explain. - Justin gave a good example of when this may happen. When he moved to RAF office, he didn't know whom to contact for specific questions. He tried to read previous back-to-office reports to find out solutions to many of his problems and as a result tried not to start from the beginning. In development, this is often the case and we should try to see what has been done before we start from the beginning.
Trust - how does one create a trusting environment in communities in the field? - This was a question which resulted in some good discussion about creating trusting environment at community levels. The creation of this does not happen overnight and needs time and getting used to.
What is the difference between methods and tools? - What we normally mean by methods are face-to-face interaction techniques that can be used in knowledge sharing. The tools are often technology based solutions that can be used to capture and share information.
What is knowledge sharing focusing on? Tacit or codified knowledge? - In the case of this workshop and our work, we are focusing more on tacit rather than codified knowledge.
What are the tools that we can use at community levels? - At community level, we would normally use face-to-face techniques due to access issues. However, there are also communities where it would be matter of figuring out what could be the best technology solutions. The BROSDI example shows how mobile phones can be effectively used for knowledge sharing.
How can we monitor the usefulness of shared knowledge? Why is it difficult to measure? - Monitoring and evaluation is diffiult because it is time consuming to follow-up with people you share knowledge with. Also, sometimes you may share something with someone and that person may use that knowledge after a year. This makes keeping track of shared knowledge and its effectiveness difficult. Normally this can be done using quantitative (access statistics, document downloads, etc.) as well as qualitative methods (capturing stories of how someone's knowledge sharing helped someone else, etc.).

Knolwedge Sharing Workshop in Ghana

2010-05-17T08:58:00.004+02:00

This week I am in Ghana (Accra) with Lucie and Justin for a KS Workshop for FAO colleagues in Regional, West Africa and Country office.

Background

Knowledge is one of the primary tools in FAO’s fight against hunger and poverty. The Director-General highlighted this when he introduced the concept of FAO as a Knowledge Organization in his reform proposals beginning in 2005. The subsequent Independent External Evaluation (IEE) devoted considerable attention to the role of information and knowledge in FAO’s current and future mission.
The IEE made a compelling case that FAO risks marginalization unless it fully exploits its comparative advantages as multidisciplinary integrator, convener and neutral forum to promote greater access to and flow of knowledge. FAO itself produces only a fraction of the knowledge required for sound stewardship in its areas of mandate; there are now many centers of excellence producing high-quality information and knowledge. FAO risks progressive irrelevance unless it asserts and develops its capacities for partnership and facilitation in support of access by and flow between all stakeholders.

Furthermore, FAO’s ability to perform effectively is also very much at stake. Knowledge sharing concepts, methods and tools can make a vital contribution to the broad goal of making FAO more efficient, innovative and relevant. A failure to take all possible steps towards this goal will accelerate the process of marginalization.

The FAO Office on Knowledge Exchange, Research and Extension (OEK) will be offering a face-to-face workshop entitled "Knowledge Sharing Tools and Methods". The workshop will introduce participants to various knowledge sharing tools and methods and how they facilitate knowledge and information exchange.

Expected results
Paricipants are expected to obtain an understanding and appreciation of the role and value of Knowledge Sharing tools and methods and undergo experiences on how to apply knowledge sharing concepts, tools and methods.

Tools Covered

Blogs: A blog (shortened from weblog) is an easy-to-publish web page consisting primarily of periodic articles or posts.
Photo Sharing: Web based photo sharing sites are Web sites where you can upload, share and access digital photos and images from projects, events, etc.
Video Sharing: Using video to share knowledge brings a visual aspect that can quickly convey ideas that may take much longer in text.
Wikis: A wiki is a web site that allows users to add, remove, and otherwise edit and change content.

Methods Covered

After Action Review: is a simple process used by a team to capture the lessons learned from past successes and failures, with the goal of improving future performance.
Chat Show: is a knowledge sharing method that encourages participants to share experiences in an informal, fun environment.
Communities of Practice: are groups of people who share a passion for something that they do, and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better.
Icebreakers: Icebreakers are short group activities that allow the various people inside a new group to get to know each other; to become more comfortable with discussing the topic of group work; or to become more comfortable with expressing dissenting views.
Jumpstart storytelling: is a form of storytelling technique that encourages summarization of ideas and thoughts into concise and to-the-point stories.
Network Mapping: a tool to visualize networks and support discussion on how they can be strengthened.
Peer Assists: brings together a group of peers to elicit feedback on a problem, project, or activity, and draw lessons from the participants' knowledge and experience.
World Café: is a creative process for leading collaborative dialogue, sharing knowledge and creating possibilities for action in groups of all sizes.

We will be spending the next 2.5 days covering various KS tools and methods.

Importance of faciliation in networks and communities

2010-04-28T17:44:00.005+02:00

Lucie, Nadia and I have been running a 2 week online course for FAO staff titled "Introduction to Knowledge Sharing Networks and Communities". Last week, we discussed the importance of facilitation and how to build trust in networks and communities.

Here is a summary of the various points that came out in this discussion topic:

Why is facilitation important in networks and communities?

To set the tone for a lively and productive discussion - create an open, friendly, yet goal-oriented atmosphere
To keep things on track: the topic, the time allotted, to take note of issues that are off-topic but might be excellent for another discussion round
To move ahead (and to avoid silent times, without activity)
To achieve results
To summarize/revise inputs from non-native English speakers so that their inputs are also shared with rest of the community.
To ensure an open discussion, promote dialogue and ensure everyone’s opinions are heard

Finally, the biggest mistake in past networks was the create-it-and-they-will-come mindset. Networks are a lot of work! They usually need a lot of the facilitator(s)'s time in the beginning, when you need to kick it off.

How do we create the right environment to engage people and build trust?

Remaining open and reactive (interactive)
Setting a positive tone and welcoming new people
Encouraging the quieter participants to join (or discover why they are not contributing.)
Prodding the community with questions and summarizing the discussions
Sharing useful information
Maintaining/brining a sense/slice of humor
Tactfully supporting non-native English speakers (editing their posts, encouraging participation by talking to them offline, etc)
Going the extra kilometer and picking up the phone, calling on favors, cajoling, even pleading, if necessary!
Remaining neutral - treating people how you want to be treated
Taking care to watch over the tone and content of the material and ensuring the tone is open-minded, courteous and productive

Finally, for building trust, it's really a question of treating people the way you want to be treated. Creating a safe environment for sharing means that the facilitator is the guardian of the online space, where people look to you and mirror your behaviour.

Thank you Jean, Beate, Hivy, Kristin, Charmaine, Ilaria and Lucie for sharing your thoughts on this topic.

Quick Response (QR) Codes

2010-04-08T10:51:00.005+02:00

I just came across an article about Quick Response (QR) Codes which is a bar code that can be read by mobile phones and can be used to encode all sorts of information, such as URLs, contact information, location data, text, etc. Due to their matrix structre, these two-dimensional codes hold much more data than the more common one-dimensional bar codes.

You can generate QR Codes for your own Web site, email address or telephone number at Kaywa. Once the data has been entered and the code generated, the code image can be scanned from the computer display and the mobile device can then immediately connect with the encoded information. Smartphones such as iPhone, Symbian and Android have softwares that can read these codes.

Here is the QR Code for this blog post.

{new publication} Learning to share knowledge for global agricultural progress

2010-03-26T12:54:00.005+01:00

In March - May 2008, I participated in a Knowledge Sharing Workshop organized by CGIAR's ICT-KM Program, facilitated by Nancy White, Simone Staiger-Rivas and Lucie Lamoureux.

Writing the article has been an interesting experience on its own as we started with the first draft around June 2008. The first draft was prepared by Gerry Toomey, a freelance writer based in Canada, on behalf of CGIAR’s Knowledge Sharing Project. He interviewed us regarding our work as a follow-up to the Workshop and drafted part of the paper. We used a Wiki to collaborate and I think this worked out well.

The final article is now available online at: International Journal of Web Based Communities 2010 – Vol. 6, No.2 pp. 209 – 226

The experience has also been interesting as it showed me how long it can sometimes take from submitting an article to a peer-reviewed journal to actual publication.
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Learning to share knowledge for global agricultural progress

By: Simone Staiger-Rivas, Alessandra Galie, Bernhard Hack, Maria Alexandra Jorge, Vanessa Meadu, Florencia Tateossian, Gauri Salokhe, Nancy White

Abstract:
Web 2.0 tools combined with face-to-face methods offer new opportunities for better knowledge sharing across disciplines, languages and borders. This article comprises an overview and case studies – the personal accounts of six participants and one facilitator of a 2008 Workshop on Knowledge Sharing, sponsored by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. It lays out the rationale for, and lessons learned from, those efforts, as well as from a second workshop hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. It explains why, in today’s culture of self-directed learning, group experiences remain essential. The authors describe their learning trajectories and application of knowledge sharing tools and methods in their work.

The article is available from CIAT here.
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Deadline has been extended for proposal submission to Feria del Conocimiento

2010-03-25T10:31:00.004+01:00

The deadline to submit your proposals for the Cali Share Fair has now been extended to April 5, 2010.

We have so far received 46 submissions! Keep them coming!

Feria del Conocimiento - Call for proposals is now out!

2010-02-26T14:57:00.005+01:00

It's been a while since I blogged and thanks Jo for reminding me of that! ;-)

I have been working on various things, among which one of the upcoming events is the Knowledge Share Fair for Latin America - The Feria del Conocimiento!

La Feria del Conocimiento, jointly organized with the ICT-KM Program of the CGIAR and other international organizations, is a further step towards the culture of sharing, networking and learning from each other in the field of agricultural research and development and food security.

The specific themes it will examine are:

Good knowledge sharing practices with project teams, partners, communities, networks, and end users
Good practices in making research processes and outputs accessible, available and applicable.

More information about the Fair available at: http://www.sharefair.net.

Call for proposals available at: [english /español].

Lessons learned from review of Communities of Practice / Thematic Knowledge Networks

2010-01-05T15:23:00.011+01:00

In mid 2008, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) completed a Review of its experiences with knowledge networks and communities (also called Thematic Knowledge Networks or TKNs). This Review was carried out in collaboration with Nadejda Loumbeva (@nadejdaloumbeva), Lucie Lamoureux and Kristin Kolshus. The results are based on focus groups and interviews so the acknowledgement extends to everyone who participated in the Review.

The Review methodology included a series of focus groups and interview discussions with network sponsors, coordinators and members. Data from the focus groups were qualitative, and the findings were subjected to a SWOT analysis.

The analysis revealed the need to cultivate an understanding of knowledge sharing in the organization, to create incentives for participating in networks and communities, and to support the proliferation and growth of networks and communities with human resources initiatives and appropriate Information and Communications Technology (ICT) platforms.

The key lessons learned are summarised below:

Sponsor from top - Ensure that succinct resources are available to create and sustain knowledge networks.
Ensure right blend of membership - Where possible, membership should be at least partly external.
Support demand - Create networks as a response to a real need, rather than in a top-down way.
Develop a business case - Organize consultations with potential network members to establish an appropriate business case for the network.
Facilitate continuously - Provide continuous facilitation for helping and supporting network members to work together and achieve their goals.
Select appropriate methodologies and technologies - One size does not fit all. Different types of networks need different methodologies and technologies.
Recognize staff time - Staff members should be recognized for their contribution to knowledge networks.
Promote - Sponsors and facilitators should share their experiences and promote knowledge networks.
Monitor and evaluate - There should be on-going monitoring and evaluation of knowledge networks.

You can download and read the full report by clicking here.

Using brainstorming method to draw out ideas

2009-12-23T17:52:00.002+01:00

In a recently held knowledge sharing event at IDLO, one of the issues that was presented was about a corporate tool (in this case an intranet portal for knowledge sharing (K-Café)) to encourage and cultivate knowledge sharing in an organization?

The unique problem with this issue was that the intranet was accessible only to 6 of the participants in the workshop. For this very reason, getting the "right" method for this session was critical for its success. I decided to try out a brainstorming method! Here is how the session went:

Issue/Background
The K-Café is a intranet Web site which offers a set of features and functions providing the best the virtual world can offer to optimize face-to-face and online interaction. The purpose of the K-Café is to provide a platform through which people can connect and share with each other their interests and ideas, in the spirit of knowledge sharing. Users can learn about colleagues who have a picture and profile, blog or comment on a posting within the Sharing in Action blog, ask a question, give an answer, and propose an event. The site also provides directory of knowledge sharing tools and methods.

In terms of promotion, the site has been announced on the log-on page, the intranet as well as through divisional registries. A newsletter is sent out every week with all changes to the site (latest events, posts, members, etc.). The current statistics (eliminating the visits from those who manage the site) show that the site is visited approximately 1500 times a month.

The K-Café was launched in May 2009. Since then it has seen steady growth in participants (now up at 197). The Sharing in Action blog has been the most active component of the site. The question and answer section, which had as its aim to facilitate dialogue and discussion around issues and hurdles related to knowledge sharing has been slow in uptake.

We think the rate of adoption (in terms of profiles created, questions asked and answered, blog postings made/commented on, and connections with others who can provide relevant expertise) of the K-Café should be faster than at present. We want to see what we could do in order to increase the rate of update; bearing in mind the time we can devote to working on this is limited.

So, the key issue was framed as:

What will it take for a corporate tool such as the Knowledge Sharing Portal (K-Café) to encourage and cultivate knowledge sharing in an organization?

Method Used
The method used for this session was a combination of the brainstorming method and card-sorting; it consisted of the following steps:

The issue was introduced by giving demonstration of the intranet site as not everyone in the room (approximately 25 of 30 participants) knew about it.

Everyone was asked to form groups of three or four and discuss ideas for addressing the above issue. Within these groups, the goal was to come up with 3-5 ideas that could help promote the use of the K-Café. The group was asked to write out each idea on a piece of paper (half A4).

After approximately 10 minutes, once the groups had three to four ideas each, we formed a circle and each group was asked to give two or three of its best ideas to the facilitator.
The facilitator then read out each idea and placed it on the floor in a horizontal row. If similar ideas emerged, they were placed in a column.
Once the first round of ideas were placed, the facilitator asked for another 2 or 3 ideas per group which were NOT yet mentioned. This way, the wide array of ideas were on floor in the center. The facilitator followed the same procedure as before (reading out the cards, asking the participants to group them, etc.)
This was repeated until everyone had given their best ideas.

The last step included looking at each column and finding the "action item" to group the ideas together (keeping the question in mind).

Results
For the K-Café to encourage and cultivate knowledge sharing in the organization, the following ideas emerged, amongst others:

1. Ensure unique positioning by putting some production tool on the K-Café that is unique, if not exclusive (i.e., a telephone directory)?

make the Café unique by putting information there that one can not find anywhere else;
a poll would also be useful to promote continuous interaction
allow members to invite others

2. Clarify the purpose of the K-Café:

do a 2nd launch emphasizing the positive effects the K-Café has had on the work of those who have used it, so far, as a way of evaluating and reframing the Café; expose the successes and the rewards
explain how workload/productivity will decrease/increase and what’s in it for them
enable a daily feature such as did you know that your colleague is doing this and this?
include story-telling videos
leverage Google analytics in order to see what parts of the K-Café are most visited, and when; this will help to better understand its usage and better target potential users

3. Promote the K-Café

ask those who use it whether they know their neighbours and what they do
have a staff member of the month content feature
organise a field work photo contest on the K-Cafe
implement ranking of questions and answers
organise hands-on introductory sessions
organise more prototype exhibition sessions to show how the K-Café works and explain why people would find it useful if they use it
Mainstream the use of the K-Café by ensuring at least one person from each department is a member, include membership of K-Café and its active use in performance appraisals, etc.
use raffle prizes to stimulate activity
reward behaviours you would like to see evolve and develop
explain what prompted the existence of the K-Café on the first page

4. Ensure best possible usability

ensure open access from anywhere in FAO (field, HQ) and in particular build in an RSS feature

After Action Review on using the method

What worked well:

In general, the method was perceived as both fun and interactive, especially in its mix of small-group and larger-group work. Participants enjoyed both the small group work and the larger group work.
The method process was interesting in that it allowed for collective thoughts and suggestions for action to emerge from the participants group.
The method is great for digging out/flushing out ideas from the group.
The facilitator did a very good job in organising and sorting the ideas, always ensuring the agreement and participation of the group. She also did a very good job in keeping the interest of all participants high and their attention poised on the task being tackled.
The room set-up worked very well.

What did not work so well:

Time was not enough to clearly formulate suggestions for action to each idea.
In itself, the method process is intense in that it requires a lot of group thinking. At times, the group attention faded and the burden fell a little too much on the facilitator.

What to improve for next sessions:

Allow for more time to do the method with a short break in the middle.
Work with pre-defined categories?
Ask people to write their names next to each idea in order to help with the sorting process? (people can be asked to elaborate when ideas are not so clear)

What are the key ingredients for making effective presentations?

2009-12-23T13:36:00.002+01:00

Early this month, I did a training course titled "Influencing your audience". The two-day course was intersting as I had the opportunity to learn not only about some of the tricks on how to ensure engagement from the audience but also the possibility to see myself present. We were all videod on each day of the training. There was considerable difference for most participants between the two days. Of course, watching oneself present can be nightmare, it also has positive side-effect in that it allows one to see what are the facial expressions, body movements, etc.

As we went through the lessons, we got lots of tips on ideas such as the magic of three, how the presentations normally work, etc. In this post, I will only be sharing with you some of the key factors that came out and might help you in making effective and useful presentations for your audience!

Ensure the presentation is relevant and focused. - This is obvious but sometimes we tend to wander around the bush a bit or drift. Stick to the point, put efforts in your message! Be precise and keep it simple - nothing is more boring than a presenter babbling on for too long without focus. Your audience will forgive you anything as long as you don't waste their time!
Ensure right balance of visual aids. - Make sure there is balance between images and words. If you are using embedded videos, test them during the break prior to your presentation. Use relevant and simple images/graphics.
Don't read. - Often, when there is lot of text on the screen, people will read on without listening to you and thus can be at a different point in the presentation than where you are! Make sure you provide only enough text to give the basic idea - the key message should come from you. Animation can help bring messages onto the screen when you want but don't make everything zoom in and out just because you (or powerpoint) can!
Involve the audience. - Ask an opening question and make the presentation a dialog rather than a one-way message. Change your rhythm to avoid a monotoneous monologue and make regular eye connection.
Start and end on time. - You don't want anyone to crop your lunch hour so don't do it for others!

I think the key message for me to take away from this training were:

Plan - what you are presenting, what are your key messages, etc.
Engage - make it a dialog; it doesn't all have to be one-sided!
Practice - makes perfect!

Anything I missed that you would swear by? Leave me your tips!

Facilitating multinational Peer Assists

2009-12-21T11:36:00.014+01:00

My name is Jo Cadilhon. I’m a technical officer in charge of marketing and quality improvement at FAO’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. I’m also interested in discovering knowledge sharing tools and methodologies that will support and facilitate my technical work. As such it is an honour for me to be a guest blogger on Gauri’s mumblings..

Following on from my first guest post on using peer-assists to support face-to-face knowledge sharing, I would like to give my facilitator’s viewpoint on the two peer-assist workshops I facilitated at the Regional Agro-industries Forum for Asia and the Pacific (RAIF-AP). In particular, I wish to reflect on the challenges I faced to facilitate these peer-assists among multinational strangers.

I first discovered the peer assist methodology at a knowledge sharing course that Gauri organized for FAO and the CGIAR in October 2008 and found it was a great technique to use the knowledge of the people assembled in the group to try to solve real-life problems. However, the group had already interacted for a full month online and over three previous days face-to-face. We knew each others and could really relate to each other as peers. I wanted to try it on a technical issue and in a setting where the peers do not necessarily know each other that well but are all involved in a similar line of technical activity.

When the organizational committee of the RAIF-AP was pondering how to root the forum into real-life problems and avoid it becoming yet another talk shop, we decided to insert peer-assist workshops into the programme. This way, at least some of our participants selected to be peer-assistees would go home with something we hoped would be useful for them.

Before the forum we invited all forum participants to submit to the forum secretariat a problem they were facing and which was in line with the forum’s main technical topics of discussion. Out of around 90 prospective participants we received ten ideas for peer-assist workshops. My colleague Stepanka Gallatova selected nine of these she deemed were the most interesting and assigned them to each facilitator. Our limiting factor was the number of facilitators and meeting rooms available.

I ended up facilitating two peer-assists on the topic of develop quality in food marketing chains, which happens to be my area of technical expertise. However, I tried to keep to my facilitator’s role of inviting contributions from the peers assembled in the room. My two peer-assistees – both of whom I had worked with in the past – were a Burmese gentleman facing quality and safety problems in the oilseed industry of Myanmar (see: photo) and then a Sri Lankan gentleman describing processing and theft issues in the spice industry of his country.

The first challenge I faced even before the peer-assist had started is that my two peer-assistees had naturally prepared a powerpoint presentation to describe their problem. I had to invite them to reconsider their communication format as we had no projection technology available. I encouraged them to distill the information on their industry and the problem they were facing into just one poster chart. I also allowed them to bring print-outs of photos of the problem they faced and a poster describing the products involved.

There were four or five peer-assist workshops running in parallel and all forum participants were free to choose where they would go. I managed to get 6 to 8 peers in my sessions. Colleagues who facilitated peer-assists with only three peers reported that it went fine nonetheless. Thus, the number of peers in the room should not be seen as a limiting factor.

Once the peer-assist had started, the first objective was to get everybody familiarized with the problem being faced. I asked the assistee to describe his problem in five minutes. Then I paraphrased the key points to make sure I had understood correctly while also giving an opportunity for the peers to listen to the same story a second time but in a different wording and a somewhat neutral English accent. Finally, I invited the peers to ask questions to clarify the problem further.

Then I went round the circle of peers inviting each one to provide ideas on how to solve the problem while I took notes of the contributions on a flip chart for everybody to see.

I thought the oilseed peer-assist went really well as there was a good mix of peers: policy makers, technical experts in marketing and post-harvest handling, food safety consultants, and an NGO involved in developing food quality with farmers. The advice given ranged from very practical and technical actions to policy and nationwide oilseed industry development programmes to be considered. We also covered all the different stages of the marketing chain from the farmers to the consumers while considering the role of the different support organizations that could help tackle the problem being faced. The peers asked me to rearrange the content of the flip chart so that the contributions from the peers were reported following the different stages of the marketing chain. The peer-assistee has since then gone back to Myanmar, discussed the results of the workshop with his manager. He has already sent me back an action plan of how the project he is involved in to develop the oilseed sector will follow-up on the advice contributed by his peers.

Personally I thought the Sri Lankan spice peer-assist was not as successful because the peers got blocked by a fundamental problem for which nobody could find a solution. Sri Lankan spice growers see their harvest being stolen on the trees as early as three months before maturation of the crop! Therefore, all the other advice on how to improve the post-harvest treatment of spices was conditional to finding a solution to the theft problem. I believe I also made a mistake by starting the round of peer comments from my right side (just to change from the morning session where I started from my left side). However, it so happened that all the food safety and post-harvest international experts were sitting on that side; they gave lots of useful suggestions but they may have stolen the show as the subsequent contributions of the Laotians sitting on the other side did not sound as impressive, although they were still relevant.

I enjoyed the whole process. My two peer-assistees wrote to me later saying how useful the comments from their peers were. The other peer-assist facilitators, the rest of the participants and other coorganizers of the event also gave excellent feedback on the very relevant choice of this knowledge sharing method. It is testimony that peer-assists can be used in a multinational setting and with peers who do not necessarily know each other beforehand but who are all involved some way or another in a similar field of activity.

Using peer assists to support face-to-face knowledge sharing

2009-12-18T11:00:00.006+01:00

This is a guest post by Jo Cadilhon, Marketing Officer (Quality Improvement) at FAO's regional office for Asia and the Pacific.

FAO, IFAD, the Shaanxi Provincial People’s Government (China) and UNIDO organized the Regional Agro-industries Forum for Asia and the Pacific (RAIF-AP) in November 2009.

After a first day of plenary and roundtable sessions to start the debate on actions and programmes that would contribute to sustainable and smallholder-inclusive agro-industries development in the region, participants were asked to join parallel peer assist sessions where a real agro-industries challenge submitted by one of the participants would be discussed.

The attendance to the peer assist workshop varied: three peers in the smallest group and up to 20 in the biggest. In the latter case, we restricted the number of contributing peers to 10 (a more manageable group for the facilitator) by placing ten chairs in the first circle while other participants could observe from the second row of chairs.

All the peer assistees were thrilled by the feedback and suggestions they got from their peers. The contributors realized that their experience of problems they had encountered in the past and managed to solve could be very useful for their peers in other countries who were facing similar problems.

Some verbatim feedback from the participants at the concluding session of the forum:

Michael Commons, Earth Net Foundation, Thailand. “I really liked the peer assist format. I’d never done that before but I thought it was really kind of a cool thing. It shows there is a lot of knowledge in the area and that I don’t know; by being able to learn from other people and pull out that experience I think it is a very valuable process.”
Umm e Zia, Cynosure Consultancy, Pakistan. “I just came out of a peer assist workshop which was fascinating for me because the problem that was presented to me already has a solution in areas that I have worked with and has been working for centuries or decades now.”

For more information, contact the facilitators of the RAIF-AP peer assist workshops:

Jo Cadilhon (FAORAP)
Stepanka Gallatova (FAO-AGS)
David Kahan (FAORAP)
Ayurzana Puntsagdavaa (IFAD)
Rosa Rolle (FAORAP)
Karl Schebesta (UNIDO)

Using audio blogs to disseminate information to farmers - BROSDI example

2009-12-09T12:11:00.002+01:00

I recently posted my interview with Ednah Maramagi from BROSDI on how they channel knowledge to and from farmers. One of the ways that BROSDI disseminates information is through audio blogging. The audio blogs range from topics such as "How to grow bananas" to "How to rear cows".

Interview with Ednah Karamagi, Executive Director of BROSDI

2009-12-08T13:42:00.003+01:00

I had the great pleasure of meeting Ednah Karamagi (@ednahkaramagi) during the KM4Dev Brussels meeting. She is the Executive Director of BROSDI or Busoga Rural Open Source and Development Initiative. I was fascinated by this initiative from Uganda as it was an excellent example of two-way knowledge and information flow - from the governments to the farmers and vice versa. The organization feeds information using information and communication technology (ICT) to farmers who further disseminate the information to other farmers. BROSDI also gathers information from the same farmers and pushes it up to the government. Listen to Ednah explain the flow in detail.

The one question that many participants from the huddle asked was "why aren’t we replicating examples such as BROSDI in other African countries?"

Peer Assist: What is local knowledge and how can we tap into it?

2009-12-07T19:43:00.011+01:00

One of the areas we focused on during the recent KM4Dev meeting in Brussels (within the Agriculture Huddle) was the need to understand "how do we get local knowledge and issues back from communities (farmers) to the organizations actually working on the issues?"

To address this issue, we decided to do a Peer Assist. Here are the outcomes of the three questions we addressed.

1. What is local knowledge?

The grouped defined local knowledge as: "Knowledge applied and proven to have worked."

The problem of capturing local knowledge is at different levels and even if knowledge is captured, how can we make sure it goes to the right audience?

2. So, what do we need to have in place to facilitate the flow?

We need individuals/institutions/networks who know who has what knowledge – sort of information intermediaries - to help with capturing
Promote/teach the information mediaries about KS tools - process not just the technology
Improve communication skills at different levels
There is limited sharing/scaling up of best practices and this needs to be addressed
Make research more demand driven by using some participatory methods such as the example of ICARDA's farmer's conference
Install incentives to encourage learning and sharing of experiences
Individuals need to understand that they need to look for what has been done before/while designing/doing programmes/projects - don't reinvent the wheel!
Regional/National forums for sharing experiences – networking is extremely important and needs to be facilitated/improved.
We are less willing to tell people what didn’t work - we need to change that.

3. Having identified the above possible solutions, what can donor, development and research organizations do?

Donor agencies need to facilitate communication between other donors/projects.
Donor agenda is changing fast hence there is lack of continuity although donors don’t work in vacuum and they work in collaboration with the national policy and thus it is a double edged sword.
All organizations working a country X need to work together with each other.
Capacity building needs to take place also at government level to recognise KS as an important issue
Bring all stakeholders into a network so that there is regular communication between them.
Organizations such as FAO need to make sure knowledge sharing becomes important part of the national policies that it helps develop at country level
Obstacles to up/out scaling best practises – not being networked
Add learning agenda into all the technical components of projects

Finally, the overarching (or underlying) issue in all of this is what's in it for me? What are the incentives and disincentives for sharing local knowledge? Here are some of the ideas that participants came up with:

Farmers have knowledge and need recognition
Capacity building as an incentive to do the job better
Getting acknowledgement for work, career path (although this might encourage competition)
Problems with the way science is set up - publishing copyright is still an issue.
Power relations – people do participatory events in communities but not always bring the summary back
Information overload and our resistance to new knowledge needs to be addressed
Build trust – important social skill when working with farmers needs to be developed

The key ideas were captured by Nancy...

So, what are your key messages?

2009-12-01T13:39:00.009+01:00

Today and tomorrow, I am taking a course on "influencing your audience". One of the illustrations the instructor made, which I found very interesting, related to how much effort we put into a presentation compared what is retained at the end by the audience. Here is an illustration of what he said was the "usual" trend.

100 % is what we put into a presentation planning
80 % is what we actually manage to put forward or deliver
60 % is what the audience may actually pick
40 % is what they might understand (influenced by language, topic, etc.)
20 % is what they actually find interesting

and finally

5% is what they will take with them (and I might add, if you are lucky!)

So, try to focus on your key messages and what you would like them to take away in those 5%!!

Survey results show the recent KM4Dev Rome meeting was a success!

2009-11-25T18:16:00.004+01:00

The recently held KM4Dev-Rome event has been a success! The survey results (taken by 30 out of 35 participants) show that in summary, everyone's experience was positive and encouraging. Apart from learning about knowledge sharing methods and tools, and knowledge sharing in our organizations, we broadened our networks, met likeminded people and felt inspired to do positive change in our work. We thought there is a great value and potential behind the Rome KM4Dev community, as well as a need for regular Rome KM4Dev events and gatherings.

Here are some of the key results:

Some key lessons to take ahead for next KM4Dev-Rome meet-up:

If a peer assist is organized, make sure the questions are well developed ahead of time.
Ensure that the agenda is not so packed and the case studies represent issues rather than organizations.
Give time for hosts to digest information coming out of sessions so that they can give a more meaningful summary.

Although most of us have not been able to put up summaries yet, they should be available from: http://bit.ly/7PfxO0.

On a personal note, the experience was great for me as it was the first time I facilitated a full-day event. I blogged about my experience on co-facilitating the event with Nadia at: http://bit.ly/2VyOav.

And, here is the social reporting team!

2009-11-21T12:40:00.005+01:00

I posted earlier this week about our social reporting during the World Summit on Food Security. And, of course, it was a team effort!

Social reporting during the upcoming World Summit on Food Security

2009-11-16T18:49:00.002+01:00

During the upcoming World Summit on Food Security, a group of around fifteen volunteers at FAO will be doing "social reporting".

What is Social reporting?

Social reporting is aimed at people organising a face-to-face event and who want to use new social media for both capturing moments of the event and for stimulating different types of conversation. Events provide good opportunities for social reporting before, during, and after the day. They push you to think about reaching people "in the room" and those people who could not make it. - From the Social Reporting Toolbox http://www.eudaimonia.pt/CoPIM/documents/CoPIMSocialReportingToolbox.pdf

During the recent KM4Dev, Social reporting was one way we used to capture and share the outcomes from the Agriculture Huddle. During the same event, Josien Kampa, gave a short presentation about various aspects of social reporting which I am sharing here.

Social Reporting

View more presentations from josienkapma.

During the upcoming summit, we will be using the following tools for sharing information with those who can't be physically at the Summit.

Twitter - http://twitter.com/faonews
Yammer - http://www.yammer.com/
YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/user/FAOVideo
Delicious - http://www.delicious.com/FAOoftheUN
Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/faonews/
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Food-and-Agriculture-Organization-of-the-United-Nations-FAO/46370758585 (become a fan!)
Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Summit_on_Food_Security_2009

All these sites will be linked to from the Summit homepage: http://www.fao.org/wsfs/.

Watch out for all the news coming out and for the summit tag #wsfs09!

Support the petition to "End world hunger"

2009-11-13T11:45:00.003+01:00

Sign-on petition to end chronic hunger and make it a priority!

2009-11-10T19:55:00.006+01:00

1 billion people worldwide live in chronic hunger.

In the time it takes to watch the above video, at least one child will die of hunger.

This is the status quo in the world today.

If this situation is unacceptable to you, make your voice heard by signing on to the ‘I don't agree’ petition on http://www.1billionhungry.org.

Twitter tip - Adding hashtag (#) to Tweet This!

2009-11-09T18:13:00.019+01:00

I just spent sometime trying to find solutions to add the "Tweet This" button to a website/blog post. So, here is how to do it!

The syntax is basically:

http://twitter.com/home?status=custom+tweet

So, to tweet this article, the syntax would be:

http://twitter.com/home?status=Twitter+tip+-+Adding+hashtag+(%23)+to+Tweet+This!+http://bit.ly/1x4RDe+%23Twitter

Replace space with "+"and the hash sign(#) with "%23"!

Helpful? TweetThis!

Facilitating as a team - few dos and don'ts

2009-11-05T19:12:00.017+01:00

At last week's knowledge sharing event, my colleague Nadejda Loumbeva and I (@gaurisalokhe) facilitated a day of discussions and conversations using World Café, rotating Peer Assist and the ToP Workshop Method. Although we have facilitated together before, this was the first whole day event!

In this post, I would like to share a few tips with you based on my experience as a co-facilitator at a recent event.

1) Know your co-facilitator - like in any relationship, it is important to know the other person: how they think (in terms of facilitation - here!), if they are introvert/extrovert, what is their style, etc. This understanding helps you figure out who is going to be the "lead" the dance moves and where you may need to support the other person. For example, some facilitators are excellent with time management, some aren't! Know what the other person's strengths as well as their weaknesses.

2) Find someone who is slightly opposite of you. - This tip is actually not mine but that of one my facilitation teachers - Eunice Shankland. And, I agree with her completely! It is important, especially when facilitating events that span over a day or few, that the participants see two or more different types of personalities, methods and energy levels. You should complement each other and ensure that the participants are getting the right blend! It is also important that you find a co-facilitator when the event is longer than half-day to not only help the participants (by providing them variety) but also to rest yourself!

3) Prepare in advance who is going to do what! - Day before the event, I prepared a session by session breakdown of who was going to do what, what were the key focus areas for us to keep in mind for the event, which methods will be used (world café, etc.), etc. This step-by-step two-page itinerary helped us know when who was in-charge.

4) Improvise and support each other! - During the abovementioned event, we had a critical problem because the questions for the rotating peer assist were not formalized! The solution was that we sat with the group who were going to be peer assistees over lunch and ironed out the questions. Of course, in reality this should have been done during the preparatory phase of at least a week prior to the event, due to last minute volunteering from our side and everyone's busy schedules, we were not able to dedicate time to it.

5) Do an after action review. - At the end of any major facilitation event, I think there is lot to learn from what worked and what didn't go so well and needs to be worked on for future such events. Have a discussion on how it went and see how things that didn't go so well could be improved in the future.

In summary, although Nadejda and I had volunteered on our own free will to facilitate the event at the very last minute, the results of the after event participant survey rated facilitation as Good (46.7% ) and Excellent ( 43.3%). This is positive feedback that helps and encourages us to do even better next time! :)

What are some of your tips for co-facilitating events?

FAO launches its vision

2009-11-04T10:35:00.006+01:00

It's a milestone for the team which has been working on culture change team at FAO. The vision day is here!

The team was asked to develop an internal vision statement for the organization. The team did extensive consultations with staff at all levels from head quarters and regional/national offices.

"The final statement incorporates three components: FAO's mission, the Internal Vision and FAO's Values. These components address FAO and its work, FAO and how it works, and the values which guide employee actions and behaviours."

The statement was launched today at the HQ with colleagues from field offices joining via audio/video and reading it in Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish and Russian.

It will be soon available to all in the next few days.

Follow-up event to Share Fair: ‘Knowledge Sharing: Getting Together to Do It Better’.

2009-11-02T14:49:00.004+01:00

On October 29, the KM4DEV Rome group organize a one-day event, hosted in IDLO near Vatican, called ‘Knowledge Sharing: Getting Together to Do it Better’. The sessions were organized around common issues related to Knowledge Management and Knowledge Sharing in international organizations, in this case, the Rome-based ones (CGIAR, FAO, IDLO, IFAD and WFP).

It was a day of brainstorming, problem solving and creative thinking sessions to address specific challenges we've come across in our knowledge management projects:
how can we grow a community of practice?

how do we get colleagues on board of innovative ways of working?
how do we communicate the benefits to our prospective stakeholders (participants, adopters, beneficiaries, users)?
are the tools we are using the right ones for the job at hand?

WHY THIS EVENT?
The event was organized:

to reflect and find creative solutions to specific issues we encounter in our KM/KS projects, and particularly in the areas of fostering collaboration, nurturing communities of practice, spreading a culture of participation and sharing, selecting effective and efficient tools for geographically-distributed working groups, and ensuring buy-in and adoption.
to practice knowledge sharing among the Rome-based international organizations.
to mobilize attention towards innovative and efficient ways of working.

WHY A JOINT KM4DEV/SHARE FAIR EVENT?
In the spirit of KM4Dev and the Share Fair, we got together to share and learn from each other's experience with the goal of improving the impact of our work within our organizations.

KM4DEV is a community of international development practitioners who are interested in knowledge management and knowledge sharing issues and approaches. From this international community, a local group has been created known as KM4DEV Rome.

The Share Fair event took place in January 2009 in FAO and aimed to be an interactive event, providing the possibility for people to showcase their experiences in knowledge sharing and, at the same, time learning from each other.

WHO WERE THE PARTICIPANTS?
Around 35 participants (practitioners, information managers, project managers, facilitators and everybody involved in projects with knowledge management and knowledge sharing components) from the following organizations took part in the event.
• Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR),
• Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),
• International Development Law Organization (IDLO),
• International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and
• World Food Programme (WFP).

MORE INFORMATION
You can find more information about the event on our Wiki.

Can we move out of mailbox and into wikis?

2009-08-26T19:05:00.029+02:00

This week's knowledge sharing tools session, co-facilitated once again by Romolo Tassone, Tania Jordan and myself (@gaurisalokhe), looked at Wikis. These trainings are part of an ongoing series of workshops on the methods, tools and services that can facilitate knowledge sharing at FAO. The trainings are offered by my division, Knowledge Exchange and Capacity Building Division (KCE), in collaboration with Staff Development Branch (AFHT).

Tania Jordan, Gauri Salokhe, Romolo Tassone

Like last week, the 2-hour session was attended by 15 staff members from across the organization.

The session started with the usual introductions of facilitators and with background information from Stephen Katz, Chief Knowledge Exchange Branch, on the purpose and motivations for the KS training courses.

This was followed by the commoncraft video about "Wikis in plain English".

Romolo Tassone

Romolo then explained what Wikis are and their specific characteristics such as inline editing/saving, easy and open access to history, versioning/differences information and the ability to role back, discussion tag, comparison of edits, notification of edits using emails or RSS, user management/permissions. He also talked about the need for to focus on accountability and transparency, rather than security/authority/ownership. He gave examples of how for a wiki to grow there is a need for "sense of community" and the role of culture (of an organization).

After doing an after action review on last week's session, we decided to stick to only one example per Wiki software (that is Media Wiki, Wikispaces and Google Sites). Each Wiki was described by focusing on the following questions:

Why does the Wiki exist?
long-term or short-term? Why – project, meeting, etc?
Who is the Wiki for? Type of people (technical, dispersed...)? Number of users?
How was the software chosen? How does it help/hinder?
Show and describe history tracking
Show and describe editing
Is it public or private – why?
Is it locked or unlocked – why?
Summary of experience?
What lessons were learned that would be useful for today’s participants?

The three Wikis shown were:

FAO Web Guide - using Media Wiki
CGIAR - FAO KS Toolkit - using Wikispaces
CGIAR Collaborative Writing Site - using Google Sites

Once the examples were show, the discussion focused on how to get people involved in using Wikis.

What would be a good approach to ensure Wikis become part of the way we work?

Romolo Tassone and Tania Jordan

Very often, I have seen Wikis being created but either used by only the creators or not used at all. It is important to understand why this may be happening. Some of the reasons could be that we are too used to working in our mailbox or just not willing to try out new tools.

There are several scenarios where Wikis would be best solutions when compared to using emails, however, its value often remains untapped. The approach to take, when starting to think about a Wiki-based working environment, could be to:

Do a thorough needs analysis to ensure that Wikis ARE the appropriate tool. For example, if you would like to collectively work on a single document, the solution might simply be GoogleDocs.
Understand the skills level of those expected to edit the Wiki. The software choice should depend on the level of willingness plus ability of the participants in editing. Some might be able to edit Wiki text but most will not.
Ensure that all the expected contributors to the Wiki (the user community) are well aware of the value and importance of the "new way of working". Explain the benefits of using this approach when compared to the more traditional one (e.g. sending documents as attachments with different versions).
Provide training on how to use the Wiki. This could be a one-hour hands-on session where participants can try to add/edit, embed images, etc. Giving them a sandbox to play with helps to increase their comfort level. Explain the transparency aspect of the Wiki by showing how the history function. Ensure that credit will be given where it is due.
Nurture the community, get them involved in managing different aspects of the Wiki, regularly send out reminders for contributions. Create a community of "Wiki gardeners".
Don't push! Give people opportunity to learn and get used to using Wikis. Don't sell it as THE solution! The more they use it, the more the will think of innovative ideas for using it in other projects.
Promote the Wiki as a good example of using new social media tools for getting the work done in a better way.

Are there any other points you would like to add to the above list? What makes a Wiki work?

Some fascinating statistics about world, environment and hunger

2009-08-24T10:38:00.001+02:00

@LisaCespedes recently shared a site that provides world statistics in real-time.

Some of the worrying statistics, as of today, were:

Net population growth for today ~ 200 000
Species that have gone extinct this year ~ 90,000

Working for UNFAO, the most alarming stats are:

Undernourished people in the world right now ~ 1,017,200,793
Overweight people in the world right now ~ 1,139,944,314
Obese people in the world ~ 339,379,680

and finally..

People who died of hunger today ~ 25,000

And as an aside, the total # of e-mail messages sent today (~200,000,000,000) is not at all impressive!!!

Icebreaker: Tell one fact about yourself..

2009-08-21T14:33:00.011+02:00

Last month, we had Ana Lourdes Herrera from International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization over to talk about their e-learning program. The session was extremely interesting and their centre in Turin is impressive and (almost) tempts me to go back to Uni! But I am not going to talk about that.

During the meeting, she had a great icebreaker idea. She asked us to stand up (we were sitting in a formal meeting room -- around a big oval table -- the Canada Room for those who know FAO) and tell one fact about yourself that not many people know. I thought this was a great, easy icebreaker. Some people didn't have anything to say but others had some very interesting things like:

My great grandfather ran for president of Mexico
I was a practicing lawyer before I joined my organization
I tried to open a restaurant and failed badly
I am an avid supporter of Ferrari team in Formula 1
I am trying to win the Superenalotto!
My ancestors from Mom's side came from area which is now part of Afghanistan!

This method works well for introducing a subtle fact about oneself and worked well to liven up the mood in the room. It works well in groups of around 20 people, with larger groups it might take some time!

More icebreakers are available from: http://www.kstoolkit.org/Icebreakers

Have you used this method before? What has been your experience?

Wiki (Hawaiian for 'quick') session on Wikis at FAO!

2009-08-20T17:35:00.003+02:00

Yesterday, @RomoloTassone and I (@gaurisalokhe) ran a 2 hour session on Wikis– part of an ongoing series of workshops on the methods, tools and services that can facilitate knowledge sharing at FAO. The trainings are offered by my division, Knowledge Exchange and Capacity Building Division (KCE), in collaboration with Staff Development Branch (AFHT).

The 2 hour sessions are designed to give participants brief introduction to a knowledge sharing tool or method. This week, we decided to see if there was any demand for Wikis. Given that it is August and most people are not around, we were overwhelmed with the response! In 4 working days, we had over 40 registrations.

The purpose of this session on Wikis was to:

Introduce the concept of Wikis
Show how Wikis are being used in FAO as well as partner organizations
Identify possible cases for the use of Wikis in FAO’s projects and work

During each session, we try to invite a guest speaker who can give us views, experiences and lessons learned from their organizations. This week's invited guest speaker was Tania Jordan, ICT-KM Technical Coordinator.

The session started with introduction of the speakers. These sessions are a result of the Knowledge Share Fair held early this year - during the fair, we gave lot of hands-on training on KS tools and methods and saw that there was extremely high demand for similar sessions.

Romolo then explained what Wikis are and their specific characteristics such as inline editing/saving, easy and open access to history, versioning/differences information and the ability to role back, discussion tag, comparison of edits, notification of edits using emails or RSS, user management/permissions. He also talked about the need for to focus on accountability and transparency, rather than security/authority/ownership. He gave examples of how for a wiki to grow there is a need for "sense of community" and the role of culture (of an organization).

I then followed this by showing examples of 2 Wikis: the Knowledge Sharing Toolkit and Share Fair 2009. The KS Toolkit is an example of long term wiki, a wiki that has a long-term life span. Although it was started by few people, it has now a growing community of 120 participants who actively add/edit its content. The latter is an example of a "short term" wiki which has a limited life span, usually for the duration of an event, project, document preparation, etc. The latter was used in preparation of the Share Fair and has not been used/updated since.

Tania showed some great examples of short-term wikis such as:

CGXchange 2.0 (site that gathers tutorials and trainings of the collaboration tools available for the CGIAR staff)
CIMMYT Emergencies (site created to inform staff about the swine flu developments in Mexico)
Alliance of the CGIAR Centers (the strategic framework of the new CGIAR process is being shared with a Wiki)
CGMap Helpdesk (helpdesk site for a system-wide software used by all 15 CGIAR centers)

All of the above are done using Google Sites. Google Sites allows you to make complete websites with pages that have Wiki-like functionality. She also talked about "public" vs. "private" Wikis.

This was followed by a quick hands-on with Wikis. For the hands-on session, we had purposefully decided not to use media Wiki and instead created a test account on Wikispaces. The key differences between the two is the "What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get" (WYSIWYG) editor. The participants were paired up (lesson learned from social bookmarking session!) and asked to create and edit pages, add video or images and visit/edit each other's pages. This went extremely well.

Finally, we had some great discussion around how tools like these could be used within our work for policy development, meeting organization, participants lists or just using it for collaborating planning.

There are several issues that came out of discussion about the use of Wikis.

FAO currently supports Wikis using Media Wiki software. This wiki software uses Wiki Text, special markup text. This requires extra learning effort especially when adding tables.
Multiple people can edit the same document at the same time. Wiki is collaborative environment but its not a synchronous collaborative environment (as is provided by Google Wave). Sometimes, changes can simply get lost and its some work to find it through the history section!
Many Wikis die a premature death because of the lack of incentives in using it. Trust is an important aspect of working with such tools. The rules of engagement - such as who can edit what, how, when to use discussion vs. direct edits - need to be clear and well understood by all involved.
We still have a very e-mail heavy culture. If it is not in our in-box, we have a hard time accepting/working with it.

In summary, my two cents, as a Wiki-skeptic, are that Wikis are a great tool when the community is ready for it and there is shared understanding for its need. It is important to do thorough needs analysis before starting up Wikis. And, once it is clear that the optimal solution is a Wiki, then all involved should be brought together, informed, consulted and trained (in case of Media Wiki).

What has been your experience with Wikis? Have they worked in your teams/organizations?

Social media .. it ain't a fad!

2009-08-18T14:17:00.007+02:00

@mongkolroek just shared this very interesting video...

Is Social Media a fad?

The statistics are impressive and I thought there were some key ones that organizations that are still not actively involved in social media should take seriously:

By 2010 generation Y will outnumber Baby Boomers - 96% of them have joined a social network
... on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instructions..
1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
80% of companies are using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees
Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé!

I especially find the last point very exciting. If that is true, we need to start moving out of e-mails for everything we do and looking at more collaborative tools for knowledge sharing and working better. Emails are here to stay but when and how we use them needs a rethink. The next generation of employees are not going to be happy with what many of the IT departments are still offering.. they want Skype for calling/chatting, Wikis/Googledocs for collaborative document editing, Twitter for promoting/sharing, etc.

Are we prepared to meet that kind of demand? Or are we going to tell them that the "way we do things here" are the best?

It's important to fail.. and LEARN from it!

2009-08-12T17:34:00.006+02:00

@RomoloTassone recently shared an article on why we need to fail. The article talks about how failing and learning and growing from these failures is an opportunity. I would like to share my recent experience that supports this.

Couple of weeks ago, we decided to run a session on social bookmarking. For each session, as the organiser, I develop a lesson plan. The plan covers the main objectives of the sessions, key messages that we want to relay as well as the timeline on how we will run the session. I have learnt that this is extremely important to make sure all the involved people (myself, session facilitators, invited guests, etc.) are on the same page.

The social bookmarking session was facilitated by my colleague, Kristin Kolshus, and myself (@gaurisalokhe). The main objectives of the 2 hour session are to make participants:

understand what is social bookmarking and its elements.
aware of various scenarios in which social bookmarking can be used.

The key messages we wanted to get across were:

Social bookmarking provides opportunities to store, share, and discover web bookmarks.
There are various ways that social bookmarking can be used for sharing information (within distributed team environments, documents related to topics, events, knowledge discovery, etc.).
Social bookmarking is being used by partner organizations to disseminate and share information.

The first session involved hands-on combined with theory. The overall feedback from the session was extremely positive but we had realized that the session had not completely gone the way we had planned/thought it out. After the session, my colleague and I sat down to do an after action review.

Some of key lessons learned from the session were:

Ensure that you have adequate IT support to set up the projectors and computers.
Don't allow participants to start interacting with the tool immediately; they need to have basic understanding of the tool before.
Each participant has different level of IT knowledge. The questions ranged from how do I open a new browser to how do I create "network bundles".

What did work during this session were the two accounts we had "pre-created" for use during the session. Participants were not immediately asked to create new accounts. Those who did wish to eventually did but not everyone had to create accounts which eventually they would not use. One important aside here: If you are using same account on multiple computers, make sure that when logging in, you keep the "Keep me signed in." ticked otherwise, every time someone wants to tag resource, they are automatically logged out!

Based on the above experience we came to the conclusion that we needed to change a few things for the repeat session scheduled for the following week. Some of the changes we came up with and implemented were:

Contacted the IT people to help with the set-up of the projector/screen.
Set up the computers and turn off the screen. This way, the participants don't immediately start to interact with the site or check their emails!
We had turned on only half the number of computers as participants. We paired people up and got them to work together rather than individually. This way, they could support and learn from one another.

We also divided the session into theory and practice. The first hour was spent giving the basics of special bookmarking. The agenda was as follows:

1. Introduce the concept of social bookmarking using the Common Craft video

2. Explain the anatomy of the del.icio.us page.

3. Show how to tag publicly and privately.

4.. Show how to add del.icio.us buttons to the browser.

5. Explain how to add people to the network and bundle them together

6. Show how links can be sent to other del.icio.us users.

7. Show how del.icio.us can be used for knowledge discovery.

8. Show examples of how social bookmarking is used by other divisions/organizations

9. Explain briefly how using RSS the same information can be embedded in other websites.

Once this was done, and having answered all the questions that arose, the participants were asked to pair up and start experimenting by tagging a link and sending it to someone else. Some participants immediately created a new account while others just worked with the test account.

Result, you ask?
This session went superbly well, I thought! The fact that theory was separated from the practical, the screens being kept turned off for the first part, and the pairing of participants for the practical part worked wonders.

So, it was important that we failed the first time around. And, it was even more important that we followed up the session with a discussion on what worked and what didn't (as well as why) so that we could learn and improve the following session.

What we learned from the AAR for the second session was that we should have set aside time for some "final" discussion on how the tool could be used within the organization, in our day-to-day work. Next time, we will surely do that!

This process was a great learning experience for me as we work on doing more such trainings on other social media tools. There are some key lessons here that I will take into consideration as I work on the upcoming Wiki session.

Are there any other tips you would like to share? What has been your experience?

Some book recommendations..

2009-08-06T12:29:00.005+02:00

A friend recently asked me to make a list of fifteen books I've read that will always stick with me. Here is the list I shared.

1. God of Small Things -- Arundhati Roy
2. Jane Eyre -- Charlotte Brontë
3. Rebecca -- Daphne du Maurier... Read More
4. The King's General -- Daphne Du Maurier
5. Wuthering Heights -- Emily Brontë
6. To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee
7. An Instance of the Fingerpost -- Iain Pears
8. Pride and Prejudice -- Jane Austen
9. Princess: True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia -- Jean Sasson
10. The Namesake -- Jhumpa Lahiri
11. Harry Potter Series -- JK Rowling
12. White Swan -- Jung Chang
13. The Pillars of the Earth -- Ken Follett
14. Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama -- Lama Dalai
15. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings -- Maya Angelou
16. Maps for Lost Lovers -- Nadeem Aslam
17. Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow -- Peter Hoeg
18. Restoration -- Rose Tremain
19. Fingersmith -- Sarah Waters
20. The Dragon's Pearl -- Sirin Phathanothai
21. Guards! Guards! -- Terry Pratchett
22. Effi Briest -- Theodor Fontane
23. The Lady and the Unicorn -- Tracy Chevalier
24. Baudolino -- Umberto Eco
25. Life of Pi -- Yann Martel

Of course, I went over the fifteen requested but couldn't help it! I can add few more to this list but for now will leave it at this. Have you read any of the above? Do you have some other recommendations for me?

Lessons learned from training on "World Café" method at an International Organization

2009-07-16T16:29:00.015+02:00

Nadejda Loumbeva, Sophie Treinen, Marco Piazza, Stefka Kaloyanova, Julie MacKenzie, and myself recently organised training session at our organization on World Café method. The training sessions are part of the follow-up to the Share Fair, and especially to the extremely high demand for training in knowledge sharing tools and methods.

World Café is a face-to-face participatory method which can be used to share tacit and explicit knowledge within groups and teams. It can help facilitate learning and gain a collective understanding of an issue through conversation. It can be an effective vehicle for opening up discussions that lead to solutions. The purpose of the training sessions on World Café was to:

Show participants how World Cafés can be used as part of face-t0-face meetings and workshops to address and solve specific problems and challenges.
Help participants understand the fundamental principles and benefits of the World Café process.

By the end of the session participants were expected to understand how to run World Cafés and identify opportunities to integrate World Cafés in the events they organize.

The methodology used for the 2 hour session is as follows:

1. Introduction (10 mins)

Link to Share Fair
Self introduction of Presenters/Participants

2. Theory (10 mins)

Present basics of World Café.
Give a brief introduction of the session. What is expected, what will be shown and what will NOT be covered.

3. Hands-on (80 mins)

Divide into groups and discuss around specific questions. (5 mins)
Rotate groups after 20 mins, 15 mins, 15 mins.
Summarise the outputs (25 mins)

4. Debrief (20 mins)

Discuss how the method worked? Didn’t work? How and when could it be applied? specifically within the context of FAO.

The idea behind this break-down is that participants learn the method by actually participating in a World Café. This learning by doing approach is extremely helpful as it increases the understanding of and modalities for conducting World Cafés. During the two sessions conducted so far the following questions were asked during the hands-on session.

Session 1:

Do you think there is a need for knowledge sharing related activities in your organization and why?
In your experience, what are the key enablers and deterrents to knowledge sharing in your organization? Do you have examples of activities which have worked?
What knowledge sharing activities should be part of your organization's strategy in the next 2 years to help you in your daily work?

Session 2:

How "green" do you think your current workplace is and where could we improve?
Do you think there is a need for a "greening" strategy? Who should it involve and what should be its main targets?
How would you like to be informed and kept up-to-date on ways to "go green"?

Lessons Learned

Method

Because these kinds of methods are not so commonly used, the training sessions in World Café have provided the participants with an opportunity to get to know new colleagues and see that there can be interactive and participatory ways of communication without necessarily having to constantly revert to Power Points! Participants felt that it was amazing and refreshing; it gave them an opportunity to be creative. The learning by doing allowed participants to see how these methods can be used in different contexts such as to find solutions, reach a shared understanding of issues common to a team/group/etc. Many participants observed that the World Café method could be used to start a workshop as it allows people to be at ease with one another. It can be seen as a form of speed dating technique.

Organization

Giving out information about the World Café (1 page flyer) was a good idea. It should/could also be sent out to everyone attending the day before. As many participants didn't know each other, having name tags for participants was a good idea. We could see that the facilitators had an important role in keeping the session lively and fun!

The major problems and how they were addressed

Participants

The number of participants should be kept as close to 25 as possible with 5 to 6 persons maximum per table. (This as per what the room allowed us to do, as well as the couple of hours allocated to the training). In the first session, we had too many participants and thus it was too noisy in the room. Also, if there are too many people at a table, not everyone has an opportunity to participate and join the conversation.

Theory

It is important to explain the theoretic concepts behind World Café (roles of participants, set-up of the room, etc.). In the second session, this was coupled with a one-page hand-out on World Café.
We realised that we should perhaps be more clear on the roles of the hosts (i.e., they stick to their tables, at all times) and how questions get asked during the debriefing, as well as how time gets allocated to them to quickly summarise the main points. Aiming for more interaction among the participants and not just among the hosts during the 'reporting back' (i.e., debriefing) phase is good, however keeping in mind the special role of the hosts (see below).

Hands-on session

The questions were sometimes double-barrelled and so maybe not so clear to some participants.
One suggested alternative to the option of asking 3 questions is as follows:
make the group circulate and contribute in all tables with the same question. In my case when I summarize what the previous group discussed, I felt that people wanted to contribute and discuss a bit more as it was a new group on the same question; however we couldn't because we suppose to discuss the new question. My previous experience with world café (used another name: panel) were to have three questions in each table and the group circulate and give their contribution, in this way everybody would contribute to the three questions but with different perspective. I would be happy to try this model in a future session of the world café.

Application within International Organizations

We thought we should spend more time discussing applications of the approach to work people are doing, already, and the organization. This could be done by giving 2 minutes to the participants to discuss the application of the method in the context of the organization before the final debriefing on method.
At the very beginning, we could see we should state clearly that this training is part of a series of trainings on knowledge sharing methods and tools, focusing on its relation to the Share Fair, rather than just point this out at the end.
Concern was raised that there were not enough rooms to facilitate similar events. The lack of infrastructure and resources (facilitators) are an issue which needs to be addressed.

Reporting (Content)

The approach used during the two training sessions on World Café has been to ask the hosts to summarise the main points. Another option could be to ask everyone to summarise together in order to enable more participation. Then the hosts could be asked whether there's been anything not mentioned in the points that are brought up.
There was too little time assigned for summary at the end of the two World Café trainings we’ve conducted so far. This should be at least 15 – 20 mins in future similar sessions.

Facilitation

It is important to keep the informality and the spirit of the session.
In both sessions, we were too many facilitators. Two would have been enough with clear understanding between them of their roles.

In summary
Doing only a couple of trainings in World Café has shown a lot of interest in the method and demand for practicing it in order to learn it and about it, then apply it to the work. This is why we intend to organize more trainings on World Café in the near future.

Do you use World Café method in your organization? What have been your lessons learned? Have you used it to discuss highly technical issues (we used it to discuss more generic topics like knowledge sharing and greening)? Do you think it can be used in more formal meetings?

Acknowledgement

Special thanks to Nadejda Loumbeva and Sophie Treinen for their co-facilitation of the event as well as useful feedback on the contents of this post!

Yet another introduction to microblogging..

2009-07-14T17:17:00.024+02:00

You either love it, hate it or haven’t heard about it - yet. In the last year Microblogging has suddenly become incredibly popular. Microblogging is a form of blogging (which is keeping an on-line journal) where every post is limited to a single sentence (usually restricted to 140 characters). It is used for posting thoughts, ideas, questions, answers, statements and links on what you are working on, where you are or simply a way to express yourself. Social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, MySpace, Xing and Orkut have their own microblogging features, commonly known as "status updates". However, some of the most commonly used microblogging tools are Twitter, Yammer and Jaiku.

The main advantage of microblogging is that it’s quick to create posts and can potentially reach a massive audience. Email on the other hand, is slow and lengthy to compose and the audience size is limited. Unlike email and voice calls, it is up to each person to participate, read or ignore microblogging posts. However, remember that whatever you publish on Twitter, and on the Internet, Google will remember it!

We recently did a training on microblogging and its use for use within my organization. The training was co-organised by @neoluk, @mariagraziab, @RomoloTassone, @mongkolroek, @TheRoadTo and myself (@gaurisalokhe) with live interventions from @rsamii, @aidworkerdaily and @ictkm.

The session started off with @neoluk explaining Twitter. So, what is Twitter, you ask? ;-)

Twitter is a microblogging tool that allows one to send "tweets" or messages of140 characters. These can be sent or received via the Twitter Web site by using one of the numerous desktop applications (TweetDeck, Twhirl, etc.) and with your mobile telephone (short message service -SMS, which is not free).

This was followed by a quick intro of Yammer by @mariagraziab.

Unlike Twitter, Yammer is limited to online networking and information sharing within organizations. Not only can you send messages longer than 140 characters, you can also create groups and send attachments. For example, if you have an @yourcompany.org email address, sign-up to join the growing YOURCOMPANY network on Yammer. Messages can be sent or received via the Yammer site, by using a desktop application, SMSs and email. Yammer is a free service but organizations can pay a monthly per user fee to claim and administer their own network.

Finally, @TheRoadTo showed identi.ca.

Identi.ca is an open-source microblogging platform similar to Twitter. It is based on Laconi.ca, which organizations/individuals can install and use to control their own data and services.

By looking at how microblogging has been used effectively, there are many ways to utilise these microblogging tools:

Promotion - Twitter is often used to promote articles, blog posts, Web sites. See FAONews, Rome Permanent Representative, WFP Logistics, Friends of WFP.
Internal/External Communication - Yammer can be used for communicating with a team when members are working in decentralised offices. Twitter, on the other hand, provides the possibility to connect to and engage with like-minded colleagues from other organizations. See E-Agriculture, CGIAR ICT-KM Program.
Discovery - Twitter and Yammer are excellent ways for discovering upcoming events, new happenings, interesting sites/links and tools, etc. See recent blog posts on Bio fuels, Avian Influenza, Organic Agriculture.
Quick group problem solving and discussions - with Twitter and Yammer, you can distribute questions to a large group of people. Of course, getting an answer back depends on how many followers you have, that is, people who have subscribed to your posts. See #AgChat.
Live reporting from events or emerging situations - tools such as Twitter and Yammer have been used to capture unfolding events or situations. A crowd tag is usually created so that people can follow the event in real time. The tag "sharefair09" was created (and publicised) for the Shair Fair at FAO in January. Microblogging has been used in emergency situations and for citizen journalism, such as the current Swine Flu outbreak. It could be used to report locust or avian influenza outbreaks. See Share Fair 2009, Earthquakes.
Informal research - tools such as TwitterPolls are used to get instant feedback about issues common to your twitter network. See the poll Do you use Twitter? What age group do you fall in? or Are we using confusing terminology when referring to communities?

The discussion during the session ranged from issues such as the time needed to monitor and actively take part in microblogging to how partner organizations such as WFP were using them to keep abreast of what was happening in the field where most of their staff are based. One of the questions that was asked during the session was: "What is the difference between emails and microblogs?". To answer/illlustrate this, I created the following table:

[click to enlarge]

Are there any issues here that I missed or mis-interpreted?

You can find more information about microblogging at: http://www.kstoolkit.org/Microblogging/.

Finally, special thanks to @RomoloTassone for his help with some parts of this post!

Running meetings with Open Space Technology Method - A Case Study and lessons learned

2009-07-09T18:20:00.014+02:00

Earlier this week, my colleague @nadejdaloumbeva and I (@gaurisalokhe) facilitated an Open Space session. The session was the first, to my knowledge, of its kind in my organization. The session was organised by the climate change study circle, a cross-cutting area of work needing expertise from all parts of the organization. Although there is a more formal structure for ensuring that knowledge sharing takes places between different parts of the organization about climate change, it is primarily at a higher level and also more formal. The CC Study Circle, on the other hand, is informal, cross-cutting and has participants from all levels.

The Open Space started with introductions to the day and its focus on climate change related issues. Once this was done, Nadia and I explained the four principles of Open Space, law of the two feet and started with explaining the process of agenda creation.

To ensure that the 55 or so participants would understand the process of creating the agenda, where they are asked to write topics/issues/ideas that they wish to discuss on a piece of paper and put it on the board, we had planned that two of the organizers of the event will enact and start the process. Once they started, people started coming one by one to post their ideas on the agenda. During this process, there was also discussion about overlapping topics and possible merging of sessions. This was then carried into negotiation phase which allowed participants to reorganise the agenda further. The negotiation process is crucial because it helps clarify the real issue and understand better the idea of the convener in calling for that session.

At the end of the day, we did a quick debrief on the outcomes of the day as well as the thoughts of the participants on the new, informal process.

Here are some of the key lessons learned in terms of what worked well.

Organization: The event was well organised and kept flexible, in the spirit of informality of the method, so that participants could decide at last moment if they wish to participate. Everyone across the organization was well informed ahead of time and participants were sent an introductory flyer on how an open space works.
Agenda: The process of agenda creation went in a very positive manner with participants actively contributing broad variety of important topics. One the agenda was relatively final, it was typed out and handed out to participants. This worked extremely well!
Documentation of outputs: The outputs were all documented using a closed Google Blog.
Method: The participants appreciated the opportunity to meet other colleagues from across the organization working on same or similar issues. The external participants benefited even because they could meet large number of people working on climate change from different aspects.

What could be improved for next time?

Organization: The participants were asked to prepare their questions/topics for the open space ahead of time, however, this may not have worked well enough due to lack of knowledge about the method (and how it would require them to actively participate in agenda creation process). Additionally, because the event was located in a room where organisers were not allowed to bring any food, there were no coffee breaks. This is something that is critical to ensure that the conversations continue in an informal format outside the sessions and that people build connections.
Agenda: The participants felt that they did not have enough time to negotiate the topics. As negotiation is an important step in using OS methodology, it should be allocated sufficient time. Additionally, some of the topics were grouped together in haste, without really understanding the clear overlaps in the topics. This resulted in sessions with more than one convener and time being spent on trying to figure out the common thread. As there were also too many parallel sessions, the participants sometimes were spread too thin. It might be useful in the future to aim for a group size of at least 6-8 per session.
Documentation of outputs: Inserting reports in a blog took a lot of time because half of the reports were delivered in handwritten format due to lack of sufficient laptops. In future similar sessions, participants should be asked to bring their laptops or it should be provided in each room to ensure timely and efficient recording of results. One idea for next session could be to use Wikis which can be collaboratively edited by multiple people, further distributing the task of reporting.
Process: Some sessions were well facilitated, others were not. It is important to brief the conveners before breaking out about their role. Conveners should also be asked to either facilitate or report and not try to do both! If the convener wants to facilitate, s/he should ask for a volunteer reporter.
Method: Some participants felt that although the method was informal, the reporting of the method was very formalized (a template was provided to capture future action items, who will work on them, by when they will be delivered, etc.).

For me, it was a great experience as it showed me that there is an opportunity for events of this nature in my organization. The beauty of this method to me is the self-organizing nature of the agenda and the sessions. With a very broad theme like climate change, this method is fluid and easily extensible wherein participants can modify the agenda throughout the day so that they can make the best of the event without being bound to pre-cooked agenda.

I would like to thank the climate change study circle organisers, Claudia Hiepe and Marja Liisa TapioBistrom, for inviting me and allowing me to be part of this exciting experience and development! The event ended on a positive note, I hope this is just the start!

The Knowledge Sharing Toolkit - - a great KM resource

2009-06-28T15:08:00.015+02:00

The CGIAR/FAO/KM4Dev Knowledge Sharing Toolkit brings together knowledge sharing tools (such as blogs, micro-blogs, social network analysis tools) and methods (such as peer assist, world café, open space technology) in one place.

It was first started by CGIAR ICT-KM Program, in collaboration with Nancy White, and is a growing resource which is improved by over 100 different editors since. FAO and KM4Dev have also now joined in as official partners. Although the focus of the Wiki is on agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food safety and sustainable development, its content is extendable to other areas.

In the context of this Wiki, tools are classified as web-based software or offline physical tools that can be used to enhance collaboration and sharing; methods are group processes that people can use to interact with each other, both online or offline. For each tool/method, there is information about what it is, how to use/apply it, what have been lessons learned and, most importantly, who can tell you more about these methods. See:

When considering a tool or method, it is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of a tool/method as well as the context for which you are selecting it. The beauty of the KS Toolkit is that it provides a view of the tools based on the functions/tasks they serve. See:

Instead of creating similar resources for your own organization or teams, you can become part of this growing initiative. Additionally, if you feel that you can contribute to one or more topics, just request login and password (which gives you editing rights) and start contributing! Last but not least, remember to use it, link to it and share it!

Is being extrovert going to get you a job?

2009-06-25T18:34:00.012+02:00

This morning I came across an interesting article which talks about using personality tests to hire people who are naturally "extroverts", and therefore enjoy interacting and being around people, to ensure a "flourishing knowledge management culture" within an organization. How to assess if someone is extrovert? According to them, more attention could be given to personality during the recruitment and selection process by asking the applicants to do psychological tests that give preview of personality type. As they add, although this needs to be done by a qualified professional, ensuring "sound analysis", it surely is only one element of the recruitment process and does not guarantee anything.

I know that many companies make new applicants go through aptitude and personality tests during the recruitment process before being selected for a face-to-face interview. My question is: do you think these tests should be part of HR's recruitment process?

Out of curiosity, I looked up personality test and found this one. The result: “Your score on this Introvert/Extrovert test is 20, which means that you are more on the balancing point between Introvert and Extrovert tendencies.” Would I be hired?... ;-)

Can you learn to trust?

2009-06-25T17:36:00.012+02:00

In a recent World Café session around sharing knowledge within teams/units/organizations, trust was identified as a crucial factor in facilitating knowledge sharing and collaboration. Trust is often quoted as one of the prerequisites to successful dialogue, exchange and collaboration. One of the persons around the table I was on asked if it was possible to learn how to trust and the answer was "yes". You can create conditions for this to happen, for example, by ensuring colleagues interact on regular basis. Most participants agreed that informal ways to share knowledge, such as through regular group coffee meetings, encourage staff to get to know each other beyond the work environment and discover common hobbies and interests on which respect and trust can be developed. Another important comment was that managers should recognise and reward team achievements instead of individual achievements so that colleagues can trust and collaborate with each other.

What are other ideas for encouraging trust building within organizations?

Which "one" social media tool would you pay for?

2009-02-17T23:07:00.003+01:00

I just created a poll to see what you think about the different social media tools. There are so many options I could add to the list but I picked up only a few for the moment. I look forward to the feedback!

Web2.0 for development - its not about technology!

2009-02-11T21:10:00.006+01:00

Robert Bourgoing presented the work done by The Global Fund and its use of Web2.0. The organization is just over 7 years and has committed 15 Billion USD in 140 countries. How did this happen? He said its because of their transparent use of the Web.

However, it is not enough to provide information to users. It is important to have conversation with the users. For this, they have implemented "MyGlobalFund" - a site that encourages discussion and interaction. For example,

Blogs give an opportunity for those who are on the ground, using hte funds from the Global Fund, to discuss what they are doing and what are their challenges.
Forums allow communication between those interested on the same topic.

The process was slow becaues everyone was a bit apprehensive about giving anyone to say anything about the forum. To get political support, they needed to:

Have clear objectives
Explain the concepts with visual aids and non-technical language
Address fear issues such as: How will we avoid loosing control? What impact will it have on our workload?
Draft and distribute guidelines for staff to participate in the discussions
Publish a legal disclaimer supporting staff participation

However, the main challenges have been:

Getting involvement of staff in participating in the forums and blogs.
Promotion of the "empty" Web2.0 platform to get content. 90% of the users are lurkers; 9% are intermittent contributors while often only 1% are regular contributors.
Facilitating vs. Moderating. A healthy community will self-moderate but this is not always the case. It is important to have a good balance.

He identified the main issues with Web2.0 as:

Explain concepts well: Blogs, tagging, rating, RSS feeds, wikis. Don't underestimate the importance of explaining this to those who don't know.
Newer tools such as blogs require a deeper personal involvement
Involve good communicators because "Good communication tool does not make a good communicator!"

The other issue of Web2.0 technology in countries which access information using dial-up is the lack of ability to participate regularly. It is important in this case to ensure that information, such as from discussion forums, goes directly to users email box or is available via RSS.

Reaching the customer of your web site

2009-02-11T20:24:00.010+01:00

Nick Harrison, Worldbank and Independent Consultant, gave an interesting presentation about designing websites.

We need to identify who the users are and what do they want?

Usability tests
Pop-up quizzes etc.
Analyse search terms

Many of the new sites are now task oriented rather than content oriented. We should stop having a "copernicusian" view of our sites.

(Image: http://www.thebahamasweekly.com/publish/the-cosmos-doctor-david-sands/Strange_New_Worlds_Part_3-002595.shtml)

One example he presented was the UN website!

Google is a great example! Its a task oriented. When you arrive at the site, you know you can search. Yahoo on the other hand has too many "navigation choices"! On Google, one click down and you have a greatly fine-tuned
vs.

He then presented the methodology of Customer Carewords which bases its layout on "task analysis". This can be done by defining tasks, polling customers for their favourite tasks and then analysing the results to create list of key tasks. Some companies that use the site include Tetra Pak, IKEA, BBC, Schlumberger, etc. The analysis is important to ensure that the website is based on data rather than opinion of what the users want to see!

Future is driven by what users want! One of the presentations during the session was (Red). I noticed they had a very good "task oriented" site!

Opening ceremony of Web4Dev

2009-02-11T15:09:00.005+01:00

This week I am attending the Web4Dev09 Conference held from 11 -13 February in NYC, USA. The executive director of UNICEF, Ann Veneman opened by giving the objetive of the conference: put innovation and technology at the service of humanity.

She gave several examples of how UNICEF is using mobile technology in various scenarios such as:

HIV/AIDS
Digital doorways
Origin of the film "slumdon millionaire" was Dr. Mitra's "Hole-in-the-wall" project

Session Report: FAO Knowledge Forum - What should it provide?

2009-02-03T15:27:00.002+01:00

Session: World Café on FAO Knowledge Forum - What should it provide?
Room: Facilitation Room
Time: 21 January, 10:45 - 12:00
Facilitator: Lucie Lamoureux
Reporter: Gauri Salokhe

Background on the Knowledge Forum

The FAO Knowledge Forum provides a direct gateway to the organisations vast expertise and wealth of knowledge through a series of interactive services, namely, Ask FAO, Best Practices and Thematic Knowledge Networks. It is also an opportunity to learn from and give a voice to the agricultural community regarding a wide range of issues affecting Food Security and Agricultural Production today.

It has three components (pillars):

Ask FAO responds to the critical role that direct dialogue plays in fighting hunger. Users can interact directly with technical experts in particular fields of interest, and obtain answers to their questions.
Best Practices provides a series of summaries that introduce some best practices in FAO's areas of expertise. It also provides links to further resources with supporting technical information.
Thematic Knowledge Networks are virtual communities of professional staff and collaborating centres with common interests and objectives related to sustainable agriculture and food security built around twelve priority areas.

It has been agreed among those who work on and are responsible for the Knowledge Forum that it should be revamped for the following reasons:

some of the content is confusing, for example, Knowledge Networks comprise 1) distribution lists, 2) database information systems and (again) 3) knowledge networks.
there are no clear relationships between the three pillars of the knowledge forum, despite the clear need for those to more closely relate to and align with each other.
some of the pillars of the knowledge forum may be redundant, or need to fall under the cap of others.
the Knowledge Forum, as it is, lacks strategic direction and seems to be an initiative for the sake of these being an initiative; for this reason, it is does not stand well from the point of view of convincing stakeholders in that FAO is a knowledge organisation.

The key challenges have been:

to put together content that is convincing, compelling and thus useful to the work of those who would use the Knowledge Forum.
the appropriate and successful marketing of the knowledge forum, not as a tool, but rather as a knowledge sharing gateway allowing people and groups in distributed locations to connect with each other and share and learn together when they need.
the effective use of good practices, following on the realisation that they may not be entirely relevant and replicable unless seen within the context in which they were achieved (like a group, a network) which presents a serious challenge for a correct re-application.

Process:

For this session, we used the World Café Method for this session. Lucie started the session by explaining what a World Café is and its objectives. The World Café is a simple but effective way to discuss common issues of importance in a comfortable, café-like atmosphere.

(image credits: http://www.theworldcafe.com/)

We had three tables in our cafe with "table cloth" made of flip chart paper. There were three rounds of each approximately 20 minutes. For each table, there is a reporter who stays back while the others move to other tables after each round.

The questions for each round were as follows:

Round 1: In your group, talk about existing gateways to food security and agricultural production expertise and knowledge (including the FAO Knowledge Forum), or other related interactive gateways: What works in these gateways? What makes them good, useful, etc.?
Round 2:What elements/tools/services stand out in these gateways, and why?
Round 3: What could/should the FAO Knowledge Forum provide in the future? Come up with its IDEAL format or design (please include elements, tools, etc.)

At the end of the session, we were asked to point out some of the highlights or common points that came out on all three tables.

Common suggestions for the FAO Knowledge Forum to work with:

Use RSS to show "continuous" activity on the forum
Deinstitutionalise and give credit where it’s due, for example, to the person who answers questions on AskFAO or provides a Best Practice!
Give power to the user and make it more interactive rather than just one way.
Let users personalise the view of the forum. Let them decide what they want to see and how they want to see it!
Reuse tools and content in different ways to keep the activities on the forum alive and continuous.

Debrief on the world café method:

At the end of the session, we also debriefed the method, world café, for brainstorming. Here are some of the key points that came out:

Lack a "formal" reporting method was deemed an issue
The method allows cross-fertilisation of ideas because people mix and regroup after each round.
The small group setting allows people to be open and share their ideas freely.
For the same reason, the method was deemed more democratic and less threatening.
The time for the session was thought a bit short, although the facilitator reminded us that it too much more time will not provide many more innovative ideas. In most cases, three rounds are appropriate to flush out the main points.

All in all, this was a productive session. The "table clothes" have now become "wall papers" and line up the walls of our office floor. We have also had one discussion as a follow-up activity on planning updates of the Forum.

Twitter Mosaic..

2009-02-02T17:33:00.006+01:00

I came across this tool while looking for tools that support Twittering. It allows you to create a "mosaic" of your followers or your friends. I tried with my followers..

Get your twitter mosaic here.

You can also create an image and use that as a wallpaper! Want to impress your followers?

Keeping up-to-date about the Share Fair using Web 2.0 tools

2009-01-20T13:04:00.001+01:00

In the spirit of knowledge sharing, the Share Fair team has been looking at various Web 2.0 tools to keep everyone informed and up-to-date about the latest developments. The Wikipedia defines Web 2.0 as a:

term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web.

Web 2.0 has led to the development of tools and services that allow people to collaborate and share information online and involves user-generated content.

Using the Web 2.0 tools provides us with the opportunity to keep everyone informed and involved. Here are some tools that you can link to and participate in:

Blog: http://sharefair2009.blogspot.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/sharefair09/
Delicious: http://delicious.com/sharefair09/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sharefair09/
Blip.Tv: http://sharefair.blip.tv/
Facebook: Facebook fan page

A small team will be responsible for maintaining content of each of these sites but as the event comes closer we hope to involve more participants through hands-on demonstrations.

Forum on "Mobile Telephony in Rural Areas" 17-28 November 2008, register now!

2008-11-12T17:36:00.004+01:00

Mobile phones are the success story of bridging the rural digital divide, bringing tangible economic benefits and acting as agents of social mobilization through improved communication. But what are the real challenges that face reaching rural areas, and what are some of today’s most beneficial applications that can help these rural communities, specifically regarding agriculture development?

This Forum will examine the challenges that rural communities face in enhancing the benefits of mobile telephony, and look at some examples of interesting initiatives and good outcomes from around the globe.

Subject Matter experts include:

Pete Cranston, ICT and New Media in Development Consultant
Laura M. Drewett, Partner Director, BusyLab Ltd.
Jawahar Kanjilal, Global Head of Emerging Market Services, Services & Software, Nokia
Christian Kreutz, Consultant, Knowledge Activist
AHM Sultanur Reza, Additional General Manager and Head, Community Information Center, Grameenphone Ltd.
Luca Servo, Communication for Development Consultant, Research and Extension Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Nigel Scott, Gamos Ltd.

With:

Charlotte Masiello-Riome, Communications Expert and e-Agriculture.org Coordinator
Michael Riggs, Information Management Specialist for the Asia-Pacific region, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

If you haven’t yet registered on the e-agriculture.org platform, click here.

The forum will be held in English. Any questions, please write info@e-agriculture.org.

Keeping up-to-date about the Share Fair using Web 2.0 tools

2008-10-15T17:33:00.008+02:00

term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web.

Blog: http://sharefair2009.blogspot.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/sharefair09/
Delicious: http://delicious.com/sharefair09/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sharefair09/

A small team will be responsible for maintaining content of each of these sites but as the event comes closer we hope to involve more participants through hands-on demonstrations.

If you have examples of good knowledge sharing practices in the field of agricultural development and food security using any of these tools, please send in a submission! The call for proposals has now been extended to 31 October 2008.

Share Fair 2009 Blog is up!

2008-10-14T19:56:00.005+02:00

And now to my next task -- I spent the day setting up Blog for the Share Fair. I am part of the team organizing the Knowledge "Share Fair". The fair is being jointly organised by Bioversity International, the CGIAR ICT-KM program, FAO, IFAD and WFP to be held at FAO Headquarters on 20 – 22 January 2009.

The aim of the fair is to provide an interactive experience, allowing staff and Rome-based constituents to:

share and learn from each others good practices;
experiment with tools and methodologies for knowledge sharing;
create linkages and networks for future collaboration between the organizations;
develop ideas to support and enhance knowledge sharing within and across our organizations.

For more information you can browse the Web site and keep posted with the latest news via the Blog.

Second KS Workshop Group Photo

2008-10-09T23:44:00.007+02:00

First row: Ekram Elhuni (WFP)
Second row: Humphrey Keah (CGIAR), Florence Tartanac (FAO)
Third row: Andrea Carvajal (CGIAR), Marco Piazza (FAO), Stefano Anibaldi (FAO), Batungwa Frank Tumusiime (Makerere University), Pete Shelton (CGIAR)
Fourth row: Rachel Muthoni (CGIAR), Feby Litamahuputty (CGIAR), Annamaria Bruno (FAO), Hideki Kanamaru (FAO), Jo Cadilhon (FAO), Leïla Er Rachiq (CGIAR)
Fifth row: Gauri Salokhe (FAO), Lisa-Maria Rebelo (CGIAR), David Brown (CGIAR)
Sixth row: Kay Chapman (CGIAR), Nancy White (Full Circle), Agnes Tumusiime (CGIAR), Karen Lehrer (CGIAR), Natalie Campbell (CARE), Joanna Kane-Potaka (CGIAR)
Last row: Vincent Sineau (IFAD), Claudia Hiepe (FAO), Mariam Awad (IFAD), Cristina Sette (CGIAR), Meena Arivananthan (CGIAR)

Missing in the photo were: Denise Melvin (FAO), Karin Nichterlein (FAO) and Mario Acunzo (FAO) who attended the first 2 days.

Debriefing dotmocracy and speed geeking

2008-10-09T22:30:00.002+02:00

Once we had finished talking for an hour about D-Groups, Google analytics, River of life and incentives for knowledge sharing, we debriefed the two methods: dotmocracy and speed geeking. The reactions to the two were as follows:

Dotmocracy

Good for settings where communities are illiterate (vote on pictures and graphs)
Because it is open voting, those who vote at the end have a picture of which topics are leading and thus can skew the results. Is this really "democracy"?
Some participants were discussing beforehand which topics to vote on and this raised the question of possible "vote rigging"!
It was unclear how to decide the number of dots to hand out.
Some of the topics could have been grouped together (for example: CMS, Joomla, Wikis) before we started to vote on them. The groupings were done in the open space technology process.

Speed geeking

This method provides a snapshot of different things in short time. If one is interested to know more, one can go back to it to look at in further detail.
It is a good way to learn a lot if the person leading each session is an expert.
Time limit helps to get a lot out and keeps the questions and discussion focused.
Some participants felt that it was an efficient method but they were forced to move to groups that were not necessarily of interest. Like OST, they could not be butterflies!
Those who were leading the session felt that they had lost the opportunity to learn and participate in other topics. A solution to resolve this could have been that each one facilitates two but not necessarily all four discussions. On the other hand, it also provided them with the opportunity to learn a lot through the repetition
Some participants felt that this was a good method to learn about different KS tools.
Some participants appreciated being given the chance to volunteer to be a facilitator.
This technique is extremely scalable, and larger the group and higher the number of discussion topics, the more people have choice to go to what they are really interested in.

We could use this during the Knowledge Fair?

Dotmocracy and Speed Geeking

2008-10-09T14:12:00.016+02:00

As there were many topics still untouched throughout the first two and half days, we decided to use the speed geeking technique (yeah, its like speed dating!) to learn a little about a lot in very short time! The idea was to first allow participants to bring up topics that they were still interested to know more about.

Once the list was finalised, each participant was given two dots to vote for topics that they were most interested to know about. This process is called " dotmocracy". This process, sometimes known as "dot voting", is useful in surfacing the most important issues.

Once the dots were counted, the following four came out as the areas which most participants were interested in:

D-Groups
Google Webmaster
Incentives for Knowledge Sharing
River of Life

We spent 15 minutes on each of the topics. After each 15 minutes, the groups would rotate to the next topic. At the end of the hour, all the participants would have heard and learned a little bit about each of the above topics.

Notes from each of the above sessions are available from the KS Toolkit Wiki.