Using ICT with older people - a workshop with HelpAge International

Help Age International (HelpAge) has been working with older people across the world for over 30 years. It’s far from being the sexiest end of development, so there’s little money and less attention from many major donors and Foundations. That perception doesn’t come from insider knowledge but is a supposition based on the way they’ve built their programme, focused on local level activities supporting, advocating, campaigning, mostly voluntary. The small offices are as full of creative, committed, wise people as you’d expect of long-lived NGOs. So it was a privilege to help facilitate a fascinating exchange with HelpAge staff in a session on the use of ICT to support their programmes. As well as the people in London, we had on Skype people from international offices, including Tanzania, Pakistan, South Africa, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and a South Asian regional programme manager.

First, a facilitator’s note, especially for those working in ICT4D: don’t forget the obvious, which is that many people come to conversations about using ICT in programmes suspicious, often on the basis of experience, about whether or not good development practice will be trumped by talk of tech-led programmes or a belief that programmes and people’s lives can be transformed by new-tech. So it’s important to have assumptions and challenges out on the table at the beginning, to get as quickly as possible to a creative conversation about how to engage in the new context constantly being created by the march of ICTs. Some that could usefully have been stated at the beginning:

• ICT4D isn’t (shouldn’t be) technology led: technology is a core enabler
• New developments must be programme led, which means country and/or regional offices, in decentralised organisations
• Don’t make assumptions without some data – do we know about uses of ICT by segments such as older people? 
• Don’t simply focus on the obvious constraints (connectivity, cost etc.) that don’t take into account the existing spread of ICT like mobiles, even in the context of shared ownership. People came up with plenty of examples of engaged use by older people
• Don’t use digital as the topic header, use ICT, otherwise the conversation is all about mobiles – important enough in itself – but ignores older ICTs like radio
• Context is all important in determining what might be useful, based on what is already happening as well as the goals and capacity of the people involved

I gave a brief presentation about trends, drawn from four sources:

• our recent experience at the ICT4Ag conference
• conversations on the ever excellent eCampaigning Forum
• the ICT4D strand from a recent INTRAC M&E workshop, Track A and Track B
• threads from the #ICT4D tag on Twitter. 

The presentation was intended partly as a collection of useful links but for an audience relatively new to the field, and with very specific sectional interests, more abstraction would have helped. I separated out two areas that I think need in depth investigation – the use of mobiles and trends grouped around Open….. and Crowd…..

The digital dimension

Part of the interest for me was comparing our conversation with those I've had in Oxfam GB over the years. In 2002 nobody was much interested in ICT4D, even as we showed how many international partners were starting to use computers. Our work in Oxfam in 07/08 was part of the the development of a Digital Vision. Having seen how much ICT4D and digital activity was already happening, and recognising the strategic implications of what were then the new Web 2.0 trends, OGB set up a series of work streams. The Regional Director for South East Asia, where a lot of ICT4D innovation was happening, took on leadership for OGB. The wheel came full circle in 2012, when an ICT4D coordinator was appointed.  

Before and during the HelpAge workshop a list was developed of current projects using ICT. Without a lot of effort, ten were identified, some historical but many live, many using mobile phones but others integrating radio and video. I think I am right that nobody had seen that list collated before, which is as it was in Oxfam GB when we did surveys in 2002 and again in 2008: there is a lot of innovation within the on-the-ground programmes, most of which is only known about only by a few, directly involved people. It was the same in the University of the Arts, London, when we explored what was going on across the University as part of work to develop a Digital Vision. Lots of innovation, little visibility and less money. One of the College Directors coined the term, digital dimension, arguing that the digital impacted, and could benefit, all of the creative and admin processes within the University. It's a useful concept for organisations like HelpAge  it's not so much a question of where ICT could be useful, but rather starting from the perspective that there is a potential digital or ICT tool or service that could be used in support of all programme - or organisational - aims.

Participants drew a useful distinction between aiming to build from and develop usage of ICTs by older people and ICT use by the organisations. We agreed that, while it’s important for organisations to get good at integrating ICT, which can be a basis for sharing that knowledge and capacity with others, that can also represent barriers to those less well connected or experienced. One of the major issues for older people in many OECD countries, for example, is precisely that ICT based-services and communication is becoming the default, meaning people need to gain control of the tools and channels in order to access services like pensions. That has, in turn, given extra impetus to digital inclusion programmes in countries like the UK. Digital access as a right has traction in such countries but is unlikely to be a priority with older people in most of the places where HelpAge works, was the general consensus.

The bottom line for HelpAge  and other similar organisations, is that this is - will be - an evolutionary process, exploring and adapting ICT tools as and when they fit, and generally staying well back from the bleeding edge of innovation. It will be enough to focus on simply being more efficient - focusing on the Information and Technology nexus, as in the GOAL Ireland project presented at the INTRAC workshop - and recognising that any kind of communication process or project is likely to be able to be access ICT that supports  collaboration, enables more effective communication, builds and strengthens networks and links into existing organisational communication.

Seven principles for middle and late adopters of social media

We are meeting different people these days when we talk about and work with social media, more of the massive numbers in  the middle and latter portions of the classic adoption curve.

Presenting and facilitating at three very different events - the eDiplomacy day at the Instituto Publico in Rome, an ICARDA/ICRISAT programme inception workshop in Dubai and an informal chat with a group of international development consultants in Oxford -  I heard similar things from people who are only now feeling their way into how they can engage with the online mainstream:

• there are many  from the ‘early majority’: people who have became enthusiastic and skilled users of several social media or collaborative platforms and who want to integrate them into their everyday work, as well as evaluate some of the less-well known tools
• there are probably more from the ‘late majority’ who are involved in one or two platforms, sometimes uneasily or by default: 
• 'I am on Facebook to follow the kids' is something I've heard around the world; 
• the logistics information, agenda and reports for the Dubai workshop were on a wiki, which for many of the  participants was their first real exposure to anything other than Wikipedia: they had no choice;  
• 'I kept being invited to LinkedIn so I eventually joined'
• and there are some classic late adopters checking out the space: 'everyone tells me I need to be on Twitter, do I?' to which the answer is, 'it depends'. I don't like the term 'laggards’. It is loaded and   inaccurate: it implies everyone will - should - adopt,  eventually. But there is, of course, no reason to join any of these platforms unless it serves a purpose. 

And what is the mainstream? As an illustration I listed for one of the groups the tools that I use regularly, not because I am a model but because they are also typically used by many other early adopters I know.  The list is at the bottom of this post. 

 

Seven principles for those late into the social web

It’s hard to come up with general principles for the majority, since it includes all human variation and possible sets of interests. And in 2012 there are many, many mature products on the market which can be adapted to suit an individual’s needs. For a long time in our training we have used business functions within organisations as the basis for assessing need and interest. It's an approach that can be extended to individuals. For example, promotion and collaboration were the two functions which generated most interest amongst the group of consultants. Here are some  notes from our discussion, elaborated later of course, which is the right of the blogger. 

1. As ever, start with your aims: why would you want to use one of these tools? For example:
• Promotion: what is the audience you want to reach, where do they hangout online? Research, join and start to engage. 
• Collaboration: are your colleagues already using a tool? How good is their Internet access and how confident are they using social media? Select an appropriate platform (see below) and invest the time in learning how to use it well, so you can support them. Note that if you choose a wiki they will probably find it surprisingly difficult.
2. Engage with people: the essence of social media is that it is, well, social. That means personal conversations, linking people to people, sharing information, ideas etc, joining important lists and conversations on other people’s sites. These are not platforms for broadcast messages. Crucially, it also means keeping on top of the exchanges, for example, commenting on comments, thanking people for linking to your work or RT your tweets. 
3. Feed the web and it will feed you back. For example, linking to other people’s content, RT in Twitter, liking in Facebook or slideshare and commenting in blogs will get you noticed, connected and - if your content has meaning - shared in turn
4. Use groups of tools, linking and integrating: many social media tools are designed to one thing well but they are all designed to interact and exchange data (to be mashed up, as they say). For example, I echo tweets into LinkedIn (via the Hootsuite client) and selectively into Facebook (you simply have to link the two accounts and use #fb). I tweet about content I generate - Blogs, videos, photos, slides;
5. Always share and record your work online somewhere public, for example slides on slideshare, project progress on Blogs or Twitter
6. Be yourself: authenticity scores over slickness, although manufacturing 'authenticity' earns PR firms and political spin merchants a good living. 
7. Have fun: Good social media practice has a lot in common with being a good party host: introduce people to people, provide interesting titbits, circulate regularly, help people have fun.

 

So what social media tools do you use?

For the record, and because we believe in transparency, here is the list of tools I regularly use, ranked loosely by how often and how important they are to my work:

• Twitter (via client software - hootsuite [web client] or tweetdeck [dowloadable client])
• Delicious (it's always surprising how few people who work collaboratively with others around the world use Delicious or one of the competitors like Diigo) 
• Dropbox (probably the most straightforward collaborative application since it requires no social media experience and, carefully managed, can serve as a common repository for collaborative projects. Importantly, it doesn't require users to change their favourite tools, like MS Office or the Mac equivalents
• Wiki (e.g. euforicweb; platforms I use include mediawiki [free, open source: clunky, the original, and still the Wikipedia platform]; wikispaces; pbworks) Note that a lot of people find learning to use a wiki quite difficult: for example the 'edit' function, also a basic essential for blogging, flummoxes people who haven't had a lot of experience)
• Google docs (tends to be easier to understand for new users, since the applications 'feel' similar to MS Office packages that people use already. It does require good Internet access, although there is offline access to documents. Candidly, I have had more problems that I expected with offline Google docs)
• Facebook
• News and other feeds, through Google Reader; we suggest using an iGoogle Home Page as an introduction to the value of filtering news through feeds, or  netvibes, which allows users to share and publish a common home page, as in this great example from Stephanie Psaila of Diplo Foundation
• Blogs (writing on our own blog; for communication support, for example the Diplo Foundation blog, from where I cross-post here or from events,  such as those we support for GDNet. I always quote John Naughton as my favourite blogger, partly for interest and partly because he does it so well; Tim Davies is another superb digital-artist)  
• Slideshare
• LinkedIn
• Scheduling tools (for example Doodle for diaries; eventbrite for, er, events)
• YouTube (we use Blip.tv, as it syndicates content to other sites; Vimeo is used by many people for video quality reasons)
• Flickr for pictures and images (see again euforicweb for how we easily the content can be shared and displayed; many people also Google’s platform called Picassa)
• Mindmeister, for collaborative mindmaps
• Yammer, which works as an internal Twitter

There are several platforms I want to explore a bit more

• Tumblr, and easy to use and flexible blogging and aggregation tool
• Google+, Google's 'social network', which is apparently used by more people than Twitter, but still has to convince me
• Pinterest which enables people to collect and link to images from across the web and I communicate best through images

Participative Video & learning participatively

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

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

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

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

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

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

Building a social media strategy one block at a time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Social media masterclass @EADI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Social media masteclass @ NEDS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The teacher gets schooled in social media for development

Social media for whom? photo by meaduva

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

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

Putting web 2.0 to work - Training on the social web - Bonn, 19-20 November 2009

After the success of the last web 2.0 workshops and the positive feedback received from participants, the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) and Europe’s Forum on International Cooperation (Euforic) organise a new workshop: “Information, Knowledge and Communication - Putting web 2.0 to work: Training on the social web”.

As last year we intend to provide information and communication professionals in the development community with an up-to-date overview of possibilities and advantages that web 2.0 tools and social media offer for their work. Some of the buzzwords include “social bookmarking”, “RSS”, “wikis”, “blogs”, ‘Googling’, “podcasting” - all are free to use and they provide numerous flexible solutions to the challenges we face. Besides, we aim to look at how to connect and integrate them into daily business processes across the whole organisation, for communications, knowledge sharing and campaigning.

The workshop will equip participants with the skills to use and combine these tools into useful information sharing systems. We will be exploring and learning from a typical organisational toolkit 2.0. This might include blogging, the use of multi-media tools, wikis, custom searches and customised feeds for news or knowledge sharing as well as use of online social networks.
This course is designed for individuals and teams who are new to the tools, as well as currently exploring these tools and want to extend their use. It will also include “second wave” adopters, individuals and teams who are not web specialists but who want to extend their use of web 2.0 approaches into areas such as research and policy communications; collaborative working; publications, network and partnership relations and event management – bringing together participants, social reporting and documentation.

The workshop will combine presentations from people who use the web 2.0 in their everyday work, with intensive guided ‘hands-on’ training.

This workshop forms part of the Euforic web2share initiative that supports Euforic members in using the new web tools and services and working collectively.

Cost: 550€ EADI/Euforic members (650€ non-members) including 2 days training, materials, lunches, refreshments.

To register or get more information, please contact heil(AT)eadi.org

See Euforic newsfeed, dossier and wiki on web 2.0.

DDRN workshop on communication in North/South research partnerships

Increasingly donors who fund development research programs stress the need to communicate about research priorities, programs and outcomes. Researchers themselves as well as intermediaries have an important role to play in this. Examples of donors with a strong interest in research communication are DFID, DGIS/WOTRO and Danida.

On 12 - 14 August 2009 DDRN, the Danish Development Research Network, convened a workshop in Tanzania to promote effective communication during and after the implementation of three new research projects in Tanzania for which Danida granted funding in 2008. The projects look at livestock, dried fruits and climate change and will be carried out in partnership with Danish universities.

The workshop addressed a variety of issues regarding research communication. Euforic and CABI, another Euforic member, developed and co-facilitated the workshop with assistance from staff of DDRN and the Danish Water Forum (DWF). Over 30 researchers and external stakeholders attended the workshop that was held at the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) in Tanzania.

Drawing on the experience of the Euforic network and aiming to respond to the needs expressed by the participants, the event was designed tailor-made to cover the formulation of a framework communications strategy for each project and to elaborate some example communications products. Also included was a session on how to use the internet to disseminate and access research results.

The workshop began with an analysis of the various stakeholders of research projects and the aims of communicating with them. The goal of communication can be to change the behaviour of stakeholders, to raise awareness about specific issues, to encourage dialogue, or to collect needs. To reach such goals you need to be clear: What is it you want to achieve with your research communication? Who do you want to address? What is your message for them?

This first module of the workshop was followed by presentation sessions that drew on case studies of messages and channels for different communities and actors. In a variety of hands-on exercises participants worked on different products and media. A specific session on writing press releases was supported by a meeting with local journalists from the Tanzanian newspapers “Business Week” and “The Citizen”.



The workshop culminated in a presentation session entitled “The SuperProjects” in which the participating research projects made presentations based on their press releases and communications plans, illustrating the different impact of various styles of presentation. The peri-ubran livestock project illustrated a selection of target audiences and the messages and channels they would use to reach these audiences. The Dried Fruits project proved to be popular with samples of the product available for the audience to taste. The Climate Change study on Kilimanjaro was enhanced by spectacular images.

The workshop provided key documents, many produced by other Euforic members, and illustrated issues with videos from the euforic.blip.tv and r4d.blip.tv channels.

Earlier, Euforic was involved in launching the DFID Research Strategy works with CABI on R4D, a DFID funded project on research communication. Research communication was also a central theme at the June 2009 EADI IMWG-meeting supported by Euforic.

See also Euforic newsfeeds on information, knowledge, communication, and from the IMWG 2009 workshop

Putting web 2.0 to work - training on the social web - London, June 1-2, 2009

Facebook and Delicious are five years old; Blogger nearly 10 and Twitter already three! Web 2.0 is no longer new and web teams are active users. The challenge has always been how to connect and integrate them into business processes across the whole organisation process daily business processes, for Communications, Campaigning and Knowledge Sharing.

This course targets primarily the UK based NGOs and is designed for individuals and teams who are currently exploring these tools and want to extend their use. This will include members of smaller organisations, who may be using only one or two of the range of options. It will also include "second wave" adopters, individuals and teams who are not web specialists but who want to extend their using web 2.0 approaches into areas such as policy communications; collaborative working; publications, network and partnership relations and event management – bringing together participants, social reporting and documentation.

Over the past four years Euforic has developed an approach to integrating these tools which has been the basis for its training programmes, as well as for its leading role in the 07 Rome web2fordev conference. This two-day practical course has been adapted to the UK context. It aims to equip you with the skills to use and combine these tools into useful small information sharing and publishing systems. We will be exploring and learning from a typical organisational toolkit 2.0. This might include blogging, the use of multi-media tools, wikis, custom searches and customised feeds for news or knowledge sharing as well as, especially in the UK, use of online Social Networks. The individual tools are easy to use and free.

Participants are encouraged to bring examples and challenges from their own situations as the basis for the practical work and we will look at examples from UK and other European development and social change NGOs. Healthlink Worldwide, a Euforic member and an avid user of new media, is hosting the training.

See more information and registration form at http://practicalweb2.eventbrite.com/

See Euforic newsfeed, dossier and wiki on web 2.0.

Workshop: Introducing Blogs, Wikis, Newsfeeds and RSS - Maastricht, 2 and 3 April, 2009

On April 2 and 3, Euforic organised the fourth two-day workshop on the 'new' or 'social' web. Aimed at people in organizations working in international cooperation, it familiarized participants with new tools and show how to use them to deliver low cost, participatory, and more integrated web presence.

Covering the use of Blogs, Wikis, Newsfeeds and RSS the course combined presentations, hands-on, and lessons from people already using these tools. Participants could see what others have done, how they could use these tools and assess how they can help them and their organization to find relevant - and often hidden – information; also how they can help disseminate their information more widely.

This workshop, hosted as the previous editions by ECDPM, forms part of the Euforic web2share initiative that supports our members use the new web tools and services and find ways to work collectively.

See Euforic newsfeed, dossier and wiki on web 2.0.

Workshop: Web2.0 in development cooperation - Bonn, 27 and 28 November, 2008

After the success of last year's web 2.0 workshop and the positive feedback received from participants, the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) and Europe’s Forum on International Cooperation (Euforic) organised the second edition of the workshop 'Information, Knowledge and Communication - Web 2.0 in Development Co-operation'.

As last year we provided information and communication professionals in the development community with a up-to-date overview of the possibilities and the advantages that web 2.0 tools offer for their work.

Some of the buzzwords include “social bookmarking”, “RSS”, “wikis”, “blogs”, ‘Googling’ and “vlogging” - all are free to use and they provide numerous flexible solutions to the challenges we face.

This ‘web 2.0’ offers various ways to use these opportunities to improve and enhance the data and information management of your own organisation. Most of these offerings are completely free of charge. Used alone or in combinations, the new tools may revolutionize the way development information is created, accessed, shared, and used.

Our two-days workshop combined presentations from people who use the web 2.0 in their everyday work, with intensive guided ‘hands-on’ training.

Participants included both novices to the subject and more advanced users, who wanted to get more detailed know-how. Very interesting was the composition of the group, with a good mix of people coming from different development organisations, being research institutes like DIE and ZEF, development agencies like SDC, networks such as DDRN, and a various range of NGOs and civil society organisations.

The closing roundtable highlighted some of the lessons learned, and how participants started to think about possible use of different applications:

"Several of the tools we practiced with in the past two days seem ideal for running and supporting campaigning."

"I think that both blogs and wikis can offer a lot in terms of supporting our main website; I still need to figure out how exactly to proceed, but I really see potential."

"This training has been very useful, as it provided a broad overview of what's happening on the web and how development organisations are embracing these new tools. Personally, I'm not fully convinced that bloggging is effecient way to communicate, but all the other things we saw these days are very good for information and communication."

"Even if I was already familiar with some of the tools, this type of event allowed me to raise my level of confidence. It is important in fact to see how others are using the 'new' web in a professional way; in particular, I'm impress with the possibilities offered by wikis and RSS feeds. The difficult part will now be to get back to my organisation, and try to mobilize my colleagues!"

This workshop forms part of the Euforic web2share initiative that supports Euforic members in using the new web tools and services and working collectively.

See Euforic newsfeed, dossier and wiki on web 2.0.

Development management training 2009

MDF recently published its 2009 Training Brochure(pdf) for development practitioners. The organization offers training and consultancy, building linkages between policies and practices. It works as facilitator and knowledge broker between policymakers and implementers.

The new programme offers reputed courses in management and organization, as well as new and adapted trainings, such as Outcome Mapping, Assessing Sector Programmes, Advocacy and Policy Influencing and Management for Results.

MDF also offers combinations of courses on the spot with learning and coaching at a distance, before and after courses are held. Training is provided in the International Learning Centre "de Bosrand" in the Netherlands or in one of the regional offices in Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Tanzania, D.R. Congo and Brussels.

Visit the MDF website

Euforic newsfeed of training events

Workshop: Introducing Blogs, Wikis, Newsfeeds and RSS - Maastricht, 10 and 11 April, 2008

On April 10 and 11, Euforic organised its third two-day workshop on the 'new' or 'social' web. Aimed at people in organizations working in international cooperation, it familiarized participants with new tools and showed how to use them to deliver low cost, participatory, and more integrated web presence.

Covering the use of Blogs, Wikis, Newsfeeds and RSS the course combined presentations, hands-on, and lessons from people already using these tools. Participants could see what others have done, how they could use these tools and assess how they can help them and their organization to find relevant - and often hidden – information; also how they can help disseminate their information more widely.

The closing roundtable highlighted some of the lessons learned and the issues emerged during the two days:

"I'm very interested in wikis and in the possibility to disseminate the conte we produce via services such as iTunes; I think we have a lot to do to improve our services! I'll try to keep my blog going, also to document the process of writing an annual report with a wiki."

"First of all, I had a lot of fun in the past two days! I'll be using several of the tools I've seen these days. For example, I'm thinking that we could use wikis for developing educational booklets. Further, social bookmarking seems to be ideal for working with colleagues."

"I think it's important to see how these tools can find practical application in my day-to-day work, attaching the tools to concrete issues. Wikis for example seem to be ideal for conference setup and follow up, while a blog can be used for creating discussion spaces. For sure I intend to make a more intense use of Delicious to feed and update the documentation center of my organisation."

"I also had really a lot of fun! It's very good to have so many hands on session and to be have enough space to discuss with colleagues which tools could be used, for what. I think I'll be using delicious for personal use first, then I'll see how to introduce it in the office. And I've already started to read feeds to keep track of what's happening."

"The tools are easy to learn and to use. I see lot of opportunities in the 'new' web: I work with networks, and members need to communicate with each others, but this is sometimes difficult to get. These new tools may help out in that, and people need not to be afraid of the technology. Further, I also had a lot of fun!

"I need to dive more into these things and overcome the fear of exposing myself. But I believe that once you get the things rolling, you'll have better impact and dissemination and save yourself a lot of work!"

This workshop is part of Euforic's 'web2share initiative' that supports our members and others in the use the new web tools and services and finding ways to work collectively.

See Euforic newsfeed, dossier and wiki on web 2.0.

Public Policy & Development Mid-Career Summer Programme

EADI, together with the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Athens Development and Governance Institute, with the support of the International Center for Hellenic and Mediterranean Studies, organises the Public Policy & Development (PPD) Mid-Career Summer Programme which will take place in Athens, Greece, from 30 June to 11 July 2008.

The PPD Mid-Career Summer Programme, aiming to promote the advancement of public policy and development, is designed to bring together, for two weeks, a diverse and experienced group of 25 participants, who will have the opportunity to share the challenges confronting their Governments and International Organizations in the areas of development policy, development cooperation and public policy.

The combined focus on public policy and development is a distinctive feature of the Athens PPD Summer Programme. An emphasis on improving and enhancing the effectiveness of development cooperation policies in a globalizing environment offers mid-career professionals and diplomats the opportunity to examine and address the most serious emerging problems confronting public policy and sustainable development in today's world.

A detailed programme and registration form can be found on EADI website following this link.

See also Euforic newsfeed and dossier on aid effectiveness.

Euforic web2share events in 2007

During 2007, Euforic greatly increased its 'web2share' training and awarenes activities. As well as the annual two-day event in Maastricht (with ECDPM), we held joint workshops with several of our members: CONCORD and CIDSE in Brussels, and a two day session with EADI in Bonn. We also provided a series of training sessions within organizations including NORAD (Norway), DCISM and the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies in Denmark, ISS, ICCO, the Bernard van Leer Foundation and ECDPM in the Netherlands, and CIDSE in Belgium.

The modular approach continued to be popular; we generally offer 3 modules:

• A lunchtime awareness session (normally 1-1hr 30mins), covering the key elements of web2 and examples of its use in the international development sector;


• A one day session (10am - 4pm), popular for NGO information managers wanting to get a complete overview with some hands-on;


• Two days training course; in depth practical exploration of blogs, feeds, calendars, social bookmarking and wikis. Feed management, publishing and statistics are also covered.

Stay up-to-date with these activities! Subscribe to our web2 newsfeed, see our web2 dossier, check out the web2share wiki.

Read more related posts on this blog.

EADI, Euforic hold Web2.0 for Development Workshop in Bonn

In a workshop organized with EADI, Euforic introduced members of German development cooperation organizations, including GTZ, Inwent and the UN Volunteers, to the 'new web'.

The training course from 22-23 November provided the 16 participants with basic knowledge about Web2.0 tools such as blogs, rss-feeds, wikis and social bookmarking as well as new features in the web which are relevant for knowledge and information management or research.

After short introductions by the trainers, time was given to the participants to test the tools themselves and create their own blogs, wikis or social bookmarking accounts.

Particularly popular was the 'googology' session where the full text of books was searched online, web pages were searched in arabic and chinese and displayed in english, and project databases were searched for research contacts.

The closing roundtable showed a great enthusiasm about the new possibilities spread and a lively discussion on how to incorporate these new tools into more or less static knowledge management systems started among the participants.

See some pictures of the workshop on the Euforic flickr account; learn more about our other training and learning activities.

See Euforic newsfeed, dossier and wiki on web 2.0.

Story by Martin Behrens

Workshop: Introducing Blogs, Wikis, Newsfeeds and RSS - Maastricht, 22 and 23 March, 2007

On March 22 and 23, Euforic organised a two-day workshop on the 'new web'. The programme, covered the use of Blogs, Wikis, Newsfeeds and RSS and included a mixture of presentations and hands-on practical sessions. Participants were able to get familiar with the major 'new web' concepts and the various associated applications. Further, drawing on experiences from Euforic and its network, participants had the opportunity to see and hear how organisations and individuals have been using these tools to deliver an effective, participatory, and more integrated web presence. In particular Joitske Hulsebosch revealed her expereinces in the blogosphere, sharing many interesting ideas and practical tips.

As the final round table revealed, participants went home with more than a
series of application installed on their laptops:

"The CMS in use at the moment in my organisation is rather complex, but I think I got some ideas how to make it easier, by combining it with a blog and a social bookmarking system. The use of RSS and google home page could easily complement the use of the intranet".

"I find this was a great experience of peer-to-peer knowledge exchange".

"The potential of using wikis for collaborative project as writing papers is
amazing".

"The main lesson is that there's still a lot I have to learn! Even if I already know some of the tools we used these days, I have now a deeper knowledge of them. In particular, I'm curious about podcast and video: I think I'll investigate and experiment with these as follow up of this course".

"Before using a blog, I didn't know it could have been so easy to publish my own news. Further, selecting information you want via more specific web searches is something I was not aware of. But the most interesting element for me is the possibility given by wikis (and blogs), to create pages collectively with southern partners. This way, their participation could be much easier".

"I have to say, at the beginning a was quite scared of all the tools and possibilities which are out there. In reality, I discovered that thanks to examples that demonstrate what's possible, and thanks to effective peer-to-peer assistance, you can learn fast and see the advantages the 'new web' offers".

"Most of the tools were not new to me. Nevertheless, it's the different uses people make of these tools that is interesting. In particular, blogger is a really powerful instrument that could be even used as CMS. Wikis were completely new to me, but seeing their potential, I'll recommend them to my organisation for several projects".

This workshop formed part of the Euforic web2share initiative that supports Euforic members in using the new web tools and services and working collectively.

To know more about the web2share initiative, visit Euforic's projects page.

See also Euforic dossier on information, knowledge, communication.

CONCORD/Euforic 'web-to-share' awareness session in Brussels

On 14 March, Euforic and CONCORD organised an awareness session on 'new web' applications for use in development settings. Building on Euforic experiences with tools such as blogger, del.icio.us, google calendar, and feedburner, the course gave participants a general awareness of these tools and also insights into ways that other organizations in development are using them in creative and effective ways.

The session was fully booked, with 12 participants from various types of organisations (NGOs; NGO networks; ACP-EU institutions). After an introduction to the subject, including illustrations and demonstrations, participants explored some popular 'web2.0' applications for themselves, assessing and discussing their potential usefulness.

In general, participants found the workshop useful and inspiring, providing lots of ideas on how to improve their current information and communication strategies. Appplications like wikis, blogs and RSS seem to 'make things easier' and 'allow a much better information exchange'; in particular, they seem to offer powerful opportunities as far as 'bringing information from people on the field' is concerned, let alone the possibilities to work collaboratively on shared documents.

The challenge is then to understand the potential of the 'new web' and being able to tailor the use of these applications to the specific needs of each organisation and person.

The workshop forms part of the Euforic 'web2share' initiative; to know more, visit Euforic's projects page.

See also Euforic dossier on information, knowledge, communication.

Norad library explores 'new web' applications and tools

For three days at the end of February, Euforic's Chris Addison introduced a range of new 'web 2.0' applications and tools to colleagues in the the NORAD library and staff from its Programme departments.

Under the title 'The web has changed - library use and support of new web tools and services', NORAD staff explored emerging web opportunities to retrieve and communicate information. In hands-on sessions, participants assessed the use of wikis, blogs, bloglines, and social bookmarking tools as part of the library's reference and intranet activities. More generally, NORAD staff updated themselves on web developments and increasingly personalised search and awareness tools.

More information on Euforic activities in this area is on our projects page; see also our dossier on information, knowledge, communication.