CTA web2.0 and social media trainings - What have we learnt?

Over recent years, CTA web2.0 and social media training programme has become a flagship initiative of the organization, receiving positive feedback from participants and host institutions and being awarded the WSIS Project Prize 2013 in the category e-agriculture.

While we are in the process of finalizing the evaluation of the second phase of the programme (2011-2012), I was recently invited to present and discuss the initial findings of the evaluation with CTA staff and managers.

 

Web 2.0 and social media capacity building initiative - What have we learnt over the period 2011-2012? Results of an impact study from Euforic Services

A few of the headlines emerging from the evaluation are:

• There is general, high satisfaction of how the training is conducted and its content; 
• Participants describe the training events as an eye opener and they feel inspired by the potential of social media to support their work;
• The trainings work for improving participants' social media skills and knowledge;
• Face-to-face trainings perform better than online trainings in terms of adoption of different social media tools;
• There is a clear ripple effect, with the training being replicated (in different forms and degrees) by participants in their workplace or with their own partners;
• Institutional adoption of social media is increasing, but only a few organizations use social media in an advanced way.
• Resistance to change and lack of management support are the most common challenges to social media adoption.

Some recommendations include:

• Putting more resources into the documentation and sharing of success (and failure) stories of putting social media to work in the agricultural sector;
• Investing in a training of trainers programme, to expand the formation of a solid base of trainers across the ACP countries;
• Sensitize senior and middle managers on the advantages of social media.

The meeting provided a good opportunity for CTA staff to reflect on what has been done so far in the programme, and discuss how to take it forward.

About Pier Andrea Pirani - Join Me on Google Plus

Evaluation of CTA web2.0 and social media trainings 2008-2010

One of the most interesting piece of work we carried out in 2012 was an evaluation for CTA of its web2.0 related capacity building events (2008-2012). The goal of this study was to learn from three years of this web2.0 and social media training programme; to understand which demographic is the most enthusiastic adopters of web2.0 tools, and the impact that digital tools have in terms of personal development and institutional changes.

CTA Web2forDev Training Opportunity - Photo credits: Web2forDev website

Today, a blog post on Web2forDev summarises the main findings of the study:

• Between 2008 and 2010, CTA delivered 20 web2.0 related capacity building events, reaching a total of 510 trainees from over 20 ACP countries, mainly in Africa
• Not surprisingly, trainees under 36 are more likely to adopt web2.0 applications, except for online social networking, which interestingly was not affected by age;
• Female trainees have higher adoption rates than males for almost every web2.0 application;
• Trainees working for NGOs and national and international organisations are more likely to adopt web2.0 tools than those in educational and research institutions;
• Nearly 90% of trainees have improved their capacity to search for, access and share information;
• The use of the iMark module is the preferred way chosen by trainees to introduce colleagues and co-workers to social media;
• Bringing about systematic adoption of social media in institutions is much more challenging.

The article has generated some interesting comments and discussions, both on the Web2fordev website as well as in Web2forDev community on Dgroups.

A follow up post will soon be published to presents some of the recommendations included in the final report.
About Pier Andrea Pirani - Join Me on Google Plus

Information, knowledge and communication – 3rd training on the social Web in Bonn

In a good tradition Euforic facilitated the third Web2Share Training in Bonn. The event took place from 19-20 November 2009 and was co-organized with EADI, the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes.

Like in the years before a diverse group of information and communication professionals from several countries, including Switzerland, Norway, Italy and Germany joined the training. Among other things they expected to learn how to work with social webtools such as wikis to cooperate and to share knowledge in open and closed networks. Furthermore they were looking for guidelines for social media usage in NGOs, good monitoring tools and podcasting.

The Euforic trainers provided an up-to-date overview of possibilities and advantages that web 2.0 tools and social media offer for their work. Popular buzzwords included “social bookmarking”, “RSS”, “wikis”, “blogs”, "Googling", and “podcasting”. Besides, we looked at how to connect and integrate these new tools into daily business processes across the organization, for communication, knowledge sharing and campaigning.

Since an increasing number of our participants have already some experience with the new Social Web, we spent more time on storytelling and discussion then in our first trainings. We compared experiences and explained new ways to apply tools strategically for different purposes. To name just a few, discussions touched upon issues like the pros and cons of social networking sites for organizational purposes, privacy and content ownership, or the use of internal micro-blogging tools.

Towards the end of the training participants were fascinated by the different possibilities the new Web provides but also called for more advanced training.

Some interesting quotes from the evaluation:

"I think I can teach the communication crowd how to work with some of the new tools but I'm afraid it won't go that well with the researchers, who are not always keen on sharing."

"I knew most of the tools already, but this workshop confirmed that you really need to look at the target group to know which tool or package to use. I feel that I don't have the time to use all this, but what is worse is that my colleagues think that everything connected to a computer is up to me, because I'm the IT person"

"The Web still very depends on written language but I'm sure that podcasts are the future."

"I heard what is going on on the Web before but now I'm not afraid anymore to try it out and use it for my organization"

Former Euforic associates and staff will look into possibilities to organize a Master Class in the first half of 2010 which will address the challenges participants face when they go back to their organizations.

See some pictures of the workshop

Explore the Euforic Web2Share Wiki

Find more information about Web 2.0 in our newsfeed

Web2 at the CONCORD Communication Network

On 15 October, participants in the CONCORD Communication Network met in Brussels for a two day workshop on information, knowledge and communication. The purpose was to share and discuss the results of the 2008 media work, to define actions and opportunities for 2009, and to address the issue of communicating better as a group and with the members of the different national platforms and networks.

As part of this effort, Euforic has been invited to present the possibilities offered by the social web and to share with participants some of the lessons learned from 'doing' web2 for more than 3 years now.

Peter Ballantyne updated participants on ways that emerging ‘social media’ are empowering citizen to citizen communication: what's the social web and how are people using it, to communicate, collaborate, exchange information and knowledge?

A practical hands on session followed, and participants have been introduced to the basics of the 'new' web. Working in pairs or small groups, they created a personal home page and started working with feeds, seeing and understanding how content can 'travel' and how it is now possible to 'read' the web in a different way.

Further, they also saw how to easy it is to 'write' the new web, by publishing content in a blog. A short intro on videos, pictures and presentation sharing concluded the day.

At the end of the day, we asked Laura Sullivan from ActionAid some reflections on what she saw and practiced with. This is what she had to say:

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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.

OECD Development Centre 2.0

The OECD Development Centre has begun to use so-called web 2.0 infrmation shring tools and approaches.

Already in March 2008, it launched Wikigender, a wiki platform for information sharing on gender equality. Now, it is extending its strategic presence and visibility by appearing on well-known Web 2.0 sites, such as Youtube.com, Facebook.com, Flickr.com and slideshare.net.

See the Development Centre spaces:

Visit the website
Subscribe to RSS feeds
See photos on Flickr.com
Participate on Wikigender.org
Watch videos on Youtube.com
Browse presentations on Slideshare.net
Become a fan of the Centre on Facebook.com!

Web2share training sessions with ACP embassies

Following up some earlier awareness sessions, twenty-two embassies (see map on the right) were involved last week in a series of web2share training sessions organized by CTA and the ACP Secretariat and delivered by Euforic at the ACP House in Brussels.

In total, 50 people attended sessions in English and French.

Participants started with remote collaboration tools such as wikis, worked through 'virtual office' services and tried out some newer search options on the web. They finished the day working with blogs and integrating information from various sources using newsfeeds.

Preliminary feedback suggested that many of the participants will use some of the new skills they had learned, particularly for remote collaboration and information retrieval.

CTA Giacomo Rambaldi introduces the project

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Several new training materials were developed for the training, including French language versions of explanatory videos and the first version of a web2 matrix. The matrix, developed by CTA, explains some of the uses of web2 tools in development and follows up on the work of the Web2forDev initiative.

We also welcomed Robin Ruquet to the team and thank him for his assistance in the French language training.

by Chris Addison
See Euforic newsfeed, dossier and wiki on web 2.0.

See also Euforic newsfeeds on ACP-EU cooperation and ACP-EU trade; and from the ACP Secretariat and CTA.

ATOL lanceert platform voor kennisuitwisseling

ATOL heeft de draad met economische en bedrijfsmatige ondersteuning weer opgepakt.

Na verschillende jaren meer de nadruk te hebben gelegd op informatietoelevering en methodiekontwikkeling in de domeinen van empowerment en kennismanagement (wat o.a. geleid heeft tot de AURA-, respectievelijk OASE-aanpak), willen we een bijdrage leveren aan het verbeteren van de diensten en ondersteuning van de economische activiteiten van basisgroepen in het Zuiden.

ATOL ontwikkelt hiervoor twee complementaire strategieën:

1. Een platform voor kennisuitwisseling en –ontwikkeling rond deze thematiek, dat zich richt tot onwikkelingskaders van organisaties die hierrond actief zijn in hun zuidwerking. Dit platform biedt de mogelijkheid om doelgericht bestaande kennis te bundelen en aldus
   (beter) toegankelijk te maken. We doen dit op twee manieren:
   
   
   • Elkaar professioneel nuttige kennis doorspelen door het gebruik van web 2.0-applicaties. Voor zij die al een beetje vertrouwd zijn met deze internettoepassingen: we gebruiken een weblog om documenten te bespreken of uit te wisselen over een bepaald thema of vraag. Interessante websites worden via social bookmarking in del.icio.us (what's in a name) gedeeld. Via een nieuwe catalogus in PMB zullen binnenkort ook boeken en digitale documenten kunnen worden opgevraagd, becommentarieerd en gedeeld.
     
     
   • Rond bepaalde subthema's waarover een gemeenschappelijke interesse bestaat, worden workshops georganiseerd. We voorzien er een vijftal, gespreid over de komende drie jaren. Deze worden intensief voorbereid zodat er working papers kunnen worden voorgelegd aan externe experten en er stevig over gediscussieerd kan worden. De resultaten, in de vorm van theoretische inzichten maar ook operationele toepassingen, worden dan meegenomen naar de respectievelijke organisaties waar ze een weerslag vinden in de verbeterde interventiestrategieën.
   
   Tijdens het eerste atelier zullen we ons buigen over de link tussen de sociale/solidaire en economische/bedrijfsmatige aspecten. Het tweede atelier heeft als thema de ketenaanpak (filière). Een derde atelier zal bepaalde domeinen van organisatieversterking (nog nader te bepalen)van de partners in het Zuiden als onderwerp hebben. De thema's van de twee laatste ateliers worden in de loop van het proces bepaald.
   
   Het platform staat open voor iedereen die een bijdrage wil leveren aan het debat en concrete toepassingen wil geven. Enkel om een originele bijdrage te leveren aan de blog is een login nodig. Iedereen kan reageren op artikels of reacties van anderen. De uitwisseling op de blog gebeurt zowel op basis van eigen, interne informatie als van externe. De taal van documenten kan zowel Nederlands, Frans, Engels of Spaans zijn, maar de communicatie gebeurt in het Nederlands. Heel het proces is te volgen op de blog: www.atol.be/econsoc/
   
   De resultaten van deze uitwisselingen verschijnen op een thematische pagina in de respectievelijke talen (in eerste instantie in het Nederlands en het Frans): http://econsoc.pbwiki.com
   
   
2. In het Zuiden begeleidt ATOL op een vijftal plaatsen een proces van methodiekontwikkeling ter verbetering van de ondersteuning door lokale NGO's (en andere vormen van dienstenorganisaties en toegepast onderzoek) van de economische activiteiten van hun respectievelijke partners aan de basis.
   
   Tijdens de volgende maanden gaan er twee startateliers door in Congo D.R, één in Benin en één in Mali De deelnemers zullen de specifieke subthema's waarrond gewerkt zal worden, zelf bepalen.
   
   De lijst van de effectief deelnemende organisaties zal worden meegedeeld na de eerste ateliers. Ook hier kunnen er steeds nieuwe aansluiten, op voorwaarde dat ze actief mee betrokken weten aan een kennis-uitwisseling en -ontwikkeling. Het zijn immers geen vormingssessies.
   

Zie ook de Euforic news feeds over ATOL en kennisuitwisseling

Web2Share: web2 guide for development organizations

Looking for an introduction to a new service on the web, and a guide on how to use it in your organisation? The new web2share site may be the answer.

A reference site for Euforic members and ICCO partners, the site has videos, presentations and a list of resources for various web2 services. The advantage of the site over a general guide is its examples from the development sector.

The screenshot shows a typical profile for the web2 services featured. Each section describes a service, with an introductory video or slideshow, a brief description and a set of resources and examples of the use of the service for development and international cooperation.

The reference site is integrated with the internal platforms of some of our members - currently these are available for ICCO through its ComPart 'flowers'.

The training site euforicweb continues and is integrated with the web2share site, offering exercises and 'training spaces' for euforic members and partners.

Other members can take advantage of the resources in web2share and backlinks to their intranets and sites can be included on request.

If you wish to join in further developing this site, please email us [info(AT)euforic.org].

See also Euforic newsfeed and dossier on web2.

Euforic 2.0: Sharing information on Europe’s development cooperation

A growing range of web 2.0 applications is revolutionizing how information can be accessed and shared. The experience of Euforic shows how these tools can be applied to increase content on a website while still keeping costs low.

Reflecting in ICT Update on the Euforic '2.0' story so far, Peter Ballantyne concludes:

"Overall, we find that using web 2.0 tools in a development service like Euforic provides more advantages than disadvantages. While the actual tools are just technical applications, using them forces us to adopt a mindset that particularly values the content and efforts of other people, encourages collaboration and makes knowledge open. These three notions are themselves close to the heart of effective development cooperation itself. So perhaps web 2.0 will become a perfect complement to ‘development 2.0’!"

More on web 2.0

OneClimate.net: Social networking site tackles climate change

3 October. OneWorld, the international network for global justice, is launching a social networking space for climate change that will act as a ‘Climate Facebook’ to inspire people to take action to protect the planet.

“OneClimate.net is a mass collaboration space dedicated to global citizens gathering and distributing solutions to climate change,” says Anuradha Vittachi, co-founder of OneWorld and instigator of its climate initiative. “It shows what people and organisations all over the world are doing, and offers a response to the question, ‘Why should I go green if no one else is?’”

OneWorld is known for innovating media platforms for eradicating poverty – like OneWorld.net, the world’s first portal on global justice. Vittachi points out that climate change is set to be the greatest creator of poverty and suffering the world has ever known, undermining the good work done by development workers for decades. “There can be no global justice,” she says, “without climate justice. Do we really want to be the generation that ended life as we know it for hundreds of millions of people?”

OneClimate.net is supported by Cisco Systems. Adrian Godfrey, Director of Corporate Affairs at Cisco, says: “We are delighted to be supporting OneClimate.net as a global initiative that brings together Cisco’s commitment to tackle climate change and to utilising the power of the human network to make a difference.”

OneClimate.net links directly through to OneClimate Island, built by OneWorld within the 3D virtual world of Second Life. Since opening to the public in June 2003, Second Life has grown explosively and today includes 100 universities, including Harvard and Edinburgh.

OneClimate Island was soft-launched by OneWorld on 16 September 2006. “OneWorld was the first NGO to use Second Life for dealing with serious global justice issues, as well as creating its first space devoted solely to tackling climate change,” says Peter Armstrong, OneWorld co-founder and Innovations Director.

“It will come into its own when the United Nations meets on December 3-14 to hold its Climate Summit. We will be opening a virtual window on events in Bali for anyone in the world who can access Second Life. But unlike its Real Life equivalent - and appropriately for a climate change conference - it will produce no travel-related carbon emissions.”

Earthquake in Rome: Web 2 shakes the very foundations

The safety announcements at the beginning of the Web2forDev conference included a warning that Rome was prone to earthquakes, but I don't think any of the 300 of us expected to be moved by the meeting in the way we were.

By the time of the closing, everyone including our host Anton Mangstl, director of Information management at FAO, was talking about a seismic shift in the way we will manage information. He commented on the future role of the UN organisations supporting that process. In the past, data was stored in these organisations but in the new order of web2 they will play a facilitating role, setting international standards for exchange of information. But in order for this to happen, it's not enough to adopt the tools: equally crucial is a shift in mindset.

Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices suggested that even vocabularies might be redundant and that organisations no longer need their own server. This does not mean not controlling your own website. You can keep control by using open source software such as Drupal or Wordpress hosted online for some core tasks such as making mash-ups (combining content from different sources on one site).

The most striking applications of web2 technologies for development were in Africa; a good example was vlogging with GINKS, to combine written text with video and audio material to better match habits and culture of Ghanean's users.

For some of us, the technologies were completely new, a group of African journalists were struck by the immediacy of the medium and the fact that one person could become a press agency, publishing blog stories, videoing and recording audio. The meeting was continually summarised in blog stories and the range of lessons learned from the meeting were brought together by counting on the fingers of both hands.

Blogs, Wikis, Tags, Feeds and Mash-ups were the key tools and People, Access, Participation, Content and Change were the key concerns in applying web2 for development.

by Chris Addison

Read related stories.

See also relevant articles from the following sources:

- web2fordevblog
- ICTlogy
- crisscrossed blog

Put your hands together for web 2 for development!

The web2fordev conference finished with a simple model to remind ourselves of the main lessons raised during the Rome meeting.

Looking for a human metaphor to capture the key messages, we started by counting on our fingers.

In our left hand:

• a thumb for blogs and vlogs, to publish our content in words, videos or images;
• a second finger of wikis and social network tools, to jointly develop ideas and exchange;
• a third finger of tags, to order our thoughts;
• a fourth finger of feeds to spread the word to other sites and across the net;
• and a last finger of mash-ups, to bring a view of the web together for ourselves and others
• (listen to Pete Cranston).

Alone, single-handed, these applications and tools are not enough for development. We also need to combine them with our right hand:

• the thumb to look at the people we use the tools with and for - considering their specific needs and requirements;
• the second finger for access issues, such as connectivity and language;
• the third is for participation, considering motivations and reasons for engagement;
• the fourth deals with content issues, such as style, media and type;
• the final finger makes it all worthwhile, it considers change, progress and innovation.

the web2fordev hands, photo by Alec Singh

So let's put our hands together for web2 for development !

But beware! Different cultures use hands to communicate in different ways: We greet in different ways, shaking hands, holding hands, or by putting hands together in a 'wai'; we attract attention with our hands and we wave our goodbye's. There are many ways we can put web 2 together with development ... but remember that some hand gestures and fingers raised may offend ...

Read related stories.

See also relevant articles from the following sources:

- web2fordevblog
- ICTlogy
- crisscrossed blog

The importance of citizen media: Ethan Zuckerman on Global Voices

Ethan Zuckerman, key note speaker on the third day of the Web2forDev conference, presents Global Voices Online and explains the importance of citizen media.

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Global Voices is a worldwide citizen media project, leveraging the huge amount of content that is produced every day in different formats to share views on different global issues. A great part of this content is produced by people from developing countries, offering "views and perspectives that you are not going to find in any other traditional media".

But Global Voices is more that a simple content aggregator. Thanks to a great number of volunteers, 40 to 100 new stories are translated each day, put into context and published, thus reaching a wide audience worldwide.

Working along these lines, Global Voices not only mobilizes user generated content, it also addresses critical issues such as the selection and filtering of content, translation in other languages and contextualisation of information.

Read related stories.

See also relevant articles from the following sources:

- web2fordevblog
- ICTlogy
- crisscrossed blog

GINKS combines text and video in Ghana

An interesting presentation in the Web2forDev conference was the experience of GINKS with video blogging (open with IE). In this interview, Prince Deh explains the advantages vlogging has in a country like Ghana:

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According to Prince, combining video with text based information is a powerful way for GINKS to reach its audience. Most Ghanaians, and African in general, do not have a strong reading habit, therefore video is a most suitable means to communicate and disseminate information in a way which is attractive for the users. Moreover, the text component offers additional information, by creating links to related interesting resources that users can easily access.

Overall, he expresses his appreciation for what he has been learning during the conference. Coming to Rome with "high expectations", he was able to discuss his experience and confront it with others', getting more insights in particular on elements such as tagging and podcasting. With no doubt, Prince feels he has broadened his web2 knowledge and will soon experiment with the new things he saw during this event.

Read related stories.

See also relevant articles from the following sources:

- web2fordevblog
- ICTlogy
- crisscrossed blog

Michael Roberts on Dgroups

After presenting Dgroups in one of the parallel sessions at the Web2forDev conference, we caught up with Michael:

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For Micheal, the real strength of Dgroups lies in its being a partnership among different organisations that, instead of duplicating efforts, work together, sharing time and resources, to create a common platform to address a common need in the development community.

Further, looking at the 'new' web revolution, the Dgroups partnership is now committed to innovate along the lines of the new social web; in particular, the possibility to integrate the existing platform with different tools, such as wikis and blogs, opens up great opportunities for Dgroups to offer an enriched service to its users.

Read related stories.

See also relevant articles from the following sources:

- web2fordevblog
- ICTlogy
- crisscrossed blog

The new web and the production of local content

After taking part in the panel discussion on 'The Core Aims of Knowledge Exchange and the Challenges of Using New Technologies to Meet Them', Dorothy Mukhebi reflected on some of the issues:

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The 'new' web opens up incredible opportunities for people to share information, knowledge and communicate with each other. Nevertheless, especially in Africa, content production is still a fundamental issue to be addressed. It is therefore crucial to work on capacity building, to give people the tools and the confidence to produce and disseminate their own content, saving all the local knowledge that we are losing out.

Read related stories.

See also relevant articles from the following sources:

- web2fordevblog
- ICTlogy
- crisscrossed blog

Tobias Eigen on Web2 for Development

Reflecting on the first day of the Web2forDev conference, Tobian Eigen from Kabissa shares his thoughts.

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Tobias suggests that web2 tools open enormous opportunities for the African continent. Nevertheless, once again it is "incredible how things have being duplicated and how different organisations working on exactly the same issues do not know each other, and they are surprised when they meet in occasions like this."

It is therefore essential to develop technologies that connect people through on line communities. Open standards and open source software, such as Drupal, could facilitate these developments and the set up of on line networks.

Other elements that gave Tobias "heart palpitations" is the news about Facebook being bought by Microsoft. This is "tremendously discouraging news."

Read more from Tobias at the Web2forDev conference

Read related stories.

See also relevant articles from the following sources:

- web2fordevblog
- ICTlogy
- crisscrossed blog

Web 2.0 at ECDPM: Ivan Kulis

Ivan Kulis explains how ECDPM is integrating web2.0 applications in its work and the reasons why.

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First, ECDPM seeks to make broader use of del.icio.us as an internal knowledge sharing tool, for staff to save their favorites in a collective space and make them available for colleagues.

Second, web2 tools are used for partnering and networking, building with partners like Euforic shared feeds and joint calendars, thus working collaboratively in the production of new content.

Last but not least, web2 applications represent an important improvement against the information overload, giving users the possibility to find, select and stay up-to-date with content more relevant to their specific interests.

Listen to more web2voices at euforic2.pbwiki.com/feedback

See also Euforic dossier on web2

See more web 2.0 stories on the Euforic blog

Web 2.0 at CTA: Kevin Painting

For Kevin Painting, web2 represents a "tremendous opportunity" for CTA and its partners to work together in a collaborative way. Moreover, as most of these tools are low cost or free, they allow a more people on the ground to get involved, communicate and share. In this sense, the web2fordev conference is a great occasion to see what people are actually doing in the field with the 'new' web.

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Listen to more web2voices at euforic2.pbwiki.com/feedback

See also Euforic dossier on web2

See more web 2.0 stories on the Euforic blog

Web 2.0 at ICCO: Maarten Boers

Reflecting on the use of web 2.0 applications at ICCO, Maarten Boers explains the possibilities these new applications are opening for the ICCO Alliance and its partners.

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In particular, according to Maarten, the wiki environment offers great advantages for learning and knowledge sharing activities, making possible and fostering a two way dialogue and communication between ICCO and its partners worldwide.

Listen to more web2voices at euforic2.pbwiki.com/feedback

See also Euforic dossier on web2

See more web 2.0 stories on the Euforic blog