Communications 2010 (Part 2)

I’m currently reviewing the Communications Strategy of IKM – originally written in 2007 and published as a Background Paper in 2008 – at the same time as producing a Communications work plan for 2010.

The Communications Strategy in 2007 placed a lot of emphasis on the the ’stickiness’ of ideas and the need for IKM to develop an elevator pitch. Stickiness relates to how ideas stick and was developed by two brothers, Chip and Dan Heath, in their book, Made to stick: why some ideas survive and others die. In their conception, sticky ideas are those that are simple, unexpected, concrete, credible and emotional. And somehow linked to this in my mind is the elevator pitch: a short overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch should be possible to deliver in the time span of an elevator ride, meaning in a maximum of 30 seconds and in 130 words or fewer (Source: Wikipedia).

Although the original Communication Strategy was much enamoured of ’stickiness’ and the elevator pitch, I now have my serious doubts as to whether these are the answer for IKM or for anyone trying to communicate complex messages. In addition, both of these approaches come from the tradition of ‘knowedge as truth’ and what we are increasingly understanding is that knowledge as truth is not important at all. Instead, it the sharing and negotiation of meaning that are important. To quote from Harry Jones’ 2009 joint ODI/IKM working paper:

While the translation and ‘transfer’ of knowledge have become widespread terms and are the focus of a number of initiaitives, some argue that the term is inappropriate. Many point to the complex and contested nature of applied social research which makes claims to stable, ‘objective’ and acontextual knowledge, embedded in some paradigms of evidence-based policy and knowledge-transfer, less appropriate (eg. Brown 2007, Walter et al 2008). Instead, it is important to recognise the contextual nature of knowledge and the complexities of its ‘use’. This means looking at knowledge interaction and the messy nature of engagements between actors with diverse types of knowledge. There is a growing literatuer advocating ínteraction’and collaboration as key activities to link knowledge and policy (Jones 2009, p. 25)

So what does all this mean for IKM’s communications? I think it means a new emphasis on personal interactions with those outside the programme as a way of developing shared meaning, rather than thinking that a elevator pitch or presenting IKM’s messages simply will do the trick. And more emphasis on developing the community of practice around IKM because it is only in the interaction between these individuals – and their interaction with those outside the programme – that current approaches to information and knowledge be changed.

It’s quite interesting that this post is also reflected in the current discussion on monitoing and evaluation (M&E) of km which is taking place on The Giraffe: Monitoring knowledge (management): an impossible task.

Communications 2010 (Part 1)

Since the development of the Synthesis report in 2009, IKM’s messages are now more clearly defined. And they aren’t half complex.

Not only are they very complex because they are concerned with what is a very complex field – information and knowledge for development – but also because they are not clear guidelines but, rather, they are a series of guiding principles.

This complexity – and I use this word in a standard, English dictionary way, with no deeper meaning! – poses serious challenges for IKM’s Communications Strategy but more about that in my next post in this series. In the meantime, here is a abridged version of IKM’s messages:

Multiple Knowledges
Although always implicit, there has been considerable development in IKM’s understanding of the nature and importance of the concept of ‘multiple knowledges’ or ‘epistemic diversity’.  At one level, this is almost a common sense response to the daily negotiations across disciplines and ways of life which take place within the development sector.  Valerie Brown has further helped IKM’s understanding of this with her demonstration of how types of knowledge are so often linked to roles.

Knowledge landscapes
IKM has been working on the conception of multiple knowledges in the context of the disconnection between policy, practice and academic research in the development sector.

Bridges
One aspect of using multiple knowledges in practice is the importance of the bridges – human, organisational and technical – which need to exist if gaps between knowledges are to be crossed.

Local content
Local content is important and it needs to be valued by both local communities and development organisations.

Implications of non-linearity
Notions of development practice which envisage direct cause and effect relationships between input and output in environments untainted by any other influences are entirely hallucinatory.  Unanticipated external events, the unpredictability of life (health, family, change), and the possibility – even desirability – that new factors and opportunities will emerge out of the experience of doing whatever is planned, coming into contact and relating with the other actors involved mean that the lifespan of any firm plan is always limited.

Critique of research ‘for development’
The structure of research ‘for development’ is seriously dysfunctional.

Tools for handling multiple knowledges
Good information desing – including both means of design and means of expression – has the potenial to greatly strengthen the transmission signal.

Digital storytelling in Costa Rica – Sula Batsu

In this post Sula Batsu co-ordinator Kemly Camacho talks about  the work her organisation is doing with communities in Costa Rica. Kemly gives a very good account of the value of reflection and reflexivity, as well as setting out her ideas about the importance of knowledge, self-knowledge, in communities.

About Sulá Batsú

Sulá Batsú is a co-operative of new-generation professionals, which has now been going for five years.  We are a group of 20 and are also interested in exploring the co-operative model though sustained reflection. Our organisation is partly a response to the unemployment problem in Costa Rica where graduates are unable to find jobs locally, or are sucked out to work in northern countries and institutions or multi-nationals. The co-operative offers employment opportunities for young professionals from two principal domains, social science and ICT.

When co-operative members reflect on the model they stop working and talk about the group interactions and what these mean for the work, since we all own the enterprise. We use a mentor who sits with us to collect our reflections twice a year during the two to three days that we sit together. We also take account of power relationships between us. There is a 12 month trial period before people can apply to be new members of the co-operative, which involves asking the existing assembly of members to be accepted. The collective decides everything. Currently we have more women members than men, since men seem to prefer to have more things under their own control and to manage contract workers rather than work with other co-operative workers. We also have a strong social dynamic in the co-op and spend time eating and partying together.

Reflection, reflexivity and emergence

In the last three weeks I have encountered IKME programme participants’ ability to be reflective and reflexive on three separate occasions. I think it is worth describing these occasions and trying to draw out why methods based on reflection and reflexivity might be important to a programme that wants to develop ways of working which value emergent knowledge production. Might observations about and greater familiarity with reflexive social research methods be  one of the generalisable contributions to thinking in the km4dev domain that the IKME programme could make?

When WG2 met in Brussels at the beginning of October group members were able to reflect on what they had and hadn’t achieved over the course of the last year, as well as to spend some time thinking about how they were working together. For some working group members taking the time to think about this had led them to understand what they were doing differently: they were able to notice things that they might not otherwise have noticed and to recognise patterns and relationships between aspects of work in which they were involved. Not everyone agreed, however. For some group members, particularly those from a more orthodox IT background, were less used to reflecting on what they were doing and why, and were more used to having formal planning procedures that led to a product being produced to a specific time frame. They were neither practised nor particularly comfortable with ways of working which might appear to lack more formal discipline. Having such voices in the group is also important since it obliges those of us who might argue for more reflection to reconsider our positions and to articulate more clearly why we think it is important. There is a generative tension between what might appear to be contradictory tendencies in the group, between those who want to spend time reflecting on how our thinking has changed about what it is we are involved in, and those who are concerned that we get on and produce products that demonstrate what we are talking about and are useful to people in the ‘South’.

Reflections on a Local Content strand in IKMemergent

Peter Ballantyne and I are researching the state of play in Local Content and whether or how its importance can be moved up the scale of development priorities. The video included in this post summarises progress to date as well as my initial reactions and reflections on what we have encountered .

I find it hard to write concisely, although as you’ll see from the video, that’s probably because I find it hard to speak concisely.  I communicate best in diagrams but none suggest themselves to me to describe our progress and how I understand my thinking is evolving.  So this video contains a spoken narrative over a mixed media presentation.

Our work so far has been mainly preparatory. The next phase centres on a 1.5 day workshop in Brussels in October 09. The participants will also be participating in 2.5 days of the KM4Dev 09 workshop which we hope will mean that our discussions about Local Content are contextualised in a broader discussion around issues to do with Knowledge Sharing. It also means that we will be with the participants from the IKM workshop for four days in all, which will enrich our conversations. I believe the workshops are going to be the central element of our project.   I will post later on the aims of that workshop and after it finishes

This video is about 18 minutes long so you may want to get a cup of tea or coffee, or something stronger.

Pete Cranston

Inventory of networks

I just posted the inventory of networks which Joitske Hulsebosch compiled last year after the KM4Dev annual meeting – it was based on a list that a group of us had put together there – to KM4Dev as a Google document, allowing everyone to access (and even edit.)  This was the second time I had posted the link but I had heard from a few colleagues that they had no longer been able to access it.

When I went back to look for another Google document a few minutes later, I found to my surpirse that there were 5 people looking at the document – and more had already been and gone. The 5 included one evaluation guru – although he would hate to be identified as such -, one influential Web 2.0 consultant and thinker, someone from the World Bank and a very well-known information professional from Asereca. It was almost alarming to see such an amount of interest.

Who owns the truth?

On 24 June 2009, IKM Emergent Working Group 3 organised a afternoon-long public meeting at the Institute of Social Studies inThe Hague.

The objective of the meeting was to present some of IKM Emergent’s recent thinking and research to interested members of the development community in The Netherlands. Although we probably tried to present too much in too short a time, it has led to more detailed interaction with three organisations with interaction with another in the offing.

Two of the presentations, Martha Chinouya on Ethnographic research in the search of the truth and by Iina Hellsten on Scientometrics and semantic maps for development – and the overview slide – can be found as the Who owns the truth? event on Slideshare

Research into participatory processes: what happened?

Kate Newman and I have been working with the IKM Emergent Research Programme to develop some research into the flow (and use) of information generated by participatory processes, with a particular focus on international development organisations. This is the story of our experience to date…

Digital storytelling in Sri Lanka – a preliminary discussion of evaluation

Introduction to Michael and his environment

Michael David has been involved long term in community development projects in Sri Lanka and is part of a network of concerned family, friends and colleagues who do whatever they can to access funds, provoke discussion and thinking, or undertake projects. Michael and colleagues are maven-like in making applications to donors, bringing people together, starting debates. All of this takes place within a highly politicised and polarised environment in Sri Lanka, where the long-running conflict gets taken up in daily relations between people, and where every initiative can be perceived to be supporting this side or that side. To a large extent, all lives are governed by the war.

Visiting the Athena Institute

Last week I paid a flying visit to the Athena Institute at the VU University to talk about planned collaboration with Iina Hellsten. In the context of the research programme for IKM Emergent Working Group 3, Iina and I are planning to work together to investigate knowledge domains in development – research, policy and practice -  using some of the tools with which Iina is familiar, such as bibliometrics and science metrics.