Impressions after the KM4DEV 2008 meeting

The meeting is finished and we are back in our offices. Obviously everything changes after 90 people gathered for few days to discuss and share what they do everyday.

Now the network is definitely enlarged, the experience is deeper, the material shared is a ton, the fun was great and, more than everything, the feeling and the trust in the group is deeper and purer than before.

A great bunch of material has been produced and shared during and after the meeting. As it’s clear from the list of impressions collected in the final session, people brought a lot of their own at this meeting.

…and also on the blog: http://km4dev2008.wordpress.com/
…and on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/km4dev
…and on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/groups/km4dev2008/

I know I’m writing something that is so simple and logic, BUT I felt once again that “saying is something” while “experiencing is something else“, so different. So reminding these ideas can be useful.

Km4dev 2008 started in Lisboa

The annual KM4DEV meeting just started in Lisboa today with a preliminary day dedicated to introductory activities about the group and the theme of KM. Read more in the km4dev 2008 meeting blog and more than that have a look at the pictures in the km4dev group on flickr. Pretty soon, some videos will be available as well.

Network mapping was a very interesting activity we dedicated the whole afternoon. Time is passed to blog now but still you will find many interesting info about the vent in the pages I indicated. Otherwise, come back in a couple of days and more news will be available.

Let’s set a new world record: Firefox 3 DOWNLOAD DAY!!!!

Prices are going down. Are we ready to exploit new possibilities?

Last year we discussed about the value of the iPhone and the most common doubts were about the price of the device. Yesterday Mr jobs launched the version 2 of his jewel and ops!!!, now the price is right!! The suggested price is now 199 USD, that is to say around 130 EUR. It was 499 USD last year…

In the meantime, almost half of the population of the world has a mobile phone. The numbers are incredible and the increasing rate is astonishing: 3,3, billion subscribers (this number does not indicate the number of people but the number of lines). The first billion was reached 4 years ago and the second billion, only 2 years ago!

I really think we have to start thinking about the ways to move our applications and competencies to mobile. And I see that other influent people agree on this idea!

We have to re-think communication in terms of mobile devices, instant and everywhere access. The idea is that we will be able to exchange (information in my case) everywhere and in every moment. Are we ready to exploit this possibility? So far, haven’t we been too much conservative due to the lack of connectivity for PCs? have been our applications planned with the possibility to be delivered through mobile phones, as well?

I hope so. I don’t think so. I want to work on this from now on!

p.s. iPhone is the hardware AND Android, the software, is coming out pretty soon. I see so much in front of us!!!

FAO HLC and the attitude to share

FAO is doing a huge effort to produce and distribute a long list of content about the actual High-Level Conference on World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy.

The website is a good channel to be virtually and ideally in touch with the event: the video, the pictures, the speeches and other material are availble live on the dedicated website. Information is overall seriously taken in consideration. Not the same I can say for communication. My consideration is that, still, this material is not “web 2.0 oriented”. FAO talks but what is the attention for those who are listening to? Where is the intention to share?

What do I mean? there is a lot of good stuff but all this content, as is, cannot be incorporated and shared by other sites, bloggers, social networking people. So, the maximum I can do to talk to you about what’s happening in Rome is to link to their site, their images, their video…

Well, I actually have the habit to do something more than that to blog about something. What about your habits? Do you feel this up-to-date or a bit old-styled?

New TEMPORARY job!!

These weeks I’ll be pretty busy with this new temporary job as Liaison officer with media broadcasters at FAO during the High-Level Conference on World Food Security that will take place in Rome from 3 to 5 June 2008.

I’m very interested in knowing more about the media/TV business and the way it works during such big and worldwide events. I’ll post later on if I find interesting hints for our KM activities.

Have a look at the Live video coverage (streaming) and listen to the Audio coverage of the summit (mp3).

KM4Dev 2008 meeting

Last year KM4Dev met in Zeist, Holland for the annual meeting as you can see in the image below and in the album on flickr.

This year, we will meet in June in Portugal, just outside Lisbon. Everybody interested in knowledge management and knowledge sharing is invited.

Follow us and the preparation of the meeting on our blog and our wiki.

Nancy’s graphical facilitation

Nancy is getting better and better on her graphical facilitation.

Have a look at this set of images about Community 2.0

My compliments!

“The role of Radio” Workshop - DAY 3

The third and final day was crucial as well. The main task was to put together bits and pieces and design the future scenario for this large partnership on rural radio.

The day before, each group had chances to meet and discuss. Not so much as we hoped at the beginning but enough thanks to all the activities in preparation for the group work. It was also clear that the participants had different expectations and attitudes, in terms of decision making and future relationships.

We started from collecting the WHOs, WHATs, HOWs and WHENs from the facilitators of the single groups, defining in this way a potential common and general plan of action. The panel in the above picture describes better than words the complexity and the vast range of activities that we agreed to bring ahead. Interesting to note that most of the people present in Rome agreed on starting activities as soon as possible and on scheduling a new meeting, probably in September 2008, to discuss more in details the plan of action for the future collaboration.

At the end of the meeting, after discussing the vision of the group for the future and before the final statement, we had an EVALUATION session. Sophie, the morning facilitator, asked the participants to define their satisfaction in terms of Participation, Objectives achievement, Methodology and process, Outcomes, and provided them with “bullets” to stick on a dartboard.

As you can see from the above image:

• participation was very high and intense;
• objectives were achieved for about half of the participants, with someone not completely satisfied;
• methodology and process were generally clear to almost two/thirds of the people but not to everybody;
• outcomes were satisfactory for four/fifth of the participants.

From our point of view, the result we were aiming at were largely reached. We were aware that many different partners are working in DR Congo but we didn’t have details about these activities. Thanks to the gathering process we started online and the face-to-face meeting, we could draw a much clear map of what’s going on in DR Congo and the Great Lakes region on Rural radio, and the way we all can collaborate by existing points of contact.

Obviously this kind of meeting had also other good aspects, like eating together and talking freely about many different topics we share.

“The role of Radio” Workshop - DAY 2

Day 2 - Clarifications, offers/demands matching and group work

Once the preliminary activities have been done and people got a better idea of what was on the table, we moved to the second step of this meeting: the matching between OFFERS and DEMANDS.

This was a crucial point, where the evolution of the workshop was to be decided. If offers and demands were clear and comprehensible, well detailed and well understood, clearly defined and well got, then people could have the possibility to find answers for their requests and move to the next step: the creation of sub-groups to start talking about how practically match offers and demands.

The first innovation of the day was to start having this session, and the rest of the meeting, formally facilitated. The presence of a formal and recognized facilitator was, at the end, very important. Without her, the session could have been unfruitful and a loss of occasions. Clare’s presence, who kindly accepted this role, was very, very important. Thanks to her it was possible to keep the focus of the meeting on the matching of offers and demands, without ending up talking about general topics of rural radio, and ourselves, the organizers, could dedicate some time to the exposure of our own projects, otherwise impossible.

Before proceeding to this matching, and to be sure that details have been clarified, we spend part of the morning on clarifications and explanations, to be sure that the presentations of the previous afternoon were fully explained. Then, we moved ahead to the most difficult part of the day: the matching between offers and demands. Everyone was provided with cards, green for OFFERS and blue for DEMANDS. Then, once individuated some main categories (content, training, management, equipment, funding, legal framework), we started to pair blue and green cards, starting from DEMANDS and looking for matching OFFERS. At the end, we had a full table where almost all (but nor every request) were grouped.

Once offers and demands were paired on the wall, it was necessary to create sub-groups to start working on details. The paper was pretty full of connections and it was not so easy to describe them and find out the best connections: many-to-many is the way to define such a s situation. Once again our impression of great turmoil on rural radio, specifically in DR Congo, was confirmed by facts. We found out that many different groups could be formed. Some involving the majority of the presents, some others just a minority. Time constraints and number limitations convinced us to concentrate on some of these groups only. Anyhow, it was clear that most of us were interested in gathering with most of the people around the table. About the topics:

• Training was the main issue, with almost all the participants interested in discussing it, in a way or another. Two different groups were formed and they were the first to meet in the afternoon, divided in two different parallel sessions: one dedicated to materials and manuals, the second to courses and resources.
• Second best came content with two more groups interested in content production and knowledge sharing.
• Another group met to discuss managerial aspects and potential partnerships.
• Last, but not least, came equipment, which gathered many different partners about the topics of maintenance, provision and central buying.
• Funding was obviously one of the topics that people wanted to discuss: getting the conscience that the demand could not match enough offer, it was proposed, and agreed, that people asking for it, could meet in a sort of plenary session to discuss collectively and see if there could be any solution or idea on how to approach this topic. The session was scheduled for the following morning.
• Legal aspects were of interest of some of the participants, but, due to the lack of time and not too loose the focus, it was agreed not to dedicate an additional group to them.

Once identified, the groups worked in smaller session, with an internal facilitator and a precise task for the afternoon: identify and design a plan of action for the near future, defining WHO, WHAT, HOW and WHEN.