What is a “browser”

I think we should spend much more time on communication…

P.S.: thanks @gaurisalokhe

Firefox 3.5 is ready to be downloaded!

Join the Shiretoko Campaign to launch Firefox 3.5!

Session on microblogging

Last week we had an introductory session about what micro-blogging is. Most of the attention was dedicated to twitter but there was also time to explain yammer and laconica.

Many different twitterers were in the room like @gaurisalokhe, @mongkolroek, @TheRoadTo and @mariagraziab, with also other friend connected.

Many questions came from the audience. The most representative of the doubts in the room was:  “twitter, like other tools, resembles in many aspects email, so why do we have to move away from email?”

Here are the points and the problems to bypass:

• people are overloaded by communication flows, and
• they do not immediately perceive implicit differences among tools.

Unless they have the chance to test these tools for some time, they won’t be able to familiarize with the differences and realize how their job could benefit. Testing needs willingness, time and desire and these issues are not always “available” in professionals. As a consequence, my feeling is that if we want people to modify their behavior, they must be in the position of  immediately identifying the benefits deriving from changing their habits. If we don’t look at the questions people have in mind everyday and we are just fascinated by technology, we loose the focus and our ideas risk to become sterile.

I think we have to go back to these “simple” questions and try to solve these very basic but fundamental problems if we really want to promote KM, innovation and communication in our job.

Socialmedia and the Iranian Election

I found this very interesting article on how socialmedia are supporting the events and the information sharing process during the events which followed the Iran Elections.

I really think it’s worth reading it to have an idea of how information, people and Internet go together today.

UPDATE: more from the same source: a social media timeline on Iranian Elections.

Km4Dev has a new house on the Web!

I’m very happy to announce that the KM4Dev list has a pretty new house on the Web:

Thanks Lucie and Michael for setting it up!

Convergence is almost here, somewhere!

IFAD organized an interesting workshop to learn more on the results of the First Mile Project. I really suggest to read here the details of the project because the methodology is quite interesting.

One of the aspects I found particularly interesting is the fact that the whole activity started on a KM project called LinkingLocalLearners, above which a sophisticated commercial activity was built on. Another key point of the project is the massive use of the cellphones and Internet technologies to manage commodity prices in three East African countries: Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.

At the end of the morning I had a question for Ueli, my fellow friend of KM4DEV list:

“In this interesting communication/business chain (have a look at the image on the left), do you see a place for rural radios to become IBM (Information Business Manager) and use their communication capacity to promote the business model?”

For my experience, I’m really sure that radios, as communication centres, could be perfect partners of this mechanism: on one side, they have all the requisites to do properly the job of market analysis and prices communication. On the other side, thanks to their advanced communication skills and resources, radios could help the mechanism with additional support like: organizing live training, collecting feedback and news, broadcasting the prices of commodities, offering distance learning, etc.

So doing, the “tools triangle” (radio, Internet, mobile phones) would be closed!

New visit for the Bluebar: the FAO Library

The David Lubin Library is a very important resource of FAO. The bluebar, the list of communicators of the Rome based UN agencies, asked for the possibility to visit the resource and Jessica Mathewson, very kindly, brought us around the facility.

There is always some doubts about dealing with libraries in a digital era. The point is “Are they still useful or do they loose their role?“. On the other side, being a fanatic of reading and books, you could expect me approaching the visit in a different way as libraries, by definition, should have a role. Maybe the point is that the role has to change.

I have to say that my original idea that libraries are very close to their end changed dramatically when I saw the caveau of the FAO Lubin. It is full of books and papers and documents. They have such an extraordinary collection put together.

The piece of the past collected there was so fascinating that my new answer is now: “No, we need to keep the libraries“. The point is that they could now be transformed in sort of “Museum” of books. And I don’t mean something old style. Something static or fixed…

I can think about something like the modern “Concept stores”. Not being anymore the privileged “channel” to access knowledge, as they were in the past, libraries can now become places where people can admire the books in their materiality. Places where to get in touch with them, have the pleasure to see ancient bricks of knowledge, without necessarily using or reading them.

Even if the way to access knowledge is changed, the books maintain all their fascination as very special objects. So why loose it?

“We Have a Drinking Problem!”

“We Have a Drinking Problem” it is the title of the campaign we launched today in the FAO Headquarters to put in evidence the high number of plastic bottles produced everyday and the need to reduce this volume pretty soon. An art installation has been mounted in the Atrium to give people the perception of the the volume of plastic we produce during a working week.

It must be clear to everyone that a response from us is needed and some behaviours have to change to decrease our impact on the environment. As first answers we can:

• drink water using refillable cups, and
• use the water fountains scattered around the buildings can help a lot.

A big thank to all the people who helped in the preparation and production of the installation. In particular, a special remark for my friend Architect Claudia Fano of BlueA Studio of Rome for the design of the bottles installation.

Have a look at the gallery on the installation.

Can we live with less plastic bottles?

Can we invent a new future without all of this?

What you see in this image is the average day production of a medium size business building, in one of our cities. Estimates say around 2.500/3.000 bottles sold every day to satisfy people drinking needs. And this is only a drop in the ocean of plastic produced and wasted every single day of our actual life.

Just to give a glance of the impact, the average lifespan of a plastic bottle is from 300 to 500 years. Download this fantastic poster to learn more about The most dangerous species of our coasts and lagoons.

Today is the World Environment Day 2009, so what better day to think a bit about this issue and look for some solutions?

A Wave of fresh air for email

Yesterday Google presented what it seems to be a new killer application or, at least, “what email would look like if it were invented today”.

It’s called Google Wave as it brings a total restyling of the oldest, and most used of the Internet applications: the email.

I know many people think email is old-fashioned but still it is the tool we all are using, at least for our job, and we need it to be different to work better.

What are Wave’s main features?

• interoperability between email and instant Messaging,
• possibility to work synchronously with different people,
• Wiki features embedded,
• integration of the Contact list, mapping features, event planning,
• future adoption of more advanced options, and
• all the benefit of using Gmail as email engine.

I see much future in the organization I work for for such a tool!

Indian election are going on under constant monitoring

As previously reported the Ushahidi engine is being used to monitor the Indian elections. Here is the situation as of today.

I find very interesting having such a mix of content available on the site!

Training Session on “The World Café”

Yesterday afternoon we had a very useful and well organized training session on “what is and how to use” the The World Café facilitation method.

The agenda of the typical World Café session is:

• Intro & explanations,
• 3 questions: presentation and debate,
• Reporting by the “guests”,
• Additional feedback by participants.

Some notes:

• very useful method to get in touch, in short time, with people you don’t know;
• the choice of questions is fundamental as well as the relation among them;
• the questions can have different “directions” (from the more generic to the more specific or vice versa) and the time for the groups to debate is getting shorter and shorter to help focusing on the points;
• the number of questions can vary according to the needs;
• given the same question, the tables focused on different aspects (I found the complementarity of the answer very  interesting);
• it can help you much getting closer to the solution, but not necessarily to find it;
• it can be used also to manage such a topic as the SWOT analysis (in alternative you could use the Appreciative Inquiry).

Thanks Nadia, Gauri and Sophie and I know that this is just the beginning of a long series of training!!

2009 AMARC Pan African Conference: the results

The results of the election of 4th AMARC Pan African Conference held in Abidjan the 27-30th April 2009.

The new Board of Directors is composed by (from left to the right):

• Benilde Nhalevilo: Women Representative from Eastern and Southern Africa (FORCOM) Mozambique
• Kofy Larweh: Training officer, (GCRN) Ghana
• Zara Yacoub: Institutional development, (DJA FM) Tchad
• Franklin Huizies: Vice-president from Eastern and Southern Africa (NCRF) South Africa
• Karamoko Bamba: Treasurer, (URPCI) Côte d’ivoire
• Oumar Seck Ndiaye: President and vice president for west and central Africa, (URAC) Sénégal
• Haby Diallo: Women representative from west and central Africa, (Radio Bélékan), Mali
• Jimmy Okello: ICT officer, (Radio APAC), Uganda

To all of them my sincere compliments and best wishes for their future activities.

Read the AMARC’s Abidjan Declaration in English or French and listen to the declarations and speeches during the Conference.

4th AMARC Pan African Conference Starts

The 4th AMARC Pan African Conference is just started and immediately appeared to be a very useful occasion to get in touch with Radio broadcasters here in Abidjan. What’s better to spend time around a table talking, and most of all, listening to people involved everyday in radio broadcasting?

Thanks to a very good wifi access, I spent the morning twittering impressions on the speeches of the Opening session.

And, as far as I can, I’ll keep on doing that because it seems to be more sustainable than blogging. After the Conference, or late at night, I’ll try resume my thoughts and learnings on this blog.

2009 Pulitzer price Winners

Breaking News Photography
Patrick Farrell of The Miami Herald

Feature Photography
Damon Winter of The New York Times