Communications and innovation platforms engagement tools
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Presented by Iddo Dror at the SEARCA Forum-workshop on Platforms, Rural Advisory Services, and Knowledge Management: Towards Inclusive and Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development, Los Banos, 17-19 May 2016
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Communications and innovation platforms engagement tools
- 1. Communications and innovation platforms Iddo Dror SEARCA Forum-workshop on Platforms, Rural Advisory Services, and Knowledge Management: Towards Inclusive and Sustainable Agricultural and Rural Development, Los Banos, 17-19 May 2016
- 2. Three roles of communication in IPs Engagement & Dialogue Documentation & Outreach Learning
- 3. Tools for Engagement and Dialogue • Facilitated meetings and events. • Role plays and games • Study tours and exchanges • Networking events • Participatory Video The Happy Strategies game being played by NBDC Stakeholders
- 4. WATaGame • A participatory planning tool for looking at rainwater management issues at a landscape scale • Enables participants to design and run simulations for water management, policy design • Aims to show how water moves within a landscape, how it is used, polluted, transformed and shared by actors.
- 7. Study Tours and Exchanges For more information on the Learning Route initiative, contact the International Land Coalition. Photo credit: Making Rangelands Secure Facebook page
- 8. Participatory Video Course • Open access course available on ILRI's learning portal at learning.ilri.org • Intended to build capacities in partner organizations to enable them to conduct their own PV workshops.
- 9. Engagement and Dialogue for Scaling Up • Need to overcome systemic barriers in order to scale out research initiatives • Use a range of communications media and build relationships • Need strategy for awareness raising, engagement, and reinforcement
- 10. Documentation and Outreach Tools • Print media: newsletters, newspapers, publications, and posters • Digital Media: Video, photographs and photo films • Radio • Mobile messaging • Internet and web-based tools (web sites, blogs, social media)
- 11. Documentation and Outreach Tools Print media • Newsletters, newspapers, publications, and posters • Need for organized repository with taxonomy, search and download facilities • Wikis – one way to organize and share
- 12. Documentation and Outreach Tools Wikis • Issues in choosing a wiki • Hosted or on your own server? • If hosted, do you need your own domain? Does it need to follow your organization’s branding (colour, logos, fonts)? • Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) with no support or commercial with personal support? • Do you need the interface in a particular language? • Do you need to keep old versions of documents?
- 13. Documentation and Outreach Tools Digital media • Digital Media: Video, photographs and photo films • Online photo repositories – Yahoo Flickr, Google Picasa, or Instagram? • Slideshare or Prezi
- 14. Digital Media ILRI’s Corporate YouTube Site
- 15. Digital Media Online photo repositories
- 17. Documentation and Outreach Tools Radio http://foodtank.com/news/2014/09/farm-radio-international- uses-radio-to-promote-farming-and-mental-health
- 18. Mobile Messaging mNutrition Project • Open access course available on ILRI's learning portal at learning.ilri.org • Intended to train content producers to send out credible and actionable mobile messages to farmers and rural women on health, agriculture and nutrition. • Incorporates ground breaking QA and QC process to ensure quality of messages.
- 19. Documentation and Outreach Tools Blogging • What makes a good blog? • Tells a story • Give the audience something they will want to share through social media • Use a catchy title • Selecting a blogging tool • Hosted v’s not hosted • Your own domain name (ILRI.wordpress.com or www.ILRI.net)? • Do you want to customize appearance or install your own plug-ins? • Ease of editing (Markdown, Restructured Text or Creole)
- 20. Blogging – Pig farming in Uganda (2014)
- 21. Blogging – Goat business (2014)
- 22. Blogging – The rising use of antimicrobial drugs in farm animals (2015)
- 23. Documentation and Outreach Tools Social Media Integrating social media into your outreach strategy • Consider a platform Facebook page, or a LinkedIn group to create a sense of common identity and as a way to hear stakeholder voices outside platform meetings • Link blogs to social media to reach out beyond your web site • Encourage subscription to podcasts and blogs to build an ongoing social presence for platform activities • Use Twitter, Digsby and Skype to help build platform social networks across regions
- 24. Learning • Participatory video • Story telling • After action reviews • Learning games • Journals • Most significant change stories “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms” Muriel Rukeyser, Poet.
- 25. More information This module is associated with an elearning module on ‘Understanding, Facilitating and Monitoring Agricultural Innovation Platforms’ available at: http://learning.ilri.org/course/detail/24 The course was inspired by a series of briefs available at: https://cgspace.cgiar.org/handle/10568/33667 See especially: http://hdl.handle.net/10568/34161
- 26. The presentation has a Creative Commons licence. You are free to re-use or distribute this work, provided credit is given to ILRI. better lives through livestock ilri.org Thank You
Editor's Notes
- CLICK THE TOPIC IMAGES TO NAVIGATE – CLICK END TO FINISH Engagement and Dialogue: Dialog among platform members, both in formal and informal settings, is important for bringing diverse perspective to bear on the problems the IP is seeking to address. People need to develop trust and a willingness to share their knowledge and views and this can only happen through dialogue. Once that trust has been built, it is the knowledge and experience that each of them can contribute that needs to be communicated and this communication needs to happen around a common understanding of the problem. Documentation and Outreach: The activities, learning and events of the platform need to be documented as does any research performed under the auspices of the platform. There is a need to document in order to build a Learning History of the platform so that outsiders as well as platform members can see how the activities of the platform have led to changed attitudes and practices. We will hear more about this in Modules 11 to 13 on Monitoring and Evaluation. Outreach is important for scaling out and scaling up platform initiatives. Messages about platform initiatives can, and should, be communicated in a number of ways. While direct personal communication is often the most effective way to influence people, there are a number of other modalities that can be used to build awareness and spark interest prior to seeking personal contact and to maintain the link thereafter. Tools and approaches for documentation and outreach are covered later in this module. Learning: In innovation platforms, learning breeds innovation and sharpens the capacity to innovate over time. A platform facilitator might decide to provide formal learning opportunities in negotiation or communication skills to some groups within the platform to offset power differences. However, informal learning is equally important and it is the responsibility of the facilitator to provide opportunities for this. He or she might do this through organizing reflection sessions with the assistance of the platform monitor or by involving members in role plays or games. Innovative communication approaches like this can break through cultural barriers or overcome status differences by getting people to play non-traditional roles.
- Sadly, bringing about engagement and dialogue is not an automatic outcome of inviting stakeholders to a meeting. Sometime power relations between people and organizations in the platform can muddle conversations, so expert facilitation of any meeting or event is needed. In extreme cases, participatory video can help to bridge the power gap. Role plays are another possibility. Click on the link on this slide to see how the Nile Basin Development Challenge made use of these strategies to help stakeholders overcome their differences and communicate openly about policies for rain water management. The Nile Basin Development Challenge also made use of games such as the Happy Strategies game to clarify stakeholder thinking and encourage productive dialog. Click on the games link to see more information about this. URL: https://happystrategies.wikispaces.com/ Many innovation platforms run farmer field days to provide opportunities for farmers involved in innovation platform research to share their experience with other farmers. But sometimes policy makers need to see examples and share experiences with practitioners further from home. Innovation platforms can provide them with the opportunity to do that. Click on the link on this page to follow policy makers associated with the Making Rangelands Secure initiative on a “Learning Route”. Study Tours hyperlink – go to next page
- In this game, produced by ILRI and IWMI for the Nile Basin Development Challenge (NBDC), players have to collect four cards that form a "happy strategy" of integrated rainwater management that fits the characteristics of a given landscape. CLICK ANYWHERE to see the two picture of cards used with the game
- In this game, produced by ILRI and IWMI for the Nile Basin Development Challenge (NBDC), players have to collect four cards that form a "happy strategy" of integrated rainwater management that fits the characteristics of a given landscape. CLICK ANYWHERE to see the two picture of cards used with the game
- For some years, the International Land Coalition (ILC) Global Rangelands Initiative, coordinated and technically supported by ILRI and RECONCILE-Kenya, have organised a series of knowledge sharing events to enable policy-makers and practitioners to learn about better ways to secure rights to resources and land for rangeland users. One of the main activities is the "Learning Route" which takes a group of policy-makers and practitioners on a journey to multiple case study sites. Before and after the Learning Route, participants take part in online activities for thematic induction and peer to peer support. At the case study sites, local NGOs, CBOs, and communities reflect on their own practices with the visitors. These groups were trained by the Making Rangelands Secure Initiative to produce audiovisual documents/participatory video to tell their story. Having Learning Route participants come on a site visit also provides an opportunity for dialog allowing practitioners to learn first hand how to play a greater role in processes, mechanisms and activities for securing rangelands for rangeland users and allowing policy-makers to consider other alternatives.
- This online blended course was designed and produced by the CGIAR Research Program on Integrated Systems for the Humid Tropics (Humidtropics) and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS), under the direction of Humidtropics’ CapDev unit and supported by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).
- As we have discussed many times in this course, solutions to complex agricultural problems are rarely as simple as introducing a new technology. There are often institutional or infrastructure barriers that must be overcome to support wide spread rollout, or scaling out, of a technological solution. In such circumstances, it becomes necessary for an innovation platform to use its influence to change the attitudes and practices of policy makers. This is known as scaling up. Telling policy makers about the solution is rarely enough. They might be convinced by attending a farmer field day where they can talk to farmers and see yield gains for themselves. National level policy makers might be swayed by the enthusiasm of regional administrators. However, persuading high level policy makers with multiple demands on their time to set aside a day to attend a farmer field day, requires a strategy for building interest in the initiative in advance. The most effective strategies are based on person contacts, and strong personal relationships, but these are time consuming for both parties, and a strategy of awareness raising using digital or print media, interspersed with personal contacts, can be more efficient and just as effective. It is equally important to reinforce the enthusiasm built from a successful farmer field day with follow-up contacts. Again, a strategy of reaching out with digital or print media, reinforced by personal contacts, is recommended. On the next slide, you will have the opportunity of listening to Ewen Le Borgne from ILRI’s Communications and Knowledge Management team, speaking on this topic based on his experience with the Nile Basin Development Challenge, the Africa Rising program and other initiatives outside the CG system.
- A successful outreach strategy depends on targeting stakeholders with the right tools. For instance, text heavy posters featuring complex graphs are unlikely to raise awareness or interest amongst largely illiterate farmers. However, some strategy is needed to persuade this group of stakeholders to give up their time to attend platform meetings or farmer field days. Depending on the message, mini dramas enacted in community meeting spots, radio messages broadcast either just before or just after popular radio programs, or video brought to farmer homes can be effective. In this section, we take some time to look at the various types of media available to you and bring you examples of best practice in their use.
- Posters are a good alternative for raising awareness. As a first point of contact, they should include contact details to allow the viewer to easily source more information. For literate audiences, newsletters can provide a regular quick glance at platform activities. The ability to circulate newsletters as email has significantly cut costs in this area and made this a more popular alternative. You should have some strategy for collecting email addresses (for instance, through meeting minutes, making it mandatory to create an account on your web site in order to download useful documents, or by encouraging people currently receiving the paper version to convert to the online alternative). The print media is sometimes overlooked as a channel for outreach but can be useful for certain audiences, for instance, government officials who have state sponsored newspapers delivered to their office. While journalists will naturally want to put their own stamp on articles, most are also happy to base their report on prepared press releases. This can give a platform more control over what is reported in the press than is commonly thought. A media roundtable can be a good way to launch a major publication or draw attention to a research breakthrough. Innovation platforms also produce a lot of documentation such as research reports, slideshares, presentations, prezis, meeting minutes, and monitoring and evaluation data. It is important for platform stakeholders to be able to easily locate and view all of this material. The graphic on this slide shows the cg space repository which you might like to explore for ideas. CG space is hosted by ILRI but is a collaboration of multiple CGIAR partners. It boasts a sophisticated search and indexing facility and supports email alerts and newsfeeds. For a single platform or a small number of linked platforms, a wiki is a good idea and we investigate wikis in more detail on the next slide.
- A wiki is an online space for sharing documents, videos, presentations and anything else that can be recorded digitally. So you think you need a wiki? Well there are hundreds out there to choose from. ILRI builds its wikis using “wikispaces” and the example on this page shows a wiki built by the ILRI comms team for the Africa Rising program. However, this might not be the right choice for you and your platform.
- Video can be a powerful medium for communicating and learning. One only has to look at the popularity of YouTube to be convinced of this. CLICK on the video link to see ILRI’s personally branded YouTube site. Video production, if done well, is a time consuming exercise. Almost one hour of footage was shot to make each of the 5 minute videos included in this module. Before shooting, a basic script was agreed with the presenter. After shooting, the production process involved creating a storyboard to develop the story line, editing out all of the “ums” and “ers”, splicing in the photographs and screen shots, and controlling volume and light. A less costly and less time consuming alternative is the use of photo films. All that is needed to make a photo film is a number of high quality photographs, audio recorded from the subjects of the photo film, and perhaps some very short video segments. Click on the photo films link to see an example of a photo film hosted on ILRI’s YouTube channel. If you are looking to make your own photo films, it is a good idea to establish a repository of high quality photographs. ILRI does this using the Flickr service. Other options include Picasa and Instagram. Click on the online photo repository link to see ILRI’s flickr albums. But video doesn’t have to be online. In the video we will show you soon featuring Africa Rising’s communications and research officer talking about the program’s comprehensive communications strategy, you will hear how Africa Rising uses video in platform meetings and to document platform processes for monitoring, evaluation and learning. Do you feel that your PowerPoint presentations deserve more of an audience than just the 20 people in your last platform meeting? Why not host it on Slideshare. Click the Slideshare link to see Africa Rising’s slideshare site. And what about the Prezi …the PowerPoint alternative? Click on the Prezi link to see how ILRI uses Prezis to get its message out. ILRI on Prezi URL: https://prezi.com/user/ilri/
- ILRI has its own YouTube channel. A personalized YouTube channel is free to set up and provides your platform or organisation with a single space on YouTube to host videos. Encourage partners and donors to subscribe to your channel so that they are only a click away from your latest video or photo film.
- Farmers spend a lot of their time listening to the radio while they work. Radio messages broadcast either just before or just after popular radio programs, can be effective in reaching out to them. Farm Radio provides an interesting service across that goes beyond simple interviews and targeted messages, to interactive programs where listeners can vote on issues using their phones to send their vote free of charge to short code numbers, and radio dramas with a motto. In many locations, mobile phone ownership has long overtaken the number of people with landline connections, and people in the remotest areas will often have access to mobile technology. Click on the mobile messaging link to see how CABI, GSMA, ILRI, Oxfam Great Britain, and the British Medical Journal are using mobile messaging to attack hidden hunger through improved agricultural practices. For those of you who are interested in the technical details of the many ways that mobile can be used for communication, the GSMA report on best practices in the area is worth reading. Just click on the report icon. Mobile messaging link: www.cabi.org/projects/project/44333 TECHNICAL REPORT: http://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/agri-vas-functional-requirements-best-practice-sms-ivr-2 Print media is sometimes overlooked as a channel for outreach but can be useful for certain audiences, for instance, government officials who have state sponsored newspapers delivered to their office. While journalists will naturally want to put their own stamp on articles, most are also happy to base their report on prepared press releases. This can give a platform more control over what is reported in the press than is commonly thought. Where stakeholders have access to the Internet.
- In many locations, mobile phone ownership has long overtaken the number of people with landline connections. Even people in the remotest areas will often have access to mobile technology. CABI, GSMA, ILRI, Oxfam GB, and the British Medical Journal are using mobile messaging to attack hidden hunger through improved agricultural practices and to deliver better nutrition through improved practices and greater demand for health services in rural areas.
- There are as many different types of blogging software as there are wiki platforms and the process of selecting the right one is just as complicated. ILRI uses WordPress which is one of the longest established platforms but there are many others. Wordpress, itself, comes in two different versions reflecting the typical factors that drive blogging software selection. Wordpress.org is self hosted. Unless you maintain your own web servers, this means that you have to pay for a hosting service and to register your domain name. However, you can install any plug-in you want and you can completely customize your blog page to reflect your organisation's branding. The free version of Wordpress.com provides you with a hosted solution and limited free storage space but you will be limited in the way you can customise your blog and it will go out under a subdomain name such as ILRI.wordpress.com. Before you make a decision, look at the sorts of plug-ins that are available for blogs so that you can decide whether you need the freedom to install plug-ins, decide whether you need your own domain name, and look into the cost of hosting or maintaining your own web server. Of course, mastering the technical side of blogging is less than half the battle. You will want to attract readers to your blog. One of the easiest ways to do this is to let your readers do the advertising for you. They will do this by “liking” you on their social media channels or even mentioning your blog explicitly on their Facebook page or on Twitter but only if you have something interesting to offer them. Encourage people to subscribe to your blog. In this way you can send emails to all your loyal followers whenever you post a new blog. Paul Kariamu, ILRI’s blog writer and reviewer says, “Mostly, I’d say it boils down to telling a story, clarifying in the story the 5Ws (Who, What, Where, When & Why), and, where possible, showing the change that resulted in people’s lives or communities or, if not possible, saying clearly how people are likely to benefit. Also having films in blogs or, at least, good captioned pictures helps. It also helps to have links to further reading or materials that the readers can use. Click on any of the pictures on this slide to access blog posts recommended by Paul. 2014 http://news.ilri.org/2014/02/27/film-pig-farming-in-uganda-big-options-and-big-research-take-hold/ (1077 views as of today – pig picture) http://news.ilri.org/2014/03/05/from-goat-farming-to-goat-business-in-india-and-mozambique-new-manual/ (990 views as of today – goat picture) 2015 http://news.ilri.org/2015/03/25/first-global-map-of-the-rising-use-of-antimicrobial-drugs-in-farm-animals-published-in-pnas/ (2775 views by today (chickens picture) Then click on the “What makes a good blog?” link to read the Guide to Good Blogging by ILRI’s communications unit. https://ilri-comms.wikispaces.com/Blogging+guidelines
- In situations where Internet accessibility supports it, the use of social media can be a powerful way of building platform relationships, maintaining a steady trickle of information about platform activities, and providing a means of communication beyond platform meetings.
- Documenting platform activities and changes in stakeholder attitudes and perceptions is an important part of the monitoring and learning activities that are so critical for the successful functioning of the platform. Platform members should periodically reflect on field activity and the outcome of any events hosted by the platform (this is the basis of the “after action review”). These “after action reviews”, reports of platform activities, and stories collected from stakeholders about the impact the platform activities have had on their lives (known as most significant change stories) should be collected to create a “Learning History”. We will look at using learning histories and most significant change stories for platform monitoring in Module 13. We looked at using wikis and web sites such as CGSpace to share and store platform documentation earlier. Needless to say, storing a research report in the wiki will not contribute to platform learning if members do not read it. In her video describing Africa Rising’s communications strategy, Simret Yasabu mentioned using blogs to spark interest in research programs and encourage readers to access research reports held in the wiki. Other strategies might include research report launch events with appropriate media coverage, the production of related posters and pamphlets, and training or awareness raising workshops.
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