Draft KM4Dev 2009 Welcome Message

Here is the draft message to be sent to all KM4Dev registered participants to give an overview of what is happening, where it is happening and how they can follow and get involved. I know the message will be long, but I'll try to do a brain dump to start and see how much we can shorten it. I'll also include the wiki and other links so they can be readily adapted for an email to participants.

Finally, I see Lucie's notes from the skype meeting say that descriptions of huddles will be included in the message, but I think that will make the message quite long. Maybe it would be better to put the descriptions of the yet-to-be-initiated huddles in placeholder wikispaces for those huddles. What do you think?

-riff

Dear KM4Dev 2009 Participants,

We are looking forward to an exciting exchange of ideas, perspectives and experiences at the upcoming KM4Dev workshop in Brussels October 5 (5pm - welcome session plus dinner) - October 8th! This message is being sent to you to ensure you have all the information you need to follow the dialogues that are happening beforehand, and to get involved in any of those you are particularly interested in.

Get Informed!

There are several online spaces where these dialogues are taking place. We know this can be a bit confusing, so it is worth taking a bit of time to explore the following online resources. If you have not already seen it, a handy 'decoder' diagram of the different online spaces being used for the workshop (and for KM4Dev in general) was created by Nancy White and Lucie Lamoureux. That diagram can be found here: KM4Dev 2009 Technology Decoder.

1. The important updates on the workshop will be provided on the KM4Dev 2009 Discussion Group. If you are not already subscribed to that group, please send a blank email to: join.km4dev2009@dgroups.org

2. Logistics & Agenda: For information on the workshop venue, agenda and the various thematic groups (also known as 'huddles'), please click here: Information for Participants. The Agenda also contains links to the different huddle dialogue spaces.

Please note we'll have an evening session on Monday, October 5th starting at 5pm to welcome and orient everyone. Afterwards we'll walk 20 minutes to a local restaurant (7:30 pm reservations). We encourage EVERYONE to join us.

Get Involved As you may already know, the KM4Dev community thrives because of the engagement and participation of its members. Our regular KM4Dev workshops are opportunities for all of us to get involved in organising, facilitating, brainstorming, or whatever aspect of the workshops we are each interested in. This year our theme is KM in a World of Change. To get into this broad topic, community members have suggested thematic areas which we have called "huddles." For a half day on both Tuesday and Wednesday we'll break out into these huddles and dive into the themes.

So far, the following thematic huddles have been suggested:

• Agriculture see also http://www.km4dev.org/group/km4dev09aghuddle (Leaders: Gauri Sahloke and Peter Ballantyne)
• Water and Sanitation aka WASHuddle see also http://www.km4dev.org/group/km4dev09waterhuddle (Leader: Peter Bury)
• Climate Change (Leader: Carl Jackson)
• Health/HIV-AIDs (Needs a leader!)
• Gender (Leaders: Sophie Treinen and Rosien Herweijer )
• Local economic development (Leaders: Josien Kapma and John Smith)
• Education and Learning (aka "eduhuddle")(Leaders: Nancy White, Riff Fullan)
• Cross-Domain Cooperation (academia, practice and policy) (Leader: Josine Strammelaar)

You can join the dialogues of any or all of them by clicking on the links and getting involved! (Note, if you do not have a KM4Dev wiki username, you will be able to read, but not contribute to the wiki content of the huddles. If you need a KM4Dev wiki username, please request one from KM4Dev community facilitator Lucie Lamoureux or Nancy White here: Email Lucie Email Nancy.

In true KM4Dev spirit, each huddle is self-organising and has one or two lead persons to help facilitate planning for the workshop. There is one huddle that does not yet have lead persons (HIV/AIDS), so if you are interested please go ahead and start the ball rolling! If you need any assistance to get set up for this, please contact Email Lucie. Also, if you want to start a huddle on a different topic, please go ahead! You can announce it on the KM4Dev 2009 workshop Dgroup, create a page on the wikis, and start generating interest from other participants.

The final set of huddles to be discussed during the workshop in Brussels will depend on which ones get taken up by participants beforehand, so if you are passionate about a given topic, please get involved and ensure that your topic is included!

See you in Brussels (or online if you want to participate but cannot attend in person)!