You and KM4Dev: Reflections on the past, present and future

Original Message

From: Jasmin Suministrado, posted on 2014/02/03

Hello KM4Dev,

As John mentioned, we are now moving to our next topic of the focused conversation related to shaping the KM4Dev future. From the story of Charles, and the insights shared by those who joined the first conversation (thanks very much!), we move more into some concrete experiences of KM4Dev members. 'Melissa Bator interviewed some members of the community (some veterans and some new, and some more involved than others) and asked them a few questions' as follows:

• Can you break down for me how much attention you pay to KM4Dev in a typical month? For example, how often do you check the Ning Site, read Dgroups posts, etc?
• What are one or two of the main benefits you gain from participating in this way?
• What is KM4Dev to you?
• Thinking ahead (1-2 years), how do you see yourself participating in the future? Similarly/Differently? More/Less?
• If you were to imagine what a budget for KM4Dev looks like, what (if any) are the expenses incurred? What do you think requires funding? Do you have any suggestions for funding?
• What are your thoughts on the administration or leadership structure of KM4Dev? Do you think the Core Group model works well? Are there other alternatives that you would like to see tried?

You can check out answers of the interviewees in the wiki: http://wiki.km4dev.org/KM4Dev_Futures:_Interviews_with_Current_Members

But now I turn to Melissa and then to all you readers of this email. 'Let's focus first on the meaning of the community to its members' (2nd and 3rd bullets above).

Melissa, what to you were the most striking insights about what KM4Dev is to your interviewees and what benefits they derive from their engagement? To community members, what about in your individual case? 'What is KM4Dev to you?' Let us know how similar or different your experience is to what Melissa discovered from her interviews.

Regards,

Jasmin

Contributors

All replies in full are available in the discussion page. Contributions received with thanks from:

Melissa Bator
Riff Fullan
John Smith
Jaap Pels
Jasmin Suministrado
Charles Dhewa
Martina Hetzel
Carl Jackson
Jaap Pels
Pete Cranston
John Emeka Akude

Summary

This is the second of a series of focused conversations exploring KM4Dev futures. This one revolves around the work on KM4Dev Futures: Interviews with Current Members undertaken by Melissa Bator.

Detailed Description

The discussion revolved around three themes – the meaning of KM4Dev, the kinds and levels of participation, and thoughts on the leadership structure. The first two are of course interconnected.

The focused conversation affirmed the multi-faceted nature of KM4Dev and confirmed some of what Melissa discovered in her interviews with members as meaning of KM4dev – specifically, continuously learning from peers, the ability to participate in rich conversations about KM4Dev, and the expansion of professional network. In addition to these, other meanings shared included getting revitalized on KM work primarily through face-to-face activities, sharing resources on KM, leveraging KM4Dev connections and knowledge of who’s who to facilitate working with other "big" organizations, and using KM4Dev to help oneself learn (by processing his/her thoughts before contributing to discussions, for instance).

On the topic of ways of participating, other than joining discussions and providing resource contributions (such as KM documents and job postings), another way of participating shared was recruiting new members which can help sustain the community.

From the interviews of Melissa and from the reply gathered in the conversation, there is a need for better clarity around the leadership structure and processes of the KM4Dev. With this ambiguity, improvements were difficult to identify. This topic lends itself nicely to transition to the third focused conversation topic which touches heavily on the KM4Dev leadership — ie, the Core Group succession management.