Discussion Report 17 Riff Fullan & Peter J Bury - Thinking about what the KM4Dev CoP wants to be

Title of Session Thinking about what the KM4Dev Cop Wants to be: a strategy for getting more 'development areas' members active in KM4Dev community and it's core group

Convenor

Riff Fullan and Peter Bury

Participants

Charles Dhewa, Denise Senmartin, Dhurjati Chauduri, Dorine Ruter, Josien Kapma, Kemly Camacho, Kristoffer Berse, Kwami Ahiabenu, Lucie Lamoureux, Manuel Flury, Prabhu Rajendran, Reza Salim, Shikha Shrestha, Taline Haytayan

Key Discussion Points

Since we are about development – longing to involve all people – active following, new word for lurking. Also in core group to have people from various parts of world to participate in the community – all remains voluntary base – maybe listen more to why people are not active, maybe it’s about the tools we use – any ideas around that can help us – also talk about governance, strategy.

Language More Southern Partners in KM Community Resources Policy Makers – involving, engagement Offer training or services Capacity Building Have focal points – regional KM4Dev (Focal Points) KM4Dev – or KM4Dev children/Diversity Linking up with other communities Additional collaborative mechanisms – i.e. incubator activities Incubators Engagement with the development community Design materials to promote KM4Dev – Flame Equal mix around northern and southern involvement/participants Practical exposure (projects, field visits, exchanges, etc) Best Practices research KM4Dev Journal discussions Getting up to speed with technology and KM4Dev tools, websites, wikis, etc. Monitoring and evaluation – how to M&E KM4Dev and KM projects Demonstrating impact - stories about impact

Facilitating exchanges/interface between levels of access - Global reach – how do you facilitate exchanges with people who don’t have access to computers or email, or processes or methods. What are our stories about these interfaces Establish KM4Dev chapter in each country – national level chapters Engage with private sector – and corporate social responsibility – bringing in Gates Foundation

Clusters to define two to three projects to talk about in small Core Group meeting on Saturday Two things that fit together on that list

1. Community Planning

• National and regional chapters
• More southern partners
• KM 4 Dev Children/diversity
• Equal Mix of North/South participants

Scenario

• 65% of northern stakeholders and 35% southern stakeholders
• Platform for social networking

Way Forward

• Prepare contextualized small KM4Dev platforms based on specific language, needs of community
• Build linkages with existing KM4Dev platforms
• Reflect on specifics and requirement of community members
• Engage partners in developing regional need based knowledge products
• Build regional platforms based on expertise at local and national level platforms initiating with informal before going to formal structures
• Ensure linkage of local and national platforms to global ones
• Document best practices at various level
• Organize field and exposure visits
• Identification of local/national and regional KM4Dev champions who will be member of core groups

2. Practices (Systematising) Best Practice Stories Impact issues M&E KM4Dev Journal discussions

3. Capacity Building (Technology & Processes) Design material to promote KM4Dev Offering Training Capacity building Exposure visits Incubators Getting up to speed with technology Additional collaboration mechanisms Facilitating exchanges/interface between levels of access

4. KM4Dev coming out - Relationships with Outside World This covers the question of KM4Dev's presence as a community in the wider (development) world. Several elements were identified:

Advocacy - i.e. playing an advocacy role around the importance of km for the wider development community. Possibly having a presence in certain policy arenas in order to increase the position of km4dev in development agendas. This would supplement what is already being done individually (and occasionally collectively) by km4dev members in their respective networks, communities and organizations. Included here is also the idea of influencing donors, private sector players (perhaps through corporate social responsibility units) and policymakers.

Legitimization - linked to the above. Basically to help bring km more to the core of development thinking.

Sensitization - again linked to the above, with an awareness raising aspect as well as a capacity building aspect so development practitioners can better appreciate the potential of km approaches, analysis, practice. Again, this includes donors (foundations were highlighted and perhaps less connected to the community than others)

Regional activities - a complement to regional diversity within the community, having region-specific activities would also help km4dev raise its profile in various regions. An additional element here is the possibility of facilitating the interface between different levels of 'access'. Not just connectivity, but, for example, awareness/capacity related to km by development practitioners.

Mapping - it was pointed out that a lot of relationships already exist with other communities, largely due to membership in other communities. Also, there are linkages with policymakers, donors, etc. It would be very useful to get a better picture of existing linkages and relationships in order to both leverage them and to take a strategic approach to 'coming out' activities.

5. M&E/Impact Accountability M&E Impact – to whom are we accountable?

To Park Resources (financial)

Group 3 – detailed discussions 3. Capacity Building (Technology & Processes) Design material to promote KM4Dev Offering Training Capacity building Exposure visits Incubators Getting up to speed with technology Additional collaboration mechanisms Facilitating exchanges/interface between levels of access

Worshops incubate – make and pass the flame from people to people, and organisation to organisaiton – to further nourish community with new topics – something very focused in specific area – continue kind of face of face – continue creating the momentum – and create new ownership of things. Cost is an issue Time is question of priorities Promotion of face to face – so investment of time needed At the same time – gathering like these is very cheap Last year we talked about building a cirriculim – should we as community to Ks and KM capacity building? Maybe next year do KM4Dev meeting in Costa Rica – but organise a capacity building workshop before the meeting. There is a need for people to learn certain tools and methods – there are so many. Dgroups capacity building – training on methods. There’s lots of materials. Lucie – group last year on building a cirriculum – CGIAR project, entry points – not followed through with what we started – what are we trying to do with the capacity building? A series of questions came up. It’s so much more effective when ou have a group that bring your work issues – describe KM in context. Doing a generic KM/KS curriculum was really difficult – because it’s very personal. Has to be tailor made to the group that you have – can develop certain things – the most important aspect is the context. KS workshop –CGIAr – a framework step by step that people can duplicate

There is demand KM is how you look at the world – KM can be a set of principles of how you look at the world – the context can be another kind of context – hwo you take care of knowledge eand experience inside and outside in context What do we mean by sharing knowledge – how to give power to knowledge. Can also have several offers: - KM as principle - One week mainling list discussion – thematic/regional timebound discussions - Webinars – more variety and focused - Offer periodical peer assists – once a month, slots of people who want to talk about things – electroning peer assists (these petered out – this is something that people find very valuable – we could offer those more often – people would have to come forward too) Online parallel discussions – we don’t have breakouts – or online webinars. Set up webinars – external Mare Fort – example Experience of CGIAR – what offer on course (Lucie and Simone – 3 phases, one online, face to face, coaching and mentoring) – Moodle eLearning platform – weekly phone discussions – not cirruculum network mapping, tools and methods – no detailed agenda.

Incubators: KM community – there are constantly new things – would be good to have opportunity to try them out. Often difficult in small organisations or organisations where it’s not easy to do this experiement – to provide a space for experimentation.

Take three issues which are most controversial. Incubators Expand interactions beyond list Face to face – create momentum and generate flame and pass the flame

1. Community planning Scenario - 65% Northern stakeholders & 35% southern - Platforms of social networking Way Forward - prepare contextualised small KM4Dev platform based on specific language, needs of community – bottom up approach - Build linkages with existing KM4Deev platforms - Reflect on specificitis and requirements of KM4Dev communities - Identification of local/national regional KM4Dev champions - Members of core groups

2. Coming out - Advocacy role - Legitimisation - Sensitisation – engagement with other communities, private sector, policy makers, - Regional Activities - Mapping Collecting stories for impact: Have done it 4 times since community began – did some kind of survey - questions, who are you, where do you come from, what do you do, and how has KM4Dev impacted you – a database? We’ve used these stories in a number of ways, in funding proposals – ideas for moving to different type of platform . Impact in KM4Dev – discussion very good but not finished – continue to try and build on what it means impact and M&E in these communities. We are receiving momre requests to do M&E of other KS communities and networks – would be good to discuss how to evaluate KM4Dev – we don’t have a lot of how to M&E KM communities, network, sharing, impact of KS etc. One of topic of journals in issues – could begin this discussion. Best Practice/systematisation – it’s already happening with journal – also everyone is able to add to knowledge base in template – use of tools and methods – would be great to have people from community writing in this wiki. This is how we did it – this is how you can do it – difference between the two. Ability to write down own story very quickly – but writing it down as a tool takes longer. Get the stories and do sistemitization as a group – links to capacity building discussions – focused group activities.