IFAD synthesis project: Provocations

Appendix 3 of IFAD synthesis project: Phase One Report illustrates the several ways in which the Envisioning KM4Dev Futures - 2013 - 2014 project has sought to involve KM4Dev in the issues that were being explored. Beyond those listed below, all of the discussions of the several mini-grants also serve to engage KM4Dev into a larger conversation about its future.

• Helping community member Philipp Grunewald set his research agenda with an innovative research tool
  • Began with discussions about the role of researchers in KM4Dev and how researchers could contribute without unduly in order to establish boundaries between researcher and community
  • exploring a tool that crowd-sources ideas and is intermediate between a closed-form survey and personal interviews
  • exposed the “service vs community” question as important and popular
  • Currently organized as a “group” on the Ning site.

• Launching a KM4Dev Newsletter using a wiki template
  • Began with exchanges on the KM4Dev list that were summarized on the wiki
  • Acting on suggestions in the L&M Baseline study (it’s a suggestion that comes up repeatedly)
  • Goal
    • providing a mirror for community activity
    • public voice for KM4Dev
  • Challenge of dividing production work into parts that are small enough for individuals to take on
  • building on the “discussion” template in the Wiki (developed by Davide Piga) so that production can be asynchronous and easily incorporate multiple contributors
  • Currently involves: Okey Nwoke, Simone Staiger Rivas, Julian Goh, Tina Hetzels, Dar Maxwell, David Piga and John Smith

• Developing Pathways to involvement and leadership in KM4Dev
  • Began with an email exchange with Anna Downie
  • Mentioned as an idea the L&M Baseline study
  • “You are here” the next step is “there”
  • Goal
    • Greater transparency
    • Greater accessibility by providing an orientation to KM4Dev

• Adjoining communities -- frequented by KM4Dev members
  • Began with an email exchange with one community member (Charles Dhewa) and grew from there.
  • Can be a method for clarifying community identity
  • a resource for business model comparison (e.g., how are “we” different from “them”?)
  • Could lay the ground for business model analysis and discussion
  • How services fit or co-opt other communities
  • KM4Dev “futures”

• How to plan and create a summary for important conversation
  • Began with an email exchange with Ana Maria Ponce about her summary of a Focused Conversation [clarify]
  • Focused conversations as intermediate between a large funded project and the give and take of everyday discussion
  • Ana Maria Ponce had useful but invisible tactics bridging between the Ning, the Wiki and the Dgroup discussion that merit documentation and could enable emulation
  • First draft in a Google Doc (KM4Dev discussion summaries); will be moved to the wiki after some comments are collected.

• Finding SIWA (and its absence)
  • Checking on archives and the existence of the email list
  • Finding erstwhile group leaders

• Finally and most significantly, during the second phase of the project, there was a major effort to focus on metabolizing insights and generating wider involvement in the questions about KM4Dev's future by:
  • Gathering reports, conversations, and miscellaneous pages in one category on the wiki
  • Organizing a series of focused conversations