Storytelling in the time of coronavirus pandemic

Photo by Javardh on Unsplash

The coronavirus pandemic has emphasised the importance of local experts. As most of the storytellers are either fearing to travel or not getting a go-ahead from their organisations for travelling to field sites, the collection of stories, photos and videos have all fall upon the shoulders of local storytellers. 

Accused of not being able to see the bigger picture and lack of skills and creativity, the local experts were never in more demand than in this pandemic. And if you’re a communicator, you might have felt the same. I too, from the start of the pandemic, have been involved in helping the local experts enhance their storytelling skills. So that they can collect the content and send us stories from the project sites. 

Locals know the situation and problem much better than any outsider and given a chance, they can churn out authentic stories. Comic Relief, a major charity based in the UK, has decided to employ local filmmakers with a ‘more authentic perspective’ for its fundraising. Sir Lenny Henry, the charity’s co-founder in an interview with the BBC, said: “…it’s time for young black and brown filmmakers to take charge and say, ‘I want to tell you my story’.” 

But how to coordinate the process? Let me share with you some simple steps you can follow to get good content from your project sites. Since you'll need to contact local experts online, make sure they are able to connect either through an internet service provider connection or mobile data.  

First, find out the skills and equipment the local experts have. This will give you an idea of the type of content you can expect from them. If needed, you can help them improve their storytelling, photography and videography skills. A quick run-through of basic storytelling and photography rules will do wonder. Knowing the equipment – camera or smartphone – will allow to get the best from them. Not most of us use all the features of the smartphone or camera we carry all the time. 

Second, orient them on your storytelling framework and content collection template. Since, a story can be told in different ways, It’s always good to stick to a framework that works best for your organisation. For me, ‘Put a man on a tree, throw stones at him, get him out of the tree’ works best. It exactly fits the development narrative – you talk about the background, problems and then finally the solutions. However, I’ve seen organisations starting from the good news – the positive outcomes and then talking about the problems and interventions. 

In both the cases, make sure you have a template of content collection ready with you. And don’t forget the essentials of the template – 5W, 1H (What, who, when, where, why and how) along with the name of the interviewer, links to consent forms or audio, photographs and videos. It’s always easier to fill up the templates and be consistent. (I’ll talk about it in the next post.)

Third, set a timeline, follow up and feedback. We all are busy and doing something for someone else needs extra effort. And we all tend to forget. So, it’s always good to agree on a timeline and there’s no harm in following up with the local experts whether they have collected the stories and pictures or not. Once you get the content from them, analyse them and don’t forget to feedback. This will help them get better at content collection and you’ll get the right content. For example, while taking the pictures, they might miss taking different shots (close-up, medium and long shots), orientations (portrait and landscape) and applying general rules (e.g., rule of thirds). As a communicator, you need all varieties of shots for uses in different media and it won’t be good on your part to ask them to visit the same community member again and reshoot the pictures. And you can avoid this by giving them feedback on their initial assignments.           

Finally, look for something interesting in the story. All stories are interesting, provided you tell them in an interesting manner. Ask the local experts to tell stories behind names, tradition, culture and even mundane chores and household items that might be of interest for people living in different parts of the world. For instance, while traversing the Chepang Trail, we stopped at a place called Hattibang and were fascinated to learn from a local that the place has been named after a huge boulder. In Chepang language ‘bang’ means a stone and it resembled the head of an elephant. The Nepali word for an elephant is ‘hatti’. Including such small details make the stories interesting. And believe me the readers will remember them for a long time! 

Most of the above learning comes from the September - October 2020 content collection trip for Turn the Tables on Climate Change campaign. Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer. 

How frequently should you use hashtags to engage with your audience properly

Image from Flickr user Esther Vargas. (CC BY-SA 2.0)

With the ever increasing use of social media, hashtags have been ubiquitous. The pound (hash, #) sign turns a word or group of words accompanying the sign into a searchable link. It makes your post more searchable, allows you to follow a certain ongoing conversation in social media and search user-generated content.  

However, in spite of the usability of hashtags we’re often not sure on how to use them properly – how frequently use them in our posts in different social media platforms. As suggested by social media experts, each platform has its own specialty and we need to add hashtags to our posts accordingly.

Facebook
Facebook posts without a hashtag fare better than those with a hashtag, recommends Andrew Hutchinson in SocialMediaToday.

However, social media experts recommend using 1 or 2 sensible hashtags, especially industry specific, event specific or campaign specific (if you’re using it for a campaign) for maximum interaction.

Instagram
Use of branded (specific to your brand or company) and community hashtags are a must to interact with your followers on Instagram. While the branded hashtags help you get most loyal followers to engage and improve brand awareness, community hashtags help you make your content more discoverable and build your audience.

However, you make sure you bundle up all your hashtags at the end of the post rather than putting them in between the post.

Experts suggest using more than 10 hashtags in your Instagram posts, but make sure you don’t use more than 30 tags. As Instagram Help Center suggests, don’t use more than 30 tags on a single photo/video. If you do so, your comment won’t get posted.


Twitter
Don’t use more than two hashtags in a Twitter post and keep your hashtags relevant to what you’re tweeting about.

Make sure to generate your own specific hashtags during special events so as to track the ongoing conversation and engage with like-minded people.


LinkedIn
Though it was useless using hashtags in your LinkedIn posts earlier, I would suggest using 1-2 hashtags in a LinkedIn post. LinkedIn Help suggests: “There are no limits to the number of hashtags that can be added to each article, but you should choose your hashtags wisely, so they reach the most suitable members for that article.”


Want to know more? Here’s a pin detailing the use of hashtags.

How to live-tweet and reach a wider audience

Image from Flickr user hjw223. (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Thinking of live-tweeting during one of your much awaited conferences?

Though it seems a simple task, if not planned well it can go haywire. So proper planning is a must to reach a wider audience.

Decide on a hashtag
Before you jump into tweeting, decide on a hashtag to be used during the programme. Keep it simple – for example, if it’s a report launch, keep the hashtag as #ReportNameLaunch. Since the hashtags aren’t case sensitive, it can be typed as #reportnamelaunch, but the former one provides better readability.

Make sure the live-tweeters use the hashtag in each of their tweets.

Assign the tasks
It’s always better to form a team and assign the tasks rather than everybody tweeting the same thing.

At least two dedicated tweeters are a must to spread the word. Rest of the team can re-tweet and comment on their tweets. The two of them can meet beforehand and decide on how to go ahead with the tweeting – things like who takes care of which part of the speaker quotes.

Get the technology right
Make sure the live-tweeters are well connected to the WiFi or have enough balance in their cellphones to tweet throughout the session.

At least one live-tweeter should use TweetDeck so that they can follow the hashtag conversations with much ease.

Don’t forget the language and grammar
Check the spellings and the sentences before you push the ‘tweet’ button. Since you can’t edit the tweets later, it’s wise to check the sentence structure.

Refrain from using the shortened forms like 2day, 4U, etc. – now you don’t have the 140 characters restriction on Twitter any more.

Get to know the speakers
Research a bit about the speakers, collect their Twitter handles and put them on a spreadsheet with short bio and links to their articles published online. It will be handy to link them to their relevant quotes.

Make sure to add the hashtag and speaker Twitter handle while tweeting. It will make the tweet credible and help start a conversation.

Before clicking the pictures, taking the videos and tweeting them, make sure to talk to the speakers beforehand. Some of them might not be comfortable being tagged in the tweets.

Finally, some handy tips
Use speaker quotes and add their Tweeter handles. However, if you’re starting with the speaker handle, don’t forget to add a dot (.) before the handle (.@SpeakerHandle) so that it reaches everybody.

If you’re not a fast typing person or lose track of the conversation, don’t panic. You can write a note on a notebook or pad and tweet it later during the session.

Ask tweeters to send their questions during the session. Feel free to approach the speakers to get the answers and then tweet it to the person who sent the question.

You can also take some short videos or quotes from the audience and tweet them.

Retweet others. It is a good idea to set up a stream in your dashboard. It’s easy from there to share and comment on what people are tweeting.

Thanks to the Global Voices Summit 2017 social media team. A large chunk of this piece has been prepared from the notes and guidelines circulated to the live-tweeting team.

How to avoid too many emails and work duplication in your team

Getting too many emails from your team members? Being invited to too many meetings? Do your team members end up doing same work?

Now there’s a solution to all these. And your team will just need to install ‘Slack’, a messaging app for teamwork.

I have been using Slack for the last one year and find it extremely useful.

The best thing about Slack is you can create channels for a project, a topic, a team or for anything that needs to be discussed in your team.

At our workplace we have separate channels for each team and whenever a team member has to announce anything related to the team, she or he can give a shout in the channel. No need to send emails to all team members!

It also avoids work duplication. If one of your team members has already started working on one of the documents and sends a message across the channel, none of you in the team will work on the same document. However, if any team member wants suggestions or comments on any document, she or he can drag and drop the document to the channel and request feedback. The document can also be placed online and the link can be shared across the channel. It’s easy!

Just like any other instant messaging app, Slack has a provision of sending direct messages to your team members. And it can be either to an individual or a small group with not others peeking into the issue.  

Even direct calls or video calls can be made in any channel or direct message group from the app itself.

As I mentioned earlier, the drag and drop facility is very handy in sharing any documents or links with your team or team members.

So, if you haven’t used Slack yet, start using it and save your time!

The below infographics, though a little old, explains why people are using Slack.

Can you train your brain for better productivity?

What do you do to boost your creativity?

The answers differ from individual to individual. Some like to meditate. Some go on a lonesome walk. Others listen to music. Then some get a kick out of watching movies.

So, can you train your brain to be more creative?

The answer is – yes, you can obviously train your brain for better productivity.

Want to learn more?

Here’s an infographic by Wrike that tells you how to focus, save time, prioritise and get motivated for better results.

Why is it so important to follow up with the characters of your success story?

Think twice before lionising a success.
Designed by Freepik

I wrote a success story. It donned the list of top 10 popular posts of IFAD social reporting blog for a considerable time.

Everybody was happy with it and I was showered with lots of appreciation.  

The women in the story were inspirational. I thought they could have a snowball effect on similar farmers. So, I didn’t leave any stone unturned to share the story in my social media networks.

Read: Women unlock chains of development in rural Nepal

And then came the most important part of the story.

For better or worse, I like following up with the characters of my story. So, I went to the Nari Ekata (Women United) cooperative to find out how they were doing.

Seeing their good work, Shanta Oli, a member of the cooperative had been invited to the Learning Routes programme organised by IFAD and Procasur.

In addition, they had been awarded with an innovation plan grant to start mushroom farming for income generation which would benefit 40 households.

I was really happy to hear about these. However, my happiness turned sour when I saw the dwindling patches of vegetables. The land which was laden with vegetables during my first visit had turned into small patches of vegetables here and there – as if they were demonstration plots!

When I enquired, I came to know that they had been continuing with the vegetable farming, however, the quantity had declined. And so has their motivation.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

At least the cultivation was being continued and whatever I had written earlier about them had not turned 100 per cent wrong. I noticed that they needed a follow-up from the organisations that had motivated them to start the vegetable farming.

This taught me few important lessons:

Check the facts well before publishing a success story.

Make sure you ask the futuristic question at the end of the interview – “What are your future plans?”

I am sure you got my point. Don’t hurry to write success stories. Write the stories only after you are convinced with what the interviewees say and what others say about them.

And don’t forget to follow up with the characters in your story after a certain interval.

How do you get your stories out in the media?

Image by Flickr user Damian Gadal. CC BY 2.0

Believe me, most of the time, communicators are busy thinking of strategies to get their stories in the mainstream media.

Sometimes, the stories are newsworthy and the journalists come on their own to get information from the communications team. However, most of the times, it’s the other way around. I have seen communications people calling journalists frantically at the last moment to make them attend their press conferences. And it’s obviously to get their piece of news out in the media – be it print or electronic.

Difficult it seems, but if planned well, getting out the stories in the media is not an invincible task. You just need to make sure you expedite every option that leads to getting your stories there. Here are a few of them.

Use your social media network to track journalists and pitch your stories
Gone are the days of press releases. Try to find out journalists writing on the subject. Social media has made it much easier to get your message across. Send short pitches – succinct ones with interesting angles to get the initial attention. Once they show interest to your proposal, be prepared to pitch the whole story.

Believe me, it works better than sending the press releases and contacting the journalists to write about it.

If you haven’t already read this legendary piece “Die! Press Release!, Die! Die! Die!” by Tom Foremski, make sure to go through it before you consider continuing with the ages-old ritual of getting your stories in the media.

Pitch you stories to community blogs
Community blogs are one of the most visited and widely read sites, especially visited by the people interested in that particular subject matter. Suppose you are writing something on a recent biogas intervention by your organisation and want it to reach a wider audience. The first and foremost thing you need to do is search community blogs on energy, their popularity and check whether they allow guest blogging or not.

Contact the administrator and pitch your blog. Once it gets published, share it widely in your social media network. Sometimes, journalists come searching for you reading about your interesting interventions in the community blogs.

Try jotting down opinion pieces for popular daily newspapers
This requires time, detailed research on the subject and your personal opinion as well. It might get your issue in the media but not certainly your organisation’s name in the piece. The editors at the other end try to make sure it is an opinion piece and not an advertorial promoting a certain organisation.

However, as the editors receive hundreds of submissions every day, you will need to wait. Make sure you submit the write-up at least a week ahead of the date you want it to be published. But above all, the piece should be interesting and thought-provoking, written for a general audience.
Write joint articles with your colleagues

Have you ever tried writing a joint article? Two is always better in the eyes of an editor and if you can write about an issue together with your colleague who can supplement your thoughts, it’s more likely to get space in the publication. 

Write a letter to the editor
It’s an old trick but it works most of the time. Pick any recent pieces related to your theme published in the newspaper and write to the editor, putting forth your views about the author’s idea. Meanwhile you can also talk about your alternative view and about your project or work related with the published issue.

Interestingly, people read the “Letters to the editor” and it is likely that your views will attract eyeballs. 

Send press releases and follow-up
While I started by saying “do away with press releases – gone are the days of press releases”, make sure you do this every time you organise workshops and seminars where some interesting issues are discussed and it needs to be disseminated to a wider audience.

Give an interesting angle to your story including an attractive headline that catches the attention and a first paragraph describing the 5W (what, where, when, who and why) and 1H (how) of the whole story.

Email the press-release (the journalists would sometimes copy-paste your content and edit it a bit only to save their precious time), fax it (interestingly, some televisions and radios still prefer the faxed press releases) and call them whether they received your release.

Keep your social media channels abundant with stories
Last but not the least, make sure your organisation is present in all popular social media channels (presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram is a must, rest depends on your team’s ability to manage them) and you are adding fresh stories every now and then to those channels.

Maintain a regular blog roll of your work, staff experience and opinion pieces from your staff and guest contributors. This attracts journalists and bloggers to your work and it’s likely that they will contact you to get insights on your work – most probably to write unbiased pieces on similar work being done by others. And it’s for sure – there will be a mention of your work!

Leave no stone unturned to capture the tacit knowledge from your staff

Tacit knowledge is hidden and remains with an individual.
Water vector designed by Freepik

Fully and clearly expressed knowledge aslo called explicit knowledge is only a tip of iceberg. More than 95% of knowledge remains within your staff member – like the bottom of the iceberg. And it’s becoming extremely difficult to retain quality staff these days. This means, all the time you are at the risk of losing a major chunk of organisational knowledge built both by the perseverance of your employee and the money and time you spent on his or her capacity building. Keep aside the learning that comes to him or her with the work delivery.

So, how do you extract the knowledge from your staff? Is it good to start nudging him or her as you get the hint that the person is on the verge of leaving the organisation?

The answer is NO. The knowledge extraction, I would better say, knowledge percolation should be planned from the day one – the joining date of the staff. However, embedding it in the job description won’t fetch you a 100% result. And there’s no full-proof method either!

However, still there are few methods that can help you tap some of the staff wisdom.

Sharing sessions
It’s simple but effective. Organise sharing sessions and multi-stakeholder sharing platforms regularly at your office and invite your staff and others to present their learning and knowledge. It will not only make them feel important but other staff and your organisation will also benefit from the sharing. Get the sessions recorded and transcribe the speech. Keep the video in the archive and make sure it is available to all staff all the time – upload it in the intranet.

Write-shops
While write-shops are organised to get reports and publications completed in one-go, they can be crucial in capturing the learning and experience of your staff. Like in the sharing session don’t forget to record the whole session. Any day, any time, the shared experiences might be handy for the organisation.

Exit interview
This is the most common practice to extract the tacit knowledge from a member of staff before he or she leaves the organisation. It’s useful and helpful but not a full-proof method to capture the knowledge, learning and experience from the defector. Also, as the employee is in the process of leaving and joining another organisation, there’s no enthusiasm in him or her to share the learning
and experiences. However, it’s a must-to-do process to get out whatever-you-can from the deserter. 

One-to-one meetings
One-to-one meetings in informal settings are another method of getting out the learning and knowledge from your staff. It works better if it is done with a cup of coffee in your hands – you can term it as coffee hour or coffee chat. So, who should be responsible for doing this? It’s obvious – either the HR person or the internal communications person in close coordination with the knowledge management team. 

Organisational intranet
Make proper use of intranet – make it mandatory to upload the field trip reports (with lessons learned), meeting minutes, work plans, draft reports, project progress and completion reports, and outcomes of brainstorming sessions. Though it seems clumsy, cumbersome and a process-oriented affair, it will in the long run, help you gather nuggets of knowledge, at least to some extent.

Make sure you have an opinion, lessons learned or takeaway section in the reports. It’s the part where the writer jots down his learnings and recommendations.

Mobile apps
What has a mobile application got to do with extracting knowledge from your staff? It sounds absurd but it’s becoming a reality. Teams are more and more depending on different mobile apps to accomplish their tasks in a timely manner and they have been using a variety of mobile applications and services to serve their purposes.

Take example of Trello, Yammer, Slack and a slew of mobile applications helping teams to converse and collaborate. Personally, I have been using Yammer and Slack and during the conversations with team members, sometimes unusually, find great shares by colleagues. I don’t mean to say that you should be scouring the conversation threads to extract the learnings, but taking note of some key spurts of knowledge sharing and opinions can prove to be a crucial piece in your jigsaw called knowledge management.

Have you got something more to add to this list? It would be great to hear your ideas on gleaning knowledge from an individual.

7 essential sourcebooks for development communications professionals

Are you into communications? To be specific, if you are into development communications and need to develop a communications strategy for your organisation or a campaign, what steps do you follow?

If you haven’t gone through my earlier post on developing a communications strategy, here’s a quick recap.

• Analyse the background
• Formulate goals and objectives
• Analyse the target audience
• Develop the key messages
• Craft the call-to-action
• Design the tools and activities
• Set a budget and timeline
• Monitor the actions and measure the impacts

For a bird’s-eye view, develop a communication matrix so that you find everything on a single page starting from the communication goals and objectives to the communication channels you will be using to meet the objectives. A communications calendar will be an added advantage.

If you want to go through the process once more, here’s a link to make your job easier.

To analyse the situation, here’s how you carry out the PEST (Political, economic, social and technological), SWOT (Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) and competitor analyses. 

Now, if you want to delve much deeper into developing communication strategies, here are seven essential sourcebooks that will help you hone your skills.

Development Communication Sourcebook: Broadening the Boundaries of Communication
By Paolo Mefalopulos
The World Bank

Communication for Rural Development: Sourcebook
FAO

Writing a communication strategy for development programmes: A guideline for programme managers and communication officers
UNICEF

Strategic Communication for Sustainable Development: A conceptual overview
GIZ

Communication for Development: Strengthening the effectiveness of the United Nations
FAO, ILO, UNAIDS, UNICEF, UNDP, UNESCO, WHO

How to use communication to make aid effective: Strategies and principles for programme-based approaches
BBC World Service Trust

At the heart of change: The role of communication in sustainable development
Panos London

Visit this page to download related documents.

And here's a case for communication in sustainable development.

The case for communication in sustainable development
Panos London

If you are interested in research communication, this guidebook can be of much help.

Guidance note on research communication 
DFID

Also have a look at the below:

Toolkit on Communication for Development (C4D)
Six useful guides on communication strategy

8 ways to avoid boring storytelling trainings

Have you ever trained your staff on storytelling?

While conducting sessions on story writing I generally come across a familiar set of questions. Most of the participants say they have taken numerous training on story writing and storytelling. And with the ubiquitous presentations on storytelling in Slideshare and Authorstream, everybody thinks that s/he can craft wonderful stories at a mouse’s click. However, when they sit down to jot down a story, they can’t even move beyond few paragraphs. That’s pity!

Stand-alone storytelling training is not interesting at all. However, when all the components of storytelling including story writing, photography and videography are combined together, it makes the session interesting. And if you add the social media component to it – to disseminate the stories written by the participants – it makes the training engrossing. 

The practical and do-it-yourself sessions keep the participants engaged and interested. Besides, the desire to outshine among the peers motivates them to learn and perform better. 

Another crucial factor needed to make the training effective is making participants work in groups. And if you can arrange to make it residential, it allows more discussion, dialogue and exchange of ideas among the participants. This in turn, makes the training more productive.

Content is the king and will always be. Don’t feel awkward to curate the best content from the available resources in the Internet. Slideshare and Authorstream are two sites where you will find loads of presentation on storytelling. And of course you can always Google for more relevant resources. Here’s one of my earlier pieces on storytelling.

Tell the participants how they can get their stories to a wider audience. After writing stories if they don’t reach the target audience, it’s of no use at all. So, provide guidelines on how they can get their stories published, either in an organisational newsletter or in an external publication. Knowing that they can pitch their stories even to international publications, the participants will be more interested to write better stories.   

Everybody loves challenges. Once the sessions come to an end, collaborate with the participants to sketch personal story writing plans. Coming up with a concrete plan to write stories on a regular basis and getting them to the target audience will keep the flames burning. Even after the training. 

To get the maximum output, the sessions should be long enough to generate interaction. The one-sided teaching should be avoided. And for it, you will need to spread your training to three to five days. A day each on storytelling, photography, videography, practical sessions and dissemination through various channels seems the best spread out.

Another important aspect of an effective training is the resource person. The participants get inspired by resource persons who are known well in their fields. Circulating a schedule with short bios of the trainers few weeks ahead arouses interest among the probable participants. 

I am sure the above suggestions will help you to plan an interesting and effective storytelling session. If you come across some more interesting ideas, add to the list. 

World café, multi-stakeholder platforms and knowledge generation

What happens when you mix world café with multi-stakeholder platform (MSP)? As obvious, the outcome is an innovative and sustained effort for sharing and creating knowledge among the actors. And if you are implementing it for a certain value chain – it works wonders bringing about significant changes in the sector.

If you are new to value chain, let me first talk about it. A value chain is a set of activities and actors involved from the production till the sales. In a nutshell: from farm to fork. 

The idea of mixing world café with MSP was deduced from the innovation system (adapted from Woodhill, 2011) that brings together service providers, entrepreneurs, associations, farmer organisations, government, researchers, educators, practitioners and policy makers through interactive knowledge processes like MSPs, action research, dialogues, action groups, knowledge networks and pilots for collective action and shared understanding to bring about a situation for change in a certain value chain.

The below diagram (click the picture to enlarge) sourced from the chapter “Knowledge development, innovation and learning in value chains by Piet Visser, Melat Getahun and Mogessie Fikrie” in the book Pro-poor Value Chain Development: Private Sector-led Innovative Practices in Ethiopia edited by Piet Visser, Marc Steen, Juergen Greiling, Timoteos Hayesso, Rem Neefjes and Heinz Greijn clarifies the concept. Read the review of the book in Capacity.org.

We tried concocting these two processes at the High Value Agriculture Project in Hill and Mountain Areas (HVAP).  The producer groups and cooperatives, traders, input suppliers and service providers were bundled into groups so that they could discuss about the opportunities and challenges in the value chain with each other.

Each group then presented the challenges and opportunities including prioritising the pressing issues in the sector that provided a platform for open dialogue among the value chain actors, enabling institutions and service providers.

Following the presentation, a world café session was organised. The traders became the table hosts and the producers went from one table to another in groups. The groups spent around 20 minutes at each table and discussed on the issues concerning both the buyers and producers. Some even came up with buy-back arrangements with the traders, while the producers and traders were seen busy exchanging the mobile numbers.  A partnership was already taking place and links were being strengthened – guaranteeing both the producers and traders of selling their products and sourcing products respectively.  Similarly, a separate table was hosted by the enablers including scientists, agro-vets and representatives from district agriculture development offices of the government. The farmers were surprised to know about the services provided by the government.

For those of you who don’t know about world café, it’s a process of holding structured conversation in groups. The individuals or groups switch the tables and the table host gives a snapshot about the previous discussion to the incoming group or individuals. At the end the table host presents on the outcomes of the discussions.  Visit the site to learn about the world café method.

The world café and MSP helped build a consensus and ownership among the stakeholders. It would obviously help bring about changes in the sector.

To know more about the sessions and quotes from the participants, read my earlier post in IFADAsia portal.

Share information, win the game

Share information, be popular. (c) www.morguefile.com

Information is power. Isn’t it? So why not hoard information and remain powerful? Well, it was the thinking few years ago. Nowadays if you hide information, you will no longer remain powerful. The information seeker will google it, bing it and get the required data. And you will feel ostracised at the end.

I recall a widely circulated anecdote. Once a man approached a mason laying bricks. On being asked what he was doing, the man nonchalantly said, “Well, don’t you see, I’m laying bricks.”

The man then went to another man who too was laying bricks. Nearby was standing the foreman. He was supervising the masons. When he posed the same question to the second mason, the foreman took over and said, “We are building a wall.”   

Getting a different answer, he thought of contacting the contractor who was in-charge of the construction. The contractor welcomed him to his office, offered a cup of coffee and explained, “See, we are coming up with one of the largest churches in the neighbourhood.”

Now, you can see the difference.  Had the mason known of the bigger picture, he would have taken his job more seriously.  The foreman would have gone an extra mile to be a proud partner in constructing the landmark.  

This makes the difference. It’s not only about sharing the information, but showing the bigger picture to your teammates. So that you come together as winning team. And accomplish your goals. Efficiently. Effectively.

Three easy steps to developing knowledge and learning

First identify the knowledge theme, then start developing
knowledge products. (c) www.morguefile.com

Working as a knowledge worker, the most difficult task that I have come across is knowledge extraction and creation. While adapting, structuring, and sharing aspects of knowledge management are a bit easier, the knowledge developing seems a daunting task, especially when you start from the scratch. If you are to extract knowledge and learning from a project during a stated period, you need to first set the knowledge agenda. To set the agenda, identify the themes around which you want to develop the knowledge and learning. As the project progresses, you will come across some obvious knowledge and learning. However, at the beginning of the project you will need to identify the themes based on the project design document.

Knowledge themes and key questions
The knowledge themes could be gender and social inclusion, commercialisation, sustainability and so on, depending on the project document. After identifying the knowledge themes, discuss with the stakeholders and find out the key questions that will lead to developing knowledge and learning under each theme. For instance, under the theme gender and social inclusion, one of the probable questions can be, “What are the effective ways of targeting women and disadvantaged groups?” Similarly, you can collect a set of questions by interviewing the stakeholders, asking them what they expect to learn from the project.

Knowledge sharing mechanisms and tools
Following the identification of knowledge themes and collection of key questions, list out the knowledge sharing mechanisms and tools best suited to capture the key learning. The knowledge sharing mechanism can be a success story, a case study, a practice paper, a practice brief, a manual, a guideline, a website and so on.

Knowledge matrix with deliverables
After listing out the knowledge sharing mechanisms and tools, develop a knowledge matrix comprising columns for knowledge theme, knowledge sharing mechanism and deliverables. Talking with your team and management, decide which mechanism is best suited to capture the learning of a particular knowledge theme. Looking after your team’s capabilities and duration, fix the number of deliverables you want to come up with. For instance, to develop knowledge and learning under the theme gender and social inclusion, you might choose to go for two case studies and three success stories in a year. Likewise, to develop a knowledge product under the theme sustainability, you might go for a collaborative research.

Which one would you go for? A print ad or an infographic?

As an advertiser, I am a fan of witty print advertisements. As a development practitioner, I have faith on infographics. I see a lot of similarities and at the same time many differences between these two.

A print ad generally comprises of an interesting opening headline, a sleek body copy, an engaging punchline and an eye-catching visual. Likewise, an infographic consists of an opening headline, a lengthy body copy of data inter-mixed with eye-catching graphics (motifs), a tagline and a link to further information.

The headline of both the advertisement and infographic should be interesting, witty and sexy. It should surmise the content following it. I don't see any difference between headlines of an ad and an infographic.

However, there is a vast difference between the body copy of a print ad and an infographic. In a print ad, lesser the text, better the ad. In an infographic, staggering the data, better the information. The name, infographic is combination of information and graphic. It is basically data sorted, arranged and presented visually. A copywriter tries to abridge the content while a visualizer tries to arrange the data into segments along with graphics.

In a print ad, an advertiser uses a relevant picture, illustration or typography to make it visually inviting. However, in an infographic, a visual artist uses motifs, graphics that are placed aside the data to make it interesting. The numbers and visuals are highlighted to seek the attention of the reader.             

The punchline of both an advertisement and an infographic needs to be engaging, instigating interest in the audience to look for further information. Mostly in case of an infographic a web link is provided at the end so that the reader can visit the website for more information. Nowadays, the advertisers also provide web links at the bottom of the ad. Earlier advertisements used to have no web links and no contact address which used to leave the reader guessing about the product.

Now, the purpose – an advertisement is targeted to the consumers and is completely commercial. While an infographic is more of an advertorial with enough information for a researcher, student and likes. Its purpose is to teach through graphics.

To me both the print ad and infographic can be used interchangeably with little changes suiting to the needs of the target audience. An infographic needs wittiness of a print ad and likewise, a print ad needs well-researched data of an infographic.

With humans being busier than the bees, infographics are gaining popularity more than ever. Now you can just scan and skim through the data without feeling bored. I wonder if the future books will be written in infographics. In a lighter tone – the books in infographics might turn into hieroglyphs – the images that tell the Egyptian history.   

To find the difference, have a look at a creative ad and an infographic.

 

 

Business lessons in the rainy season

(c) www.morguefile.com

Rain dripping from your window sills, a melange of bright coloured umbrellas passing through the street, a rainbow bridging two seemingly far points and earth's sweet smell emanating from the first downpour of the season – it's what makes the rainy season so special. In spite of the mud, filth and deluge I love the season. As the rainy season comes to an end, I am reciting few lessons that I learnt during the wet, drippy days.

Pond herons and the bamboos
Aim for the tallest, highest and strongest.

I have a pond in my native village. The northern part of the pond is surrounded by bamboos and Indian Rosewood (Dalbergia sissoo) trees. During my village stay I spend an enormous amount of my time on the pond's embankment. And when I am there, I am engrossed in observing the birds coming to drink water and fish in the waters. In the evenings, I see hordes of pond herons flying back to their nests on the bamboos. It's interesting – they build nests on tall trees and bamboos, and while resting they prefer to perch on the bamboo tops.

This must be the reason – it's easy for them to land on the bamboo and tree tops while flying. The pond herons convey a simple message to us – always aim for the tallest, highest and strongest.  

Crabs and fishes
Don't waste time pulling others' legs, instead leapfrog.

Once I collected almost dozen crabs and few fishes from a freshly ploughed field in a small bucket. Not to let the fish die, I also added handfuls of water to my catch. While I was on the way to home, almost all the fishes had jumped off the bucket and I had just a single fish left in the bucket. However, none of the crabs had escaped.

When I reached home and tried to pull out a crab from the bucket, two more crabs clung to it. I left all the crabs in the bucket and observed them. Once a crab started climbing up the bucket, another clung to its feet and both of them were again back at the bottom of the bucket. None of the crabs were able to climb out of the bucket in my half an hour's scrutiny.

They offered me a valuable lesson – never waste time pulling others' legs, instead leapfrog if you want to succeed.

Eagle and fish
Set your sight on the target, forget the fear of failure.  

There are four public ponds in my village. All of them have been leased out to traders by the villagers for fish farming. The traders harvest the fishes at least twice a year. During the fishing, the whole village gathers at the site. Children run alongside the fishing nets to collect the fishes that jump out of the net, and men and women wait for their share of the catch. Each household gets at least a kilo of fish as a token of their ownership over the ponds. While the people are busy catching fish, eagles hover in the sky in search of a chance to catch a fish that escapes the net.

The eagles are such precise creatures that they keep on flying hundreds of feet above the land looking for a chance to pounce upon a fish escaping the net. And I have seen many a times, they are successful in running away with big catches. The moral is – set your sight on the target, forget the fear of failure.        

Fishes and the water-flow
Rise against the current.

During the rainy season the paddy fields are full of water and fishes. While draining away the excess water from the upstream fields to the downstream fields, the farmers put handmade traps between the fields to catch the fishes. The fishes are simply swept away by the running water and get entangled in the traps. There are fishes which never come near the water flowing downstream. However, if you observe carefully, there are fishes which flow along with the current but swim back as and when they approach the trap.

That's the way we should be. We should take risks but stay away from being a foolish risk-taker. And if possible rise against the consequences and come as a winner.

Learning Routes – developing pilgrimages of learning

Republished from www.asia.ifad.org

Knowledge sharing mechanisms and processes have evolved hugely in recent years. From the earlier documentation of knowledge in the form of manuals and booklets to audio-visual materials, online portals for discussion, and recent phenomenon called crowdsourcing, all have their own relevance and audiences to target at.     

Leaving behind the traditional forms of knowledge management, my colleagues from High Value Agriculture Project in Hill and Mountain Areas (HVAP), Sirish Pun, Ghanashyam Chaudhary, Krishna Thapa and I embarked on a journey to develop a Learning Route. The Learning Route comprises identifying a good case from which others can learn, developing it together with the community – staying with them and learning in the process, and following the visit trying to replicate it in other areas.

The training venue was in the outskirts of the town and the working area was almost 17 kilometres away from the venue. Both the places were peaceful, tranquil and far from the madding crowd. However, coping with the hot and humid Taulihawa was a challenge in itself. Then was the problem with translation for the instructors – the local language was Avadhi which was translated into Nepali and then into English. In the process, much information details were lost many a times. However, belonging to and having worked in the Terai region eased our language woes.

The case identified for establishing the learning route was the success story of Pragatishil Agriculture Cooperative Limited. With the establishment of the cooperative, the village has witnessed many avenues of development. Now there are roads around the village, groups are engaged in fish farming in the ponds, a shop that provides goods at reasonable price has been set up by the cooperative, the villagers can receive money sent by their relatives employed in foreign countries through the remittance service operated by the cooperative, more groups are engaged in vegetable farming and commercial onion cultivation, children are getting quality education in the boarding school established by the cooperative, local market is a well-managed weekly affair and a dam has been built to control the upheavals caused by floods.   

Community members preparing map of past.

The first assignment began with preparing the maps of past, present and future. The community members were divided into three groups and we asked each group to draw how the village looked like in the past, present and how they wanted it to look like in the near future. After the map preparation, the maps were presented among the groups to verify and validate the data incorporated in each maps by the groups.

Secondly, we held focus group discussion and personal interviews with the community members and local champions. We visited the places that tell the story of the cooperative and we met with the beneficiaries. This formed a basis for drawing timeline of important events and map of actors involved in the success story of the cooperative. A chart of learning insights was also drawn including the strengths, challenges and recommendations.

The timeline, map of actors and chart of learning insights was presented to the community members and the information was validated. With the finalisation of the data and information, a rough list of events, places and persons to meet while narrating the story to the visitors was charted out. This will form a basis for the community members to showcase their story to the visitors wanting to learn from their experience.

A Learning Route gives the first hand information of a success story to the visitor. Not only that, the visitor gets to meet the people behind the success and interact with them. This inspires the learners to replicate similar successes in their respective working areas.

Watch a video explaining the Learning Route process.
 

The Learning Route is a capacity-building tool with a proven track record of successfully integrating local knowledge and experiences, in development with innovation and the best practices from the field, that have scaling-up potential.

The Learning Route is based on the idea that successful solutions to existing problems are already present within rural areas, and that those solutions might be adapted and spread to other contexts.

Over the years and in rural contexts across several continents the Learning Route has shown to be a powerful method to foster capacity-building through peer-to-peer sharing of knowledge and face-to-face interactions.

The Learning Route cycle:

Step 1. Best practices are identified and systematically organised to promote the adoption and scaling-up of innovative processes.

Step 2. People who are successful in their own work are trained to become capacity builders, with their personal experiences as the source of training.

Step 3. Participants in the Route  have opportunities to directly gather knowledge from successful experiences in the field. Interest and curiosity arises from the exchanges with “the Champions”, leaders and practitioners of those successful experiences.

Step 4. Finally, when participants return to their organisations they will have the knowledge  and tools to innovate  and generate results.
Learning Routes for Asia and the Pacific: Strengthening Knowledge Sharing Innovative Solutions

Financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the PROCASUR Corporation, the Programme is targeted at rural poor men and women and the technical staff of public and private development projects.

Life-changing corporate lessons from animals

Do you love animals? What about fables? I am a great fan of Panchatantra – the famous book of fables where animals speak and act like humans and show us how to lead a good life. Last week while looking for some interesting fables, I came across three short stories teaching important corporate lessons in www.slideshare.net. With due credits to the creators, I would like to recite the stories.  



(c) www.morguefile.com

Corporate lesson 1
A crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day.

A small rabbit saw the crow, and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing all day long?”

The crow answered, "Sure, why not.”

So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested.

All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit, and ate it.

Moral of the story is - To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

Corporate lesson 2
A turkey was chatting with a bull.

"I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "But I haven't got the energy.”

"Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull. “They're packed with nutrients."

The turkey pecked at a lump of dung and found that it actually gave him enough strength to reach the first branch of the tree.

The next day, after eating more dung, he reached the second branch.

Finally after a fortnight, there he was proudly perched at the top of the tree.

Soon he was spotted by a farmer who promptly shot the turkey out of the tree.

Moral of the story is - Bullshit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

Corporate lesson 3
A little bird was flying south for the winter.

It was so cold, the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field.

While it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on it.

As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, it began to realise how warm it was. The dung was actually thawing him out!

He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.

A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate.

Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him!

The morals of this story are:
1) Not everyone who drops shit on you is your enemy.
2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
3) And when you're in deep shit, keep your mouth shut.
 

7 ways to make a success story interesting

Writing success stories is not only about showcasing the difference your programme is making in people’s lives, but it is also about grasping the attention of readers and creating a bandwagon effect.

Interesting figures grasp attention.

When a dog bites a man, it’s not interesting. However, if a man bites a dog, it not only becomes interesting but also gets the attention of a wider audience. To make your stories stand out among the millions of stories churned out by development professionals around the globe, you need to add that “X-factor” to your story. 

Begin with the most promising part
Take your audience to an event, place or character that is interesting. You don’t need to cling to the regular way of showing situation, challenges, interventions and outcomes in a success story. These can be interchanged. Show the most interesting part first, then take the audience to other sections.

It’s like watching a movie. Sometimes a director starts the movie with the climax and then uses flashbacks to tell the story. However, most stories follow a timeline. 

Follow a logical sequence and keep the paragraphs short
Try to write small sentences and small paragraphs. Then link the paragraphs in such a way that the story flows seamlessly and there are no hitches and halts in the way. 

I follow the sequence mentioned by Jennifer Stewart.

Put a man up a tree, i.e., start with an issue you want to resolve
Throw stones at him, i.e., present the problem
Get him down, i.e., show how an issue might be resolved

Another popular sequence is the SRRE method coined in the Journal of Extension: Writing Success Stories for Program Enhancement and Accountability (University of Wisconsin – Extension).

Situation: What prompted the programme?
Response: How did the programme respond? (inputs and outputs)
Results: Who benefited? What resulted? (outcomes) 
Evidence: What’s the evidence? (evaluation)

Add fillers to spice up the story
Mention the environs and ambience the protagonist lives in. It allows the audience to visualise the environment and situation of the protagonist. Explain the challenges, needs and rationale of your programme to the protagonist, community and the country.

Quote the protagonist
Mention catchy quotes from the protagonist and other participants in direct speech. It not only provides credibility but also provides the reader with a chance to empathise with the actors. Also present facts and figures. They help catching the reader’s attention. 

Add pictures to the story
A picture speaks thousand words. Add a picture with a catchy caption to the story. It convinces the audience. Try taking pictures from different angles in different layouts and choose the best ones. Also add charts and figures in boxes to illustrate the success of the programme. 

Present the programme interventions subconsciously
Readers don’t like to read about your programme in the story; they are interested in the protagonist and his/her success. However, you tend to talk about your programme and its interventions. Try to minimise the words and sentences describing your programme. If possible, try to add a quote from the protagonist talking about your programme.

Make the end interesting
Conclude your story in a question that makes the reader think about the story and programme interventions. Talk about the future possibilities. End with an interesting quote from the protagonist.

Now time for few tips on writing success stories (in Nepali). 

#Communicating #Success #Stories RT @sankuchy: A Communicator's Diary: 7 ways to make a success story interesting http://t.co/AhKZKY9aQz

— भाजु महेश (@Bhajumahesh) April 10, 2014

5 organisational lessons from animals and insects

Have you ever thought of animals and insects teaching us to organise better and effectively market our products? In the last few weeks, I rummaged through research journals to delve into the animal and insect behaviour, and came up with some interesting facts fuelling some practical lessons.

Change your strategy to suit the market needs

Goat kids change ‘accents’ to sound like their peers: As “kids”, the goats mimic the sounds of their mother and siblings. But when they get older, they wander off to join social groups, or “crèches”, with goats their own age, changing their accents to sound like their peers.

Now let’s talk about the practicality of this trait. Once Facebook was only for college students and required .edu e-mail addresses in order to join. Many of its users preferred its “exclusivity” to the “generality” of other social networking sites like “Friendster” and “MySpace”. However, Mark Zuckerberg gradually changed the strategy of catering only to college students to accommodate more users and the rest is history.   

Stick to discipline and organisational culture
Ants mark violators for policing: Policing is a familiar mechanism for maintaining cooperative behaviour in human societies. This mechanism also operates in other animal societies. Among ants, the workers physically attack other workers that selfishly attempt to produce their own eggs, and by such policing keep the colony focused on cooperatively aiding the queen’s reproduction.

This teaches us to build a culture within our organisation and ensure it is strictly followed through the ranks in the organisation. At the end, it is the organisational culture that makes an organisation stand out among competitors and create a brand of its own. It creates a common ground for team members, reduces uncertainty, and contributes to a sense of continuity and unity providing a vision to the organisation. Like the ants, you need to make sure that the members’ shared values, beliefs and behaviours are guided towards a common goal and no one violates the rules.        

Concentrate your efforts on a particular value
Rhinos leave dung piles at a particular place: Rhinos are known for their habit of leaving dung piles at a particular place. Most rhinos use piles of dung to leave “messages” for other rhinos - nuances in the smell of dung can tell a rhino a lot about others in the area. Each rhino’s smell identifies its owner as unique - the smell is different for young vs. adult animals, for males vs. females, and females in estrus vs. non-reproductive females.

Likewise, don’t try to be everything. Follow certain values to establish an identity of your own. In their book “The Discipline of Market Leaders”, Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersma say, “No firm can be all things to all people and that a firm’s managers must clarify the value proposition, select a value discipline from one of three major choices and then build the right value-driven operating model to support that discipline”.

The three value disciplines that Treacy and Wiersma outline are:
 

• Operational Excellence-where firms focus on price and convenience.
• Product Leadership-where the emphasis is on creating products that consistently push performance boundaries.
• Customer Intimacy-where firms cultivate deep relationships with their clients.

Target the decision influencers
Leapfrogging in lady beetles: Herbivores aggregate in habitats where their plant resources are optimal and avoid habitats where their predators are in abundant. The research has shown that lady beetles aggregate where their prey’s plant resources are best, even though they as predators make no direct use of the plants. This strategy is termed ‘leapfrogging’ because the predator’s attention skips over the adjacent trophic level to concentrate on the one that is two levels down.


While you are formulating your marketing strategy, not only focus on the direct buyers, the primary targets but also take care of the influencers. It’s the same old theory of a housewife influencing the husband and children influencing their parents during the purchase. Nowadays, with the influx of so many social media platforms, the decision influencers have grown by leaps and bounds. That’s the reason marketers are putting their efforts in getting the maximum number of “likes” in Facebook pages of their products and are trying their best to instigate the consumers to share the pages with their peers and friends.
      
Tell the competitors to stay away

Honeybees tell hornet predators to buzz off: Asian honeybees signal to their enemies - bee-eating hornets - to let them know they have been spotted. All the guard bees simultaneously vibrate their abdomens from side-to-side for a few seconds when a hornet approaches the colony. In the wild, this produces a spectacular "Mexican wave" of vibrating bees. Warned wasps would retreat from the colony and try to catch bees in flight instead.

Keep on admonishing your competitors by continually improvising your products. This not only keeps intact the interest of your customers and creates long term brand loyalty, but also makes the customers feel proud using the products. Take the example of Facebook. Its continuous improvement in terms of features, navigation and utility has not only helped it attract more than 800 million users but has also kept the competition at bay. 

I am sure there are many more animal and insect behaviour that give us clue to organise better. Please add to the list if you come across any such lessons.