Facilitating Knowledge-Exchange: providing the right format, incentives, facilitation and support

For TechChange KM course July 2016, by Kristin Antin

“I see my work as being at the intersection of

information & knowledge management, digital security, and community building within the field of human rights.”

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MY BACKGROUND

CONTEXT: KNOWLEDGE-EXCHANGE IN HUMAN RIGHTS

What are the barriers to knowledge-exchange?

1.Competition. There is a small pool of funding and organisations often feel the need to prove that they know how to do something better than others.

2.Security. Human rights defenders need to think carefully about what to share, and how, in order to keep themselves and those around them safe.

3.Lack of time. Human rights work is hard and endless. It is hard to prioritise sharing your knowledge on developing mobilisation strategies over the actions themselves.

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KNOWLEDGE-EXCHANGE IN HUMAN RIGHTS

Why do we share knowledge with peers? To strengthen our human rights work (mission-driven):

1.Learn what works and why: learn and apply successful approaches to human rights work

2.Learn what doesn’t work and why: we have a lot to learn from others’ mistakes.

3.Learn something new through reflection: the act of sharing in and of itself is very useful

4.Create a stronger network of peers that we can turn to for advice and support.

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KNOWLEDGE-EXCHANGE IN HUMAN RIGHTS

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KNOWLEDGE-EXCHANGE IN HUMAN RIGHTSCommunity What they share Platform for sharing

Rising Voices https://rising.globalvoices.org/

Citizen media practitioners sharing knowledge

Facebook

Namati https://community.namati.org/ Sharing innovations in legal empowerment

Discourse

Kabissa https://forum.kabissa.org/ African Civil Society Orgs sharing knowledge using ICT

Discourse

New Tactics in Human Rights https://www.newtactics.org/

Human rights “tactics” across the sector

Drupal (forums module)

Equitas https://community.equitas.org/login/index.php

Knowledge and experience on human rights education

Not sure, closed platform

PROVIDING INCENTIVES FOR KNOWLEDGE-SHARING

We felt that these were the main incentives for participation:

1.To learn a new human rights approach/tactic.

2.To learn a new resource (guide, tool, platform, organization, etc).

3.To learn something new by reflecting on and sharing my experiences.

4.To meet new practitioners that may provide support and advice

in the future.

5.To give back to the community.

6.To be seen as a leader in this field.

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INCENTIVES: OUR ASSUMPTIONS

Average response to post-discussion survey for New Tactics conversation leaders

Based on 198 respondents from 2010 to 2014.

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INCENTIVES: WHAT WE LEARNED

I learned a new approach or tactic that I hope to use in the future.

I learned about a new resource or tool that I hope to use in the future.

Sharing my experiences and challenges helped me to reflect on my own work.

I met new practitioners that I may contact in the future.

1 2 3 4 5

3.9

4.3

3.8

3.7

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INCENTIVES: TACTICS TO UTILIZE THEM

Incentives Tactics

To learn a new approach/tactic/resource. Ask questions to get at the transferable knowledge, model the kind of knowledge you want people to share

To learn something new by reflecting on and sharing my experiences.

Provide questions, templates, guides and advice on effective sharing; lots of follow-up questions; they can share the output/summary w/ colleagues

To meet new practitioners that may provide support and advice in the future.

Video conference calls provide a way to build familiarity and rapport

To be seen as a leader in this field. Promote their contributions through social media, newsletter, website, etc.

FORMATS FOR EFFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE-EXCHANGE

Webinars, Conference Calls and Hangouts

For my research on affordable platforms, read: https://www.theengineroom.org/useful-online-meeting-tools/

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FORMATS FOR EFFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE-EXCHANGE

Email Discussion Lists

Is your community concerned about privacy and security?

Read: https://www.huridocs.org/?p=4833

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FORMATS FOR EFFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE-EXCHANGE

Online Discussion Forums

Drupal: New Tactics in Human Rights BuddyPress: GPSA Knowledge Platform

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FORMATS FOR EFFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE-EXCHANGE

Online Discussion Forums

Twitter: #CommBuild —->

Discourse: OKFN

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FORMATS FOR EFFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE-EXCHANGE

In-Person Exchange

Each participants is a skill-sharer and a skill-learner.

• Write down a skill to share

• Write down a skill to learn

• Mingle!

More info on facilitating in-person events from AspirationTech:

http://facilitation.aspirationtech.org

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FORMATS FOR EFFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE-EXCHANGE

FACILITATION TECHNIQUES AND PROVIDING SUPPORT

A few ingredients for successful facilitation

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FACILITATION AND SUPPORT

What seems to work What doesn’t work so well

Selecting specific topics leads to sharing of practical, useful information

Big, broad, or vague topics often stay conceptual/theoretical

Coach a few people to share their knowledge on the topic w/ structured format

Present a list of questions to a group of people and ask them to respond = chaos

Encourage participants to share examples and case studies grounds the information in the real-world

Sharing hypotheticals and ideas can only provide so much info (can’t provide advice and experience)

Encourage less background info, more of the “how we did it” info

Open-ended discussion/presentation, with little format/structure

Model the behavior you want

• Sharing examples

• “Here is an example of the kind of comment we’re looking for…”

• “Watch this recorded presentation to give you an idea of what we’re looking for…”

• Participate, yourself. As facilitator, you set the tone.

• Recruit champions to model what want

• “I know you have developed an open source tool for video verification - can you please reply to this comment and share why you decided open source was the best approach.”

• Guidelines and templates

• “When replying to comment, include: acknowledgement of author’s situation, your own experience that relates, any advice, resources or ideas. End with a question for others.”

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FACILITATION AND SUPPORT

Encouragement

This is SO important! Here’s what it could look like:

• Lots of “That comment you shared was really useful!” emails.

• Show your appreciation with lots of thanks. Promote their contributions on social media.

• Do whatever it takes to get a few people to ask follow up questions.

• Share info on the reach of their contribution: If possible, update them on who is listening/reading/watching their

contributions (can you pull stats, use Google Analytics, etc?).

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FACILITATION AND SUPPORT

Technical support

Make it as easy as possible for people to contribute to your initiative.

• Providing very clear instructions on how to use the platform (consider creating a video or a guide with lots of screenshots, or both!) Example: https://www.newtactics.org/resource/how-do-i-participate-new-tactics-online-conversation

• Host a conference call with participants before the knowledge-exchange event to walk them through all the steps, layout expectations, share advice, and answer any questions.

• Be available for additional support.

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FACILITATION AND SUPPORT

THANK YOU

You can read about me at www.kristinantin.com, and reach me at kristin@huridocs.org or @kjantin on Twitter.