Influencing+campaigns

Despite being structured across three teams, the Communication and Knowledge Management unit operates indeed as one unit. Where this is felt perhaps most strongly is around special large events and 'campaigns' that bring together the three teams in the following way:
 * Awareness and Advocacy leads on the influencing objectives and the profiling of audiences/actors to be involved and/or targeted by these campaigns;
 * Engagement and Collaboration provides structural advices and processes to organize the influencing work in a way that gets the various actors involved in a very interactive and learning-focused manner, that also paves the way for the documentation undertaken by the third team;
 * Publishing and Curation provides the materials upfront that the campaign will refer to, and will be collecting all kinds of outputs generated throughout the campaign and afterwards, for the record and next steps.

This page proposes some ways to organize such campaigns in a more generic manner, bearing in mind each campaign will have a specific set of objectives and actors, process and feel.

=Why generic campaigns?= Not only does it make sense internally to combine the complementary expertise of the three teams but more importantly externally it is much more effective to bring the attention of the public (or whatever specific target groups) in a structured and sustained manner, making use of all opportunities available. And in turn it leaves a much stronger impression of coherence and unity if ILRI teams are able to collaborate on this and speak with one voice on a given matter. Finally, but not least importantly, campaigns by nature stir up quite a bit of a buzz and conversations, which can lead to useful insights to bring back to and inform ILRI's programs and corporate approach.

=A generic campaign - how could it work=
 * 1) **Identify** early on - and at least every quarter - what opportunities we should organize campaigns around. Preferably campaigns should be organized around:
 * Important events where ILRI has a key role to play or where livestock features prominently;
 * Important events organized by ILRI;
 * Topical issues that are creating a major stir in the media/public;
 * Controversial issues where more conversation needs to take place;
 * Issues that have a global or widely regional (i.e. not local) bearing;
 * Issues that are already being talked about and are strongly related to ILRI's agenda;
 * Preferably a combination of all of the above.
 * 1) Identify **who should initially be involved** in the campaign (as the need arises later, more/different people may be involved at different times). This initial team will be the one doing the initial brainstorming work (see overview below);
 * 2) Prepare a quick **overview of the campaign**:
 * Objectives, i.e. awareness and advocacy objectives (which information people need to know, what behaviour they need to change, why).
 * Key audiences/actors targeted by the campaign - this item and the one above are chicken-and-egg and can be started either way;
 * Preferred channels to reach these audiences (bearing in mind the mix of online and offline means available) - define appropriate hashtags to use for the campaign and related themes/programs;
 * Key messages that need to come forward - from who and appearing where;
 * Background literature and information that can be drawn upon (using the long tail of ILRI's information/content);
 * Duration of the campaign and frequency of activities;
 * Plan for internal involvement (of other colleagues) to relay information;
 * Roles and responsibilities in the campaign;
 * 1) **Mobilize the people** from comms and otherwise that need to be involved in this work in some way or another;
 * 2) Start **drafting materials** to get the campaign going.

Typically, the following channels could be used for such campaigns:
 * ILRI website: hold all information about the campaign (generic overview + all links) and feature the campaign prominently;
 * Program/theme websites: as and when, for general posts (if the campaign is strongly related to that theme) or specific posts;
 * LinkedIn group: post a series of questions + updates;
 * Facebook group: automatic posts with a hashtag to keep all related campaign material in one place;
 * Twitter: regular tweets from the various online/offline activities taking place;
 * Yammer: to bring colleagues up-to-date and to invite them to join the various activities;
 * Event: face-to-face conversation or meeting to tease out reflections and insights about the issue at hand - this could include a webinar, or a face-to-face internal seminar also;
 * Podcast with regular information about the campaign and different issues/questions at hand;
 * FlickR/Pinterest to collect pictures that are relevant for the theme at hand;
 * CG Space: to source all materials that are relevant from the past (featured on the ILRI website);
 * Slideshare: to collect all PPTs and posters that were generated by the campaign;
 * Maarifa blog to reflect on the process and lessons from the campaign;
 * (if need be) a wiki page to bring all information together, if the campaign is less publicly visible (otherwise the ILRI website will take care of this).

=The role of each team in these campaigns?=

Specific campaign ideas

 * 2015, 2nd half of the year—3 concurrent campaigns **

(1) BIG GENETICS for a small planet and small as well as big livestock Chickens (Dessie/ACGG and Shapiro/LMP), Sheep (Jianlin/East Eurasia), Cattle (Kemp/'Chuma Cow’)

(2) LIVING LANDS Pastoralism (Shapiro/LMP, Mude/IBLI roll out in Kenya), livestock-water nexus (Lannerstad/paper & presentation), Int Grasslands Congress (Wright/presentation), drylands at UNFCCC (Ericksen/L Robinson materials), mixed farms (Thornton/Nature Climate change perspective)

(3) LIVESTOCK FOODSHEDS ILRI presentations on food security at Cornell (Randolph/Lannerstad/Grace), Borlaug (Smith) and Addis Economist Conferences (Smith)


 * 2016, 1st half of the year—3 concurrent campaigns **

(1) GRASS IS BACK Series of new MilkIT pubs (Stapleton/Ballantyne), first Brachiaria journal papers (Ghimire/BecAHub), cassava peel for livestock feed (Okike)

‘Walk on the Wild Side’ event for Int Women’s Day (Galie), other? Annet Mulema (Africa RISING)
 * (2) GENDER BENDERS **

(3) DISEASES OF POVERTY Vaccines for the tropics (Nene/Keystone Conference), diagnostics for livestock diseases (Jores/tiny plastic mobile platform), CBPP field-friendly diagnostic test (Liljander journal paper)

JUL: //Animal genetics and breeding// (Dessie’s ACGG; **Ewen** leads) AUG: //ILRI cross-cutting issues// (Shapiro’s Livestock Master Plan for Ethiopia, **James** leads) SEP: //Animal genetics and breeding// (Jianlin’s sheep paper, Kemp’s B4FA workshop, maybe more on ACGG and cassava peel, **Susan** leads) OCT: //Livestock-human health// (Grace, Randolph presentations at Cornell  IS THIS THE SAME CORNELL ON FOOD SECURITY THAT YOU ALSO REFER TO BELOW? , ILRI directors at Borlaug  MAYBE ONLY JIMMY – NO SURE YET ?, DG at Economist conference in Addis, **Susan** leads) NOV: //Sustainable livestock systems// (Mude’s IBLI in Kenya, Lannerstad’s water-livestock at Cornell in Oct, Tarawali at Int Grasslands Congress in Nov  NO I THINK IAIN MAY BE GIVING A KEYNOTE HERE , livestock & climate change ahead of the UNFCCC meeting in Dec, **Dorine** leads)  DON’T FORGET ALSO THE BMGF MEETING WE ARE PLANNING WITH HIEN IN NOV DEC: //Feed resources// (series of MilkIT pubs coming out, **Peter** leads)

For 2016, we could consider:

JAN: //ILRI cross-cutting issues// (open access, **Peter** leads) FEB: //Feed resources// (first ILRI papers on //Brachiaria// should be out, **Ethel** leads) <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">MAR: //ILRI cross-cutting issues// (gender event for Int Women’s Day, **Susan/Dorine/James/Peter** lead) <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">APR: //ILRI cross-cutting issues// (CGIAR Science Council meeting in Addis, **Peter** leads) <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">MAY: //Livestock-human health// (Keystone Symposium on vaccines against tropical diseases, **Susan** leads) <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;">JUN: //Livestock-human health// (Jores field- and mobile-friendly diagnostic platform paper may be out, **Susan** leads)