ParCom12_Connecting+with+the+wider+livestock+community

=Partnership and Communication annual meeting 2012 = On 24-26 January, ILRI's P&C department held a meeting in Addis Ababa to review the highlights of 2011 and align plans and ideas around strategic priorities for 2012 and beyond. (go back to ParCom12 home page)

**Contributors**:
 * Topic **: Connecting with the wider livestock community
 * Topic owner **: Susan MAcMillan

Background: why are we working on this?
Summarise the rationale here (1-2 lines max).

What are our destinations?

 * List your ideas here

What team and equipment do we need for the road (how, with whom, capacities, tools and approaches)?

 * List your needs and ideas here

The roadmap to get there (who does what by when)?

 * Mention your plans here

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Cracks, potholes and diversions (concerns and questions about the road)?
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Mention your questions and concerns (to whom?) here

=**<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">ACTION POINTS FOR 2012 FOR REACHING/ENGAGING THE WIDER LIVESTOCK AND DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY **=

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">(A) FOCUS ON STORY-TELLING <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">JANE: C <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Grande',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">ould we be the first to show case our use of new media in the Public Relations Society of Kenya (PRSK) awards event? Seeing all these young professionals so adept in the different tools that make the whole, have we got our livestock story together to tell the world? What is the one story and its sub components that we want to tell? But then maybe being “international”, we just might be bigger than a single country’s event.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">01 WHAT = CREATE CONTENT LIKELY TO ENGAGE THIS COMMUNITY **

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">(B) ENGAGE IN CONTROVERSIES <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">EWEN: Be responsive to global debates and perhaps start blog think tanks of some sort that offer a platform for debating ideas (Livestock Matters Blog) so it is not just ILRI pushing out its viewpoints but ILRI engaged in debates.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">(C) BE RESPONSIVE <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Answer all comments on OUR blogs and do so in a timely manner.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">(D) FOCUS ON INFORMATION NEEDS OF OUR PARTNERS <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">TEZIRA: Get a series of position briefs/position papers that cover our main areas of interest. Start with the briefs made for ILRI Exchange and the 10 project concept notes we're now developing for big funding.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">(A) ENGAGE OUR STAKEHOLDERS <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Engage with the other players in the agricultural development community, for example by getting involved in their conversations on their blogs etc.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">02 HOW TO CREATE = CO-CREATION **

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">(B) GET OUR SCIENTISTS ENGAGED IN BLOGGING FOR THE WIDER COMMUNITY <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Get scientists to contribute to ILRI's blogs (e.g., by reminding them that 20% of their performance evaluation is for 'institutional development', of which corporate communications is a key part; by giving them incentives to do some blogging by giving out communications awards; by asking some to be guest editors [a la the CIFOR DG blog]). ALAN: Invite scientists to talk with us over coffees to proactively engage them and enroll them in supporting us by co-creating communications products for the wider community; survey their ideas for 'cool' comms and great science by polls on Yammer; continue to attend regular science project and theme meetings to harvest ideas and engage the scientists and encourage them to support comms work and to tell their stories.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">(C) CREDIT OUR PARTNERS <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Begin going out of our way to give our partners and donors the limelight in our blogs, mentioning them and quoting them first in our blogs, giving them loads of credit for generating good impacts, illustrating the blogs with pictures of their staff and work, etc. Ensure that our successes are seen by our donors (e.g. IBLI payouts, where the DG write a letter to IBLI's donors congratulating them).

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">(D) ONE BLOG: MANY AUTHORS <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Copy the CIFOR DG blog for our new initiatives and have one blog per topic/country with many guest bloggers.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">(E) USE JIMMY AS OUR AMBASSADOR <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Contribute to his slide presentations, etc.

(A) Syntheses that help us position pro-poor livestock issues in global debates. (B) Short (300-word) opinion pieces signed by Jimmy Smith that help us take a stand on livestock issues---and be seen to do so. (C) Long-form (5,000-10,000-word) journalism pieces that explore a few issues in depth) (D) Continue conducting monthly media campaigns that get us wide coverage (E) Photoesseays (F) Photofilms (G) Animations (like Liz's, The Girl Effect) (H) Filmed 'Ted Talks' of our scientists (I) Daily PhotoJournal that readers can subscribe to by RSS feed (and maybe made into a daily screensaver). <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">EWEN: Maybe have readers vote on their favourite images for selecting images for the ILRI calendar, etc.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">03 HOW TO DISSEMINATE = VEHICLES LIKELY TO REACH THIS COMMUNITY **

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Susan, Tezira, Jane, Liz and Ewen to consult on this wiki over next few weeks and prioritize actions for this year and a schedule.