ParCom12_Evaluation+and+official+closing

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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)

Positive aspects (praise)

"Coffee! Pizza! Facilitator, including the wider comms community in this meeting, e.g. Alan, speed sharing of highlights, laughter - fun-sharing, this room where we met, River of Life." "Attempt to document progress, speed-sharing between staff members, River of Life, coffee, everyone's friendly." "Presentations were very precise & clear. Lots of opportunities for interaction & sharing." "The knowledge sharing & the level of the conversation." "Facilitation (gave direction to meeting & synthesis)" "FOCUSED conversations!!" "Very interactive and involved everyone." "Open space issue discussions." "Well-facilitated open sharing of discussions." "Team spirit." "Great thoughts - great expertise. Have realised that we are really innovative!" "The method of facilitation was very good." "There was basic agreement on most of the tasks we need to do to achieve our targets." "1. participatory 2. facilitation was best 3. so-economic" "I liked the facilitation skill and all the discussions among the participants." "Lots of new ideas, methods, tips." "The approach we deal with making the meeting special." "1. the facilitation 2. the team engagement" "Participation by all." "Meeting people from different areas face to face." "My part of the meeting is the group work, but not to forget River of Life!" "Ice break - group work" "Creates an opportunity to share the knowledge that has been done at P&C." "Tuesday morning opening session was really VIBRANT." "The two sessions were really interactive!" "Team work. Energy of facilitator." "I learned how to get knowledge via sharing!!!"

Aspects to improve upon (advice)

"To share or view one's previous best outputs or work." "Involve some other research/management staff." "Assign action points to specific people so we don't forget." "More and better preparation so richer insights." "Defined prioritization on what exactly needs to change." "Invite program managers, team leaders to some sessions." "More time to discuss action points." "Not enough time to interact/discuss a top/ask question." "Clarity of the agenda. Less time for action plans." "Have our action points from this meeting as background to next meeting. Did we achieve our targets/goals?" "Continue doing things and follow up at some time afterwards." "Include participation of __all__ comms/KMIS... Nairobi Infocentre & Addis KMIS/web so is all-inclusive." "Allocate more time to refine action plan." "I would suggest to invite more people to share our knowledge..." "Make sure that follow ups are made." "Enough time for practice on social media." "Ensure Parcomms is not only Comms but also Partnerships & Capacity Building and the Infrastructures (ICT)." "Invite more staff to the meeting." "Keep it up as it was but needs some re-touchment." "Do it twice a year - Addis & Nairobi." "Mesheta ---> create for end of workshop! Schedule this annual meeting early, so all comms people can attend. (Schedule time for massage)" "In future, if more time is given would be more beneficial." "Involving all KMIS members in all meetings/discussions." "One thing to follow-up from the workshop for the whole team otherwise it all gets forgotten!"

REFLECTIONS FROM JANE GITAU My thinking changed: Reflections on using social media at ILRI

So here I am, completely immersed in social media for an entire week! We are at ILRI’s annual communications planning meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I have been told that the name- spelt Addis Abeba- means “beautiful flower”- and often my experiences in this city have been good ones, except once. We shall get to that later.

In my life as a newspaper journalist, magazine editor, communications officer and university communications lecturer, the TOOLs of the trade were always important but strategy was bigger. It always begins with the story I want to tell, the audience I want to reach and finally the location at which the audience is both physically and intellectually so that I know the best tool to reach them with. There was the learning period, under an experienced superior, who taught one how to best use the tool, how to design a catchy headline, the correct point size for both headline and text, how the font style is useful in communicating the ‘feel’ and the ‘mood’ to the audience, proper use of white spaces, pictures, blurbs, grey and of course good grammar was a must!

I have always embraced change and so I introduced in my teaching curriculum the subject of new media. That was mostly the website, described as an online brochure and then there were blogs used mostly by activists to mobilise around issues. The blogs always seemed to have an angry tone to them. Facebook was social, there was no doubt about that so I began a page just for me and my students. That was in 2006.

Fast forward to 2010 or thereabouts. Enter @peter ballantyne and my world is shattered. In professional discussions among public relations colleagues, we were still discussing the merits and demerits of using the new tools and how if at all they should be applied. How they related to the overall strategy of communications, was the question we were grappling with. Peters mind seems to move at lightning speed and assumes you know where he is taking you and you should be with him- but maybe all techies are like that. He talks blogs and as I wonder how this angry activist tool can be applied to logical, objective science and how, he has passed a law – well almost – that all communications people should limit use of email and move to yammer. Heavens me, what is that? I had never heard of yammer before.

Then it becomes wikis, slideshare, skype, mahider and goodness knows what else I have forgotten. It all looked so haphazard and I was Oh! so uncomfortable with this way of doing things without seeing where I was going and how I was taking my audience. It has been a steep learning curve but in January, I published my 50th blog story - that translates to a blog story a week though of course there were months I was learning more than writing.

Last December, I was one of a panel of 5 judges for the Public Relations Society of Kenya (PRSK) Annual Awards. It is the occasion when communications professionals showcase their talent and use of tools. We noted that none of all the top notch organisations show-cased social media. There were online journals, but no one used their website, or face book page or twitter as an example of how they told their story in the year. Clearly, they must be on a journey to self-discovery in the world of new (social) media.

Privately, I am also reflecting on what all this means to me. When I told my parents I wanted to take up a career in journalism, they were horrified. They thought of the many journeys they would have to make to prison to rescue their daughter because in those days free expression was rarely tolerated in Kenya. Surely, there had to be a better way to earn a living.

Last year, at precisely the time this planning meeting was happening, my father passed on. I had travelled to Addis in the morning but had to return to Kenya that same night. It was 14 years to the day my mother had died. So this reflection is partly one of those that says: I kept my promise as I pursued my dream. I have kept writing, and I have also kept out of the prison walls. As I listen to the entire buzz now in this annual pilgrimage to Addis Abeba I am asking myself, could we be the first to show case our use of new media in the 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="background-color: #ffffff; color: #01317e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|Peter Ballantyne] <span class="remaining-body" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Grande',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">, thanks for being the light that walks us to this new direction <span class="yammer-object" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">@ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #01317e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|Shirley Tarawali]  <span class="remaining-body" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Grande',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;"> thanks for being my number 1 cheerleader when I struggled to put sense into all this! <span class="yammer-object" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">@ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #01317e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|Susan MacMillan (ILRI)] <span class="remaining-body" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Grande',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;"> you learnt too quickly and left me struggling alone!!! <span class="yammer-object" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">@ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #01317e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|Purvi Mehta-Bhatt] <span class="remaining-body" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Grande',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;"> the road is never as dark as it seems at first, <span class="yammer-object" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">@ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #01317e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|Tezira Lore]  <span class="yammer-object" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;"> @ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #01317e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|Meron Mulatu]  <span class="yammer-object" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">@ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #01317e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|Muthoni U. Njiru]  <span class="yammer-object" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;"> @ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #01317e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|Abeba Desta]  <span class="yammer-object" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;"> @ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #01317e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|Liya Dejene]  <span class="yammer-object" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;"> @ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #01317e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|Daniel Haile Michael]  <span class="yammer-object" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">@ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #01317e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|Paul Karaimu]  <span class="yammer-object" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;"> @ <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #01317e; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> [|Zerihun Sewunet]  <span class="remaining-body" style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: 'Lucida Grande',Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline;">, where would I be without your help and support? Perhaps lost and rotting!