Facilitating networks and communities: balancing between design and emergent

I live in an area which is relatively newly populated (10 years old) and the shopping center has been opened only last year. Unfortunately most of the roads are designed with cars in mind, rather than cyclists, overlooking the needs of cyclists and people walking. As a result you can see people taking their own roads... (this picture was taken before the snow, currently this path is white from snow and ice!)

I once read a story about architects on a campus waiting to see where the students pass and then building their pathways, rather than designing pathways and then making sure the students stay on those paths. (forgot where..)

Facilitators of networks and communities have a similar dilemma: you have to design and lead, but you also need to see what emerges. The natural self-organisation tendency of networks and communities is very strong. It doesn't mean however that nothing can be designed upfront, but find a right balance.

End of last year I had to write a plan and budget for two networks without really knowing a lot what the pathways of these networks are going to be. I ended up trying to create some flexibility to be able to respond to new pathways. For instance, instead of budgeting for the current online platform a network is using, also take care of other tools that may be needed.

It may also be a task of a facilitator to notice the new pathways.. currently there are many developments on Twitter. Maybe your network is taking a new path on Twitter?

PS. there are two bridges that are going to be redesigned.. the design of the bridge didn't take into account security in traffic and created dangerous situations. I wonder if this wouldn't have been foresee-able and this is not a case of emergent insight but overlooking known facts...

Fostering online networks in development (south-south learning processes)

I just finished preparing a presentation about the art of fostering online networks in development; with a focus on producer organisations in the south (for a session with progresonetwork). While preparing the presentation I thought again about the fact that the basics of online networks are still social networks. Nothing else. So that is what I stress in my presentation. Since I really believe in the power of peer learning, I am existed by the possibilities of web2.0 to make south-south learning possible.

I've always believed in south-south learning since you can learn a lot of people who face similar difficulties and practice- just slightly different. Not that everybody in the south can learn from everybody else, but for instance cocoa producer organisations in Ghana can learn a lot from cocoa producers in Ivory Coast- similar difficulties but different context which pushes you to think creatively. I'm refering in my presentation to a survey undertaken by the world bank with 137 respondents about south-south learning. 94% think it is important or extremely important for improving the impact of international development and poverty reduction. Partnerships and alliances score best as mechanisms for south-south learning, followed by networks and associations, exchanges/secondments and study tours.

I use the examples of km4dev (see interview Lucy Lamoureux) and the IFRTD networks (see evaluation) and the lessons here are definitely that you have to mix face-to-face and online communication creatively and that it really help to have a dedicated network leadership, consistent over time.

Suddenly thought it is sometimes discouraging to read these success stories (that are even hard to replicate too!) and included the lessons of two attempts to stimulate online learning networks which were less successful: one by Anne Hardon, virtual knowledge communities: lessons learned in making them work, the other by three authors titled Forming a community of practice to strengthen the capacities of learning and knowledge sharing centres in Latin America and the Caribbean: a Dgroup case study. Great that these experiences are also shared and they may be even more helpful and insightful than the success stories.

Fostering Online Networks

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Launch of communities and networks connections website

Tony Karrer and Nancy White have been collaborating to make the communities and networks connection website which brings content from various places the web together on the topic of communities and networks. Today is the official launch. My blog will be part of the network of blogs feeding into the website. I'm happy that I'm part of it because I seem to be doing a lot of different things, but this is the core of my work and expertise.

The site is similar in structure to the elearning site. I'm not sure how I will use the site, but I guess I will add the feed of the site to my RSS reader. As Tony mentions: "it is a network to form something that's not quite a community. I see it as being aimed at the 95% of people who don't subscribe to blogs but are interested in this content. It's a way they can more easily find that content. It's also an aide to bloggers in terms of organizing their content."

Ofcourse you can also use the search function or the sidebar to find bloggers you didn't know yet, like the endless knots weblog. Or search on the left sidebar to find content on a particular topic like twitter. Just click and try!

Networks for Humanitarian Aid

On Saturday I did a session about networks and communities of practice for the alumni of the NoHA masters. The NoHA masters is an eighteen months course in international humanitarian assistance, co-organised by 7 European universities. Since their interests in networking were very broad; including personal networking strategies, network facilitation and working with networks in the field of humanitarian aid, I started with an exercise about self-organisation and an introductory presentation. In the exercise I asked 10 volunteer to line themselves up according to ascending age. This was easy for them to do, and shows the self-organising power of humans. If you understand this, you will work differently with networks.

Presentatie Noha

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After this, we discussed in smaller groups on the basis of various questions. How are we using networks in our work for humanitarian aid? How could we leverage them more? What are the pitfalls? And what are our personal network strategies? In my group, I noticed that not everyone is convinced that you can learn how to network. I don't consider myself a natural networker, but I've learn to network professionally. An interesting case was shared of a coordination meeting between humanitarian aid organisations that continues for years, and doesn't not seem to yield much value to the participants in terms of learning and innovation. Ofcourse, coordination is necessary, but it would be an interesting challenge to see how we could make more of those routine/boring gatherings that all participants see as an obligation.

Afterwards I had nice discussions with the leading committee of the alumni association. Their biggest challenge is to foster ties between the different years and to focus on the practice when members are working at many different levels, varying from field to policy level. Miguel from Spain raised the cultural differences at national level. Cultures (at national but also organisational levels) differ in their inclination towards professional networks and associations and the types of networks you invest in. In Spain for instance, the kinship networks (families) are very important and people invest quite some time in those. In the Netherlands, associations thrive and it is common to take up a voluntary position.