Comms workflow ET

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Knowledge and communication flows in Africa RISING Ethiopia On 14 October 2014, Peter Thorne, Kindu Mekonnen, Peter Ballantyne, Simret Yasabu and Ewen Le Borgne sat together to discuss various issues related to communication in the program (and more specifically the Ethiopian Highlands project). One of these issues was related to how information is being created and communicated across the project, what the ideal picture should be and what can be done to bridge the current gaps. On the basis of that discussion, Ewen and Simret developed a table mapping this knowledge and communication flow.

This table is presented below. See the Excel version of this table here and the graphic image based on the Smartboard workpiece.

Items When/where do they appear Who has them What should ideally happen Where are current gaps What can we do about it? Items Follow up
Stories (for the web) - Field visits
- Outputs produced
- Field days
- Ad hoc
SY, ED, ZL, ELB, PB, PT, KM, AM
- Site coordinators
- Site comms champions
- CG partners
Collected regularly, enriched with videos, pictures etc., shared and interlinked, systematically:
- Every 3 months (at site level)
- 2 stories / year / CG partner
- 1 story every 2 months (PT/KM)
- 8 stories / year (Comms team)
- Success stories lacking
- Not enough reflections from PT
- Lack of commitment (CG Partners) to write stories
- More analysis across stories
- Collect these stories at site level (every 2 months and at each major visit)
- Organise 1-day training on writing stories
- SY / Comms team to tag and link all posts systematically
- AM/ED/ZL/KM/Comms to publish
Stories (for the web) - Discuss organisation of training on storytelling
Photos - Field activities
- Events
- Ongoing on sites
- Commissioned
- SY
- Site coordinators, assistants and comms champions
- CG partners
- Systematically filtered, selected, titled, described, tagged, stored in album, shared and linked
- Oversight working well generally (SY) and at sites (Comms champs)
- Lots of pix, not collected, not filtered, not tagged, not described, not shared
- Pix are not compressed
- Posted on Yammer only
- Set up a network drive (Dropbox pro account)
- Maintain oversight generally and at sites
- Training on site (AH) and if need be in Addis for CG partners (linked with commitments)
Photos - SY to check purchase of pro account
- ELB to check for subscription with TG
- Discuss training w/ PT & PB
Photo reports - Trips
- Ad hoc, based on pictures available
- AH
- ED/KM/ZL/SY
- Site coordinators
- Systematically happening: tagged, described, linked, shared, with pix compressed:
* 3/year (site coordinators)
* 3/year (AH, likewise for SY)
* 2/year for CG partners (and/or as stories)
- CKM support -AH to support/train/coach comms champs on this while on site visits
- Find good stories
- Develop very simple guidelines (e.g. how many pictures, what length, using what template etc)
Photo reports - Guidelines to produce (AH/SY?)
- Prepare on-site training (AH)
- Link up with storytelling training
Photo films - Field trips
- Ad hoc, based on pictures available
- AH
- DuckRabbit-trained team ?
- Systematically happening (1 / visit AH)
- With inputs from local site team
No input from site coordinators despite pictures being available - Identify stories
- Possibly identify professionals to produce some more
- Get 10% of AH's time formally allocated to AR?
- PRODUCE them!
Photo films - Process formal commitment of AH's time to AR
- Discuss option to find professionals (using unspent budget) to do this work?
Videos - Field activities (impromptu)
- Commissionned
- CG partner work
- Events
- Consultants
- AH (events)
- Develop high quality videos
- Develop them on a semi-regular basis (e.g. 2/year for AH?)
- Ensure they are focused on significant results, changes, stories
- No platform for sharing draft videos & pix
- AH is too busy
- Get 10% of AH's time formally allocated to AR?
- Commission professionals for photo journalism trips
Videos - Get on with plans around photo-journalism
- AH's time (see above)
Reports (mostly a management issue) - 6-monthly M&E/reporting requirements for PT/KM, Partners
- Not yet anything for site coordinators
- Harvest/plantation time
- Events (event reports)
- PT/KM
- CG partners
- (soon) site coordinators
Systematically collected, edited, reviewed, formatted, stored, shared and linked - Collected sometimes, at random times,
- Not shared (or stored on other sites e.g. IFPRI's)
- Report template is not used
- Discuss w/ PT how to ensure we collect these reports
- Remind PT to remind everyone to use the report template (and provide link to it)
Reports - Make sure PT reminds everyone to use the report template
Other written outputs - As and when
- Commissioned
Anyone Systematically collected, edited, reviewed, formatted, stored, shared and linked CKM support? Not a very clear picture for this yet Carefully monitor/study this workflow and revisit later Other written outputs Revisit this in 6 months
Powerpoint presentations - At events (overwhelmingly)
- Ad hoc
- Scientists / anyone attending events
- Site coordinators
- High quality presentations
- Consistently using the PPT template
- Systematically tagged, described etc.
- Don't follow the template / inconsistent
- Low quality
- Not always collected/shared
- Chase event attendants/organizers to collect PPTs
- Chase these on a monthly basis at partners meetings (SY)
- Organize comms essentials refresher at learning event and/or ad hoc training on PPTs
Powerpoint presentations Discuss option to organise a review/training session on PPTs at the learning event with PB and PT
Posters - Events
- Important visits
- Major thematic work planning to develop posters
- Comms team
- Thematic teams (scientists)
- High quality content & presentation posters
- Regularly issued/updated
- Using a common template
- Including inputs from local site teams
- Tagged, stored etc.
- CKM support (coaching/training on developing posters, sharing resources)
- Low quality
- No local input
- Develop simple training module/guidelines
- Deliver training to generate local posters
- Collect / update these posters 2/year
- Use generic AR poster as template
Posters - Discuss organisation of training on poster development
Yammer posts - Site activities
- Events (summary or live)
- Ad hoc as and when
Anyone!!! (and certainly: SY, ELB, PB, PT, KM, ZL, ED, site coordinators, comms champions) Regular updates from everyoene, especially:
- PT / KM
- Site coordinators, assistants
- Site comms champions
- Partners & work package leaders
- Comms team (happening)
- Few people post
- People post a) too many pictures and b) pictures only on Yammer (not on FlickR)
- Updates are too long (they should go on the web)
- Some people don't check Yammer at all (check their notification settings?)
- Refresher training
- Promote Yammer guidelines
- Develop AR-specific Yammer guidelines (simple)
- TG to share training materials about this from ESA training
- Praise users and good uses
Monthly meeting to feature a discussion about using Yammer
Yammer posts
Generic process around these content items Other general follow up
Create / shoot / mix Review /edit this work flow (PB/PT)
Review / edit Revisit this work flow in six months
Format / repurpose SY/ELB to discuss w/ ZL the comms champs ToR
Describe / meta tag Organise this flow visually for site coordinators, comms champs, PT/KM, CG partners/leads
Store / archive Prioritize tasks for SY
Link to other resources
Share
Reassess --> review, re-edit, repurpose etc.