Lauckner

Question on usefulness of blogs

2006-03-10T14:45:00.000-08:00

It is now March 10 and the online workshop has been going for about 3 weeks. One of the things we now have is a blog. Is a blog useful? Maybe not; do busy people have time to use blogs effectively?

Self assessment

2006-02-22T12:41:00.000-08:00

Knowledge of self
Strengths: Empathetic, flexible, objective/neutral
Weaknesses: Tendancy to procrastinate around a difficult problem

Knowledge base:
Strengths: Assessment of audience
Weaknesses: Subject/content matter expertise (I have my field, but am often facilitating in other areas)

Facilitation skills
Strengths: Listen from non-judgemental place, focus, writing
Weaknesses: active listening, questioning skills, encouraging quiet participants

Technology skills
Strengths: Email,
Weaknesses: most others listed.

Online interactive experience: e-mail lists only

2006-02-21T13:03:00.000-08:00

This is me

Thoughts for the week

2006-02-17T14:55:00.000-08:00

How did I manage to get all those messages read?
It was great to learn about blogs.
I thought for the first time about the differences between on line and off line.
I wondered (not for the first time) about the value of technology. Many people tend to use it conveniently and not respond to e-mails, voice messages etc unless they choose. Those who don't take this selective (selfish?) approach find that the technology puts them under pressure.
Nevertheless for networking that must be the way to go.

Activity 2

2006-02-17T07:55:00.000-08:00

Activity 2

Purpose/outcome: Coordination of groups in PROCICARIBE and CARDI networks e.g. small ruminants, hot pepper, root crops, IPM, PGR
Vision: to have active electronic networks
Measurable benefits: number and frequency of postsOutcome determined by network coordinators
Networks will operate mostly online. There will be offline activities from time to time. How many is difficult to estimate and will depend on availability of funds. If possible, one offline activity/year.

Target audience
Designated network coordinators; experienced scientists in the area; all English speaking Caribbean people, chosen according to knowledge in the subject area, not according to gender, race, religion etc.
Minimum requirements: access to computer with e-mail (access to internet strongly advisable if we go the dgroups way)
We have dropped several networks because of (amongst other things) poor coordination/lack of motivation of the leaders. Present leaders are mostly motivated. If this proves to be a problem one of two things will happen: 1. If the network is an important component of CARDI's work, a new coordinator will be found. 2. Otherwise the network will be allowed to die.
CARDI networks will be restricted to CARDI scientists who are required to be in relevant network, if applicable.
PROCICARIBE networks will be open to all interested scientists, no size limits, inactive members will have to be dealt with on a case by case basis. If they are important players, efforts must be made to activate them; otherwise they should be disengaged.

Member interactions
This should be discussions, but most important keeping everyone up to date with all activities.
Members of the groups should post their activities and work programme resultsIntellectual and scientific; perhaps controversial, not so often social

Time frame
Ongoing

Guidelines, rules and governance
CARDI networks are definitely work teams; they will be responsible for drawing up the work programmes in the subject areas; also results and activities will be posted.
The network coordinators will be responsible for the outputs and therefore will need to find the best way to do this.
PROCICARIBE networks are more information sharing and will not have work programmes.
There should not be any rules about posting; these are groups of scientists and they will behave as such.

Who makes decisions.
See above for CARDI networks; the networks are run by the coordinators.
PROCICARIBE networks are also run by the coordinators, but the coordinators here will not be able to direct the members, as these will belong to many different institutes.

Who will host?
The choice is the CARDI server or dgroups. The former has not worked when tried for reasons unknown. The latter is rather more powerful, but may have problems with increasing spam to the members (whatever may be said to the contrary).
The facilitators are being trained in this workshop.
There are no financial rewards.
Activities on the networks will be monitored at CARDI Headquarters.

Thoughts on a message from Claudette

2006-02-14T12:38:00.000-08:00

Wow. I have created a blog.
I made a few notes on a message Claudette posted and I am putting them here. She (and others) spoke about online communication being a little tricky as it required writing whereas offline just required talking. Immediately it reminded me of one of the features of Caribbean people. They love to talk. In many parts of the world people are shy speakers/talkers. Not here! On the other hand they are not good writers. We can't get CARDI scientists to write articles. Elsewhere you can't stop them writing.
Also Claudette has formed a mental picture of those who have not posted. Why are those posted pictures so squashed up. I know that some of those ladies who have posted pictures are very pretty; but why did the dgroups people pages push them so out of proportion?