The slides are available online at Slideshare and below here.

Kristin Kolshus and Julien Custot presented how Dgroups is used at large at FAO and shared the specific case of the Food for the cities Dgroup.

In the second presentation, Carmen Eckter and Carsten Schulz shared how SDC is using Dgroups, and focused on the specific case of the Private Sector Development discussion group.

A short report of the meeting and the recordings of the presentations will be soon available on this blog.

This is an open session for all with an interest in Dgroups, to discuss how to use Dgroups to effectively support communications, knowledge sharing and learning in their work.

Two presentations will provide food for thoughts and elements for discussion:

• Carmen Eckter and Caster Schulz will share with us how SDC is using Dgroups, and focus on the specific case of the Private Sector Development discussion group;
• Kristin Kolshus and Julien Custot will give us some insights on how Dgroups is used at FAOand present the case of Food for the Cities.

A facilitated Q&A will follow to allow participants to compare notes and foster peer learning.

If you are interested in participating, registration is open on this Eventbrite page.

A lively conversation followed the presentations, with participants exchanging experience on how to manage conversations across multiple languages, how to foster user participation, and how to develop and teach facilitation and moderation skills.

Networking, collaborating and communicating with Dgroups

The RWSN had joined Dgroups just over one year ago, and the presentation from Sean Furey brought an interesting perspective on how his organization has used Dgroups and where it fits in their digital ecosystem.

RSWN is a network of over 2400 members across more than 94 countries.  Members are all professionals and practitioners working on the different aspects of rural water supply such as sustainable groundwater development or equity and inclusion.

In 2011, the Secretariat of the organization turned to Dgroups as it seemed ideal to fulfil different tasks such as managing members with an easy to use membership database, sending out a monthly newsletter to the network and fostering interactions and peer exchanges amongst members.

In practice, Dgroups is used as central members database where users can opt in and register. Other social media tools such as LinkedIn and Facebook are used for promotion and to raise the online profile of the network. Social media channels attract interested users back to the RWSN website and encourage them to register on Dgroups.

Once registered, RWSN members participate in thematic, structured email discussions; outputs from these discussions have often fed into related work on the international agenda. Members also engage in ad hoc discussions and, increasingly they provide support to each other with technical queries.

In the 12 months it has been using Dgroups, RWSN has experienced clear benefits in terms of networking amongst its members. Further, Dgroups has made collaboration and communications much more effective.  The main challenges ahead now are to engage more practitioners in the network, and how to be more inclusive and have more multilingual discussions.

Engaging stakeholders in agricultural research in Africa

Myra Wopereis looked at the issue of managing conversations in different languages in her presentation on how FARA uses Dgroups.

The organization uses Dgroup to connect to its wide network of diverse stakeholders working in agricultural research in Africa. These actors meet face to face every three years during the African Science Week. Dgroups allows for easy communication and information sharing, to keep stakeholder connected and engaged in dialogue. A total of over 2500 members from 102 countries are currently part of the FARA network on Dgroups.

About 50 sub-communities have also been created over time. Some of these have been created as part of thematic projects such as PAEPARD, RAILS and AfricaAdapt and they see a steady increase in terms of membership and interactions.

FARA finds that Dgroups is especially beneficial in terms of broadening the participation of different actors in the agricultural research dialogue, with non-research stakeholders joining in the conversations.

Besides managing multilingual conversations, one of the main challenges FARA faces is to balance the trade off between having moderation and participation in the different Dgroups communities. On the one hand, having a moderated community ensures that the quality of the conversation is maintained and members are not receiving too many messages. On the other hand, moderation can inhibit participation from some group members.

Discussion

In the Q&A and discussion that followed, participants exchanged interesting observations and shared their own experience in working with Dgroups:

• As RWSN example demonstrates, it is important to establish the specific role and benefit Dgroups has in the broader digital ecosystem of the organization. Likewise, it is important that all the different tools work together and reinforce each other.
• A key asset of Dgroups is the fact that it operates well in a low bandwidth environment. For development organizations, this is critical. Even if social media tools such as Facebook and LinkedIn are increasingly popular in developing countries, email based online groups are much more accessible to those with low bandwidth.
• Maintaining a good level of conversation is hard to achieve, especially in diverse online groups where members have different level of skills and experience in online discussions.
• More should be done to improve the knowledge that users have of Dgroups – both as email and online tool – so that their contributions can be of good quality. In turn, this will ensure that more members feel the benefit of participating in online groups.
• Online conversation doesn’t just happen that easily. But structured discussions that are time bound, short and specific, work well in Dgroups. In general members’ participation in these types of discussion is higher than in open discussions.
• When you have global groups, language is sometimes a barrier and exclude many from participating in online discussions. Organizations have been responding in different ways to this challenge. Some rely on volunteers to translate key messages in languages other than English. Other organizations  have encouraged users to post in their own language and use tools such as Google Translate to translate messages from a foreign languages. Others instead have created language specific sub-communities that have different conversations from the global list.
• When it comes to group animation, the role of the group facilitators and moderators is critical in many aspects. However, the skills required to perform these roles are not always present. While different organizations use different approaches to find and train group moderators, the iMark module developed by FAO and other provides excellent self learning material to build skills in online facilitation. However, it takes long to go through the whole module before being able to apply the new knowledge or passing it on to others. Maybe Dgroups could look into working with the iMark partnership and develop specific materials to facilitate Dgroups.

As this session illustrated, Dgroups is used in many different ways and we have a lot to learn from one another to support knowledge exchange, communications and facilitation. This series of online Peer Exchange sessions will continue in 2013 to broaden up the discussions and hear from other Partners how they have used Dgroups in their own organizations.

See also

• Slides from the Dgroups 2012 Online Peer Exchange
• Full video recording of the 2012 Online Peer Exchange

During the peer exchange, two Dgroups partners organizations shared their experiences in working with Dgroups and making the most of it to support daily business practices. The slides are available online at Slideshare and below here.

Sean Fleury from the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) explained how they have been using Dgroups to put the networking element into the work they do. Dgroups is used as membership database and this allows RSWN to engage and interact with the members even when limited/low bandwidth is available.

In the second presentation, Myra Wopereis-Pura described how Dgroups is used at FARA, the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa. Through the use of Dgroups, FARA can broaden the dialogue on agricultural research in Africa by involving non-research stakeholders in the conversation. Moreover, Dgroups is also used as efficient advocacy tool and for focused, time bound online discussions and consultations.

A report of the meeting and the recordings of the presentations will be soon available on this blog.

This event comes at a very important time for Dgroups. The new, long awaited platform is now up and running thanks to the work of our technical partner WA-Research. The feedback we have been received from users is very positive – one Dgroup moderator, Carsten Schulz (SDC), has even “fallen in love” with the new Dgroups after previous frustrations with the  old version of the platform:

The 2012 Dgroups Annual Meeting will consist of two parts:

1. Dgroups Partners Business meeting – from 1400 GMT to 1515 GMT

2. Dgroups Open Peer Exchange Session on “How to make most effective use of Dgroups” – from 1515 to 1630 GMT

The Dgroups Partners Business Meeting (open to Dgroups Partners) will be the occasion for all 18 Partners to take stock of what the Dgroups Partnership has achieved in the past year, and lay down the foundation for future directions and development of Dgroups. It will seek to identify and respond to Dgroups Partners’ needs, so that the Dgroups Board can continue to improve the service and the functionality of the platform in line with Partners’ requirements.

The Dgroups Open Peer Exchange Session is open to anyone with an interest in Dgroups. In this session Dgroups Partners  FARA and RWSN will share their experience and lessons learned in using Dgroups for their work, followed by open discussion. Dgroups is used in many different ways and we have a lot to learn from one another to support knowledge exchange, communications and facilitation – from small closed technical groups to large open discussion forums of several thousand participants worldwide. This session will mark the beginning of a new phase in Dgroups to strengthen peer-to-peer learning among Dgroups Partners, moderators, and users – all of whom have previously indicated a need for greater sharing and learning.

We hope all Dgroups Partners will be able to join the Business Meeting, and that many more will take part in the Open Peer Exchange Session.

If you are interested in participating, please reserve your seat from the event registration page.

After you have registered you will receive updates regarding the online platform we will use for the meeting and instructions on how to join the virtual room. You will also receive detailed agendas for the Business Meeting and the Peer Exchange session, as well as any relevant background documents and information.

Updates on the above events will also be posted on this blog.

Google launch SMS version of Gmail in Africa: Google has launched a text message-based version of its email service targeted at users in Africa. Gmail SMS can run on so-called “dumb phones” which only have very basic features and no access to the internet. The service has so far been made available in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya… Gmail SMS automatically forwards your emails as SMS text messages to your phone and you can respond by replying directly to the SMS. (Read on)

Why is this exciting for Dgroups? Because it provides new possibilities for people without internet in Africa to join Dgroups and participate in dialogue for development. And it provides new possibilities for development professionals to learn from and interact with a hugely expanded community that will in future include many whose voices were previously unheard.

A major strength of Dgroups is that we focus on inclusion. That is why we put email, the most widely used internet tool, at the centre of our communications. This new announcement means that email communications could be within reach of almost everybody worldwide within a few years.

If you are in Ghana, Nigeria or Kenya, or have colleagues in those countries, I encourage you to let them know and to try it out for themselves by sending an SMS message to a Dgroup, and receiving Dgroups messages via a basic SMS mobile phone.

by Neil Pakenham-Walsh

The outgoing Chair, Caroline Figuères (IICD) has been the first ever chair of the Dgroups Foundation after this has been established in 2009. In her words, the past three years as Chair of Dgroups have been “a challenging but also rewarding experience.” Above all, according to Caroline, it has been very rewarding to see the commitment of people involved in Dgroups, in its Board as well as amongst partners and users at large. The main regret she has is that “we are not as far as we were expecting” as some of the objectives indicated in the Business Plan could not be met. However, she remains confident that the Dgroups Board and members will continue the good work that has been put in place over these past years.

As new Chairman, the rest of the Board members nominated Neil Pakenham Walsh, representing INASP. Neil has been involved in international development for the past 20 years. He is the coordinator of HIFA2015 and until recently he has been working at INASP. In the video below, he reflects on the vision and mission of Dgroups.

Dgroups aims to improve communication for development (C4D) and it can do so from its unique role. Indeed, Dgroups is a unique partnership of diverse development organisations that can play a crucial role in improving connections amongst communities of practice globally.

According to Neil, fragmentation is a real threat in communication for development and Dgroups can make a difference in this area. As a new Chairman of the Board, Neil is very much looking forward to carrying up his role and working with others to improve communication for development.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank once again Caroline for her guidance and contribution over the years – and to wish Neil best of luck as new Chairman of the Dgroups Board.

Participants moved from a common definition of what Dgroups is and what it stands for. As the tagline in the logo suggests, Dgroups is about development through dialogue. Our vision is a world where communication for development is accessible to all and has maximal positive impact on international development.

The main part of this face to face meeting was dedicated to explore Dgroups’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats – and the actions to take forward. As some of the Board members said, the meeting was very constructive and useful.

From discussion that emerged from the SWOT analysis, it become clear that the first and most obvious strength to leverage upon is the Dgroups partnership, the group of development organisations that support this initiative. So what efforts should be taken to maximise this strength and to make sure that Dgroups partners become also active ambassadors and contribute to the further enlargement of the membership base, and therefore the financial sustainability of Dgroups itself? The ideas that were discussed included:

• Redesigning of the Dgroups home page at dgroups.org and the landing pages at individual group level;
• Publicizing the openness of existing discussion groups;
• Putting more effort in networking and communicating with existing and potential partners, in order to increase the membership base and ensure the financial sustainability of Dgroups;
• Working on Dgroups branding and effective online presence that reflects this brand;
• Making more use of the Dgroups blog to showcase how Dgroups is put at work in different contexts and for different purposes;
• Defining and communicating to Dgroups members the advantages of the cost-sharing strategy which underpins Dgroups existence.

Some of these actions are already in motion.

Weaknesses included a lack of a marketing strategy to engage new Dgroups partners, and the Board will take new measures to promote Dgroups and enlarge the partnership. Related to this is the opportunity to reach out to new partners in the South.

A threat is that current budget cuts in the development sector are forcing partners to reevaluate their budgets. But this can also be seen as a good investment by current and future Dgroups partners, as it offers a flexible tool for communication, designed particularly for low bandwidth, that can complement and in some cases replace the need for expensive, face to face meetings.

We also discussed progress on the development of the next Dgroups platform and a number of outstanding functionality issues, including the redesign of the Dgroups homepage and landing page of individual groups; the completion of the users’ interface in the different languages that Dgroups supports; the possibility for groups administrators to edit the email footer for each community; improved statistics at group level.

We shall work together with WA Research to solve these issues by the end of June 2012.

The meeting was well attended, with half of the Dgroups partners participating and actively engaging in the discussion on Dgroups present, its value and concrete plans for future activity and development.

In the first part of the meeting, Hapee de Groot and Rob Witte from the Dgroups Board reported on 2010 activities and finances. In the discussion that followed, Dgroups partners addressed the issue of how to enlarge the membership and market Dgroups amongst development organisations. Dgroups remains a unique initiative in development cooperation, partly because it is email based and so is suitable for those still numerous areas where Internet access is expensive and unreliable,   but partly because we are independent and so not subject to the same regulations and constraints as Google and other commercial platforms based in the US.  These factors, together with the current site redesign and the budget available for further technical development, will definitely help promoting Dgroups in the months to come.

As part of the business meeting, Dgroups members also agreed to enlarge the Board to  6 members and confirmed the nomination of 3 new Board members . This was also the chance to thank outgoing Board members Riff Fullan (Helvetas) and Maarten Boers (who stepped down last April) for serving as Board members in the first elected Board of the Dgroups Foundation and for their great contributions.

In the second part of the meeting Dgroups members had the opportunity to meet with Damir Simunic of WA-Researchto discuss updates and plans related to the Dgroups platform. The site redesign is almost complete and some existing groups have been already migrated to the new version. There are still some bugs currently being fixed and some more groups will be migrated in the next month to further assess if the platform is robust enough to proceed with the full migration. On the basis of the feedback and information received, the Board will decide on a date when the complete migration can be started.

Dgroups futures exercise

In the last part of the meeting, Dgroups partners looked into Dgroups futures. The session was designed to combine and adapt two facilitation methodologies - appreciative enquiry and ‘future backwards’. In two groups, participants listed Dgroups assets, then they shared and combined them. From this basis, the two groups defined a ‘nightmare’ and a ‘dream’ scenario for Dgroups 2 years from now. Finally, they described the steps that lead to each scenario and reflected on what can be done to influence the path – focusing on immediate, medium and longer term actions.

The complete report of the meeting is currently being drafted and will be circulated to members soon in the coming days.