Notes taken from the KM4Dev-2007 meeting November 24, 2006

From KM4DevWiki

Participants: Lucie Lamoureux (facilitation), Ewen Leborgne, Camilo Villa, Dorine Ruter, Saskia Harmsen, Allison Hewlitt, Maarten Boers (notes)

Purposes of meeting

• Organise 2007 meeting
• Trying out Interwise

What we want to achieve with the workshop:

Developing projects (e.g. Knowledge expeditions, research, writing papers, etc). The workshop would be a meeting point of these projects where people can share and develop together the projects

Question how to manage involving South

Southern participants should be involved through the projects. In earlier workshops, some Southern participants were sponsored by the event co-organizers (or donors). We have not always been able to have a fund to bring in Southern participation.

Another possibility would be to make a call for proposals and see if there is a demand for participation from the South. This would mean we have to design some very basic criteria for the selection of the projects. We could for example arrange a "call for projects" (similar to call for papers for conferences) and in that way gather some ideas.

Ideas for projects:

• A potential project could be to get on with the idea which arose in the last KM4dev meetings to develop further KM-curriculum, and participation from the South in that initiative would be very welcome.
• Another idea could be developing further the (research oriented) Knowledge expeditions and the "Fire from the Field" topic that could be further developed.
• It was suggested to include some training on KM methodologies. That might be an idea to motivate people to come and learn from that. But most of us think that the event is not in the first place intended for training, but to share experiences and developing new things together.

Invitation

The idea would be to send a message to the KM4dev community with the request to do proposal about possible projects people could work on together during the workshop.

Agenda, timing and venue:

A basic issue of the KM4dev agendas always is the combination of the formal agenda and the informal and flexible parts were people can add things to the event. So we should try to keep the same scheme.

All agree upon duration of 3 days and organising the event second or third week in June taking into account the Unesco-IT meeting as to make it possible for Southern participants to attend to both meetings. Ewen will inform us about the exact dates of the UNESCO meeting.

The idea of limiting the number of participants (to 40 or 60) was rejected. To choose a venue (boat or other) will thus depend on the interest for participation. This means an invitation should be sent out soon as to be able to find an appropriate venue. This might also mean that we probably will have to forget about the boat.

The main agenda would consist of two parts. A first part in which all would work on the projects and a second part in which new and unknown fields would be explored.

We should include a possibility to work with web-based tools to have people from other places to participate in one activity of the workshop. This should be taken into account when looking for the venue.

Financial aspects:

Nearly all organisations involved probably will be able to support the event financially. Dorine will make a (financial) proposal and coordinate this aspect including the investigating the possibility to ask for a registration fee and the administration of these funds. This will also be done on the KM4dev Wiki.

Who will do what?

• Lucie, Ewen and Camilo will work on the concept note / call for the event including criteria for the selection of the projects (also as to give people ideas).
• Lucie and Camillo will arrange for setting up the Wiki.
• Camilo and Maarten will investigate possibilities and prices for venues.
• Maarten and Saskia will prepare some work on a self assessment method for KM-issues (based on the method mentioned in Learning to Fly).
• Dorine will make a (financial) proposal and coordinate this aspect including the investigating the possibility to ask for a registration fee and the administration of these funds.

Evaluating Interwise tool:

• Emoticons work well (although everybody should remember to put them off ;-)
• An internet cafe is not the ideal venue for the use of this tool
• We did not use all possibilities
• Possibility of sending (personal) notes is good
• Good to be able to see who is in and who wants to talk
• Disadvantage that use is restricted to the Windows system (Apple users seem to have great difficulties)
• Multi-tasking is difficult for facilitator (maybe matter of experience)
• Forces us to be "civilized", makes it less spontaneous
• Using it with partners sends the wrong message, it should be open source software
• Participants should use the settings as to accommodate sounds and signs to their preferences.