Interactive Net-Mapping Online?

Could people all over the world sit in front of their internet and net-map together? Today I discussed with Simone Staiger of the International Center of Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), how they could include a net-map exercise into their web-based knowledge sharing workshop. They have an online-phase, where participants from all over the world will be [...]

Combination

The issue of the day is combination. Discussing Net-Map as a research approach with colleagues both here and over in Germany, I got a number of responses that had to do with combining the social network analysis with other research approaches. The underlying thought is that our social interactions are embedded in other factors that [...]

Dare to inspire!

You know how sometimes someone says something to you in passing and much later you realize that this comment rooted itself into your thoughts and over time, grew into something? Years ago I talked with Gerd Ramm, who works with the German consultancy firm Como Consulting, and does a lot of work to promote organizational [...]

Reaching the poorest of the poor in Nigerian Agriculture

Today I had a heated Net-Map session with a group of Nigerian visitors to IFPRI, who are all involved in the Fadama II project (funded by World Bank), that aims at improving the lives of the poorest of the poor in Nigeria, living and farming in the low lying fadama flood-plains. My colleague Ephraim Nkonya [...]

Power Tools

“Family portraits” (see below) is only one of the many tools that the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) introduces on their internet portal: “Power Tools“. Brief and engaging descriptions of participatory approaches as diverse as Market Chain Workshops, Interactive Radio Drama or Community Trade-off Assessment.

Family portraits of Maasai

Last week I talked with Mario Herrero of the International Livestock Research Institute about research he did with Maasai families in Kenya. He and his colleagues were looking at the question how people who migrate with their cattle for long distances within and between countries cope with the challenges posed to them both by society [...]

German students analyse governance networks in Himalaya-Hindukusch-Pamir Region

In a new collaboration between InWent (Capacity Building International, Germany), teamconsult (Company for Project Management and Organisational Development, Germany) and IFPRI, we will train and support German students to use Net-Map to understand the complex formal and informal networks of mountain governance in the Himalaya-Hindukusch-Pamir Region. This is part of the ASA student exchange program [...]

Tactical Mapping of Human Rights Abuse

Below you can find my musings about potential uses of Net-Map in understanding violent conflicts. I am both excited and wary because of the power of visualization and basically only recommend the use of tools such as Net-Map for people who understand very well what they are meddling with. Skye Bender-deMoll pointed me to the [...]

Participatory Impact Pathway Analysis (PIPA)

Network Mapping can help you to learn a lot about how and why your project works the way it does. But how do you integrate the 4 steps of Net-Map (Actors, Links, Influence, Goals) into a bigger framework of monitoring and evaluation? Boru Douthwaite and his colleagues call their integrated approach Participatory Impact Pathway Analysis [...]

What are the similarities between gossip and the flu?

You can “give” it to many people and still keep it. This is one difference (one of the many) between gossip and money, once you give an amount of money to somebody, you don’t have it any more and you can’t give the same money to someone else. How is this related to network mapping? [...]