Hippolyte Affognon (ILRI) writes: Implementing knowledge acquired through Social Network Analysis training

Eva Schiffer, an expert in Social Network Analysis (SNA), gave training on SNA on the campus of ILRI Nairobi, Kenya from 13 to 17th October 2008.
After the training we applied the knowledge acquired in many workshops in West Africa to identify relevant and effective pathways for disseminating research results on a BMZ funded project on [...]

Whose truth?

What do you do if you work with groups of people who tell you a completely different story about the same event? Do you choose one of them and decide that this one is telling you the truth while the rest are lying? How do you choose this one honest one? Because of his/her honest [...]

If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind,

of what then, is an empty desk? (Albert Einstein)
Triggered by Nancy White’s comment I’m curious about the benefits of mess and stumbled over “A Perfect Mess” (by Eric Abrahamson and David H Freedman), a book about “The hidden benefits of disorder – how crammed closets, cluttered offices, and on-the-fly planning make the world a better [...]

How to find out everything about small reservoirs

If you want to understand the use and usefulness of small reservoirs in developing countries, you need to know about water, landscape, people, agriculture, fisheries, politics etc. etc.
Working with my colleagues of the Small Reservoirs Project (funded by the Challenge Program for Water and Food of the CGIAR), I was often amazed about the [...]

Web-find: How to say these names…

Hildegard, Aghajan, Bozorgmehr, Olekorinko…
Did you get them all right? It’s a sign of respect to pronounce someone’s name correctly, but, sadly, when working internationally, it’s a pretty difficult task… Or do speak German, Armenian, Farsi and Maasai?
Howtosaythatname is a website that does just that, tell you how to say names in the different languages of [...]

Researcher, Facilitator, Advocate?

I just talked with a colleague who wants to do some Net-Map research about water governance in a big irrigation project in Africa, where commercial interests and small farmer needs clash. She has a number of different goals with her research, ranging from “getting a PhD” through “doing high quality exciting research” to “facilitating a [...]

“Reality is faith that smells of truth”

Paolo Brunello presented his Net-Map experience in ICT in Burundi at the International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development in Doha. But as you watch this

or read this (161 KB), you will see how this is not so much a presentation of empirical research but much more a very [...]

The study I quoted below…

Dear Neil and Noora, your comments (see below) made me dig into this issue more seriously and I did finally find the study (302 KB) I talked about in the last post. Katie Liljenquist at BYU’s Marriott School of Management studied how adding a socially unique outsider increases both group discomfort and the quality of [...]

What diversity does to work groups…

Apparently it doesn’t make them happier but more effective. That’s the result of a study I heard about on the radio (NPR) two days ago. Unfortunately I cannot find it on the web and I didn’t pay attention to the name of the researcher while I was listening – but the point they made deserves [...]

The trust you need for the evil deed

Isn’t “trust” a beautiful and positive attribute of the relationship between humans? We trust our friends. We argue that trust within or between organizations furthers good knowledge management and fosters innovation. Societies where people have lost trust in their neighbors (e.g. after a civil war) are defunct and dreadful places to live in. Trust is [...]