Facilitation of meeting for community missing the direction

After quite a while, once again I have participated in a facilitated meeting as a participant and not facilitator. It was AgNIC (Agriculture Network Information Center) annual meeting and facilitator was Jerinyl Veldorf from Library Organization and Development, University of Minnesota.  I have liked the approach and decided to write a short summary that can be of use in the future.

AgNIC is in kind of changing point of its history, needing to redefine how to focus for the future. A lot of new faces in the meeting, different interests, different level of knowledge and level of engagement.

Facilitator started with SWOT analysis in world cafe arrangement – we were about 50 people in the room divided into 8 groups (practically running SWOT twice in parallel). Instead of moving the groups around the table, we have moved the flip charts and it worked pretty well. The group which started each topic at the end summarized notes on each flip chart and the key points were presented in the plenary.

After a coffee break there was task to try to define possible new vision/mission / key role for AgNIC – we each ‘brainstormed’ our own brains and presented the outcome to the group around table (again groups of 6-7 people). The task was to come to the mutual agreement/consensus, so if even one person didn’t agree with what somebody else proposed, it wasn’t included in the report flip chart. Then the two parallel groups merged (coming from 8 to 4 groups) and compared their flip charts. Again trying to reach consensus. Final 4 flip charts were stack on the wall and each participant voted with 5 dots for the most attractive outcome (mission / key task for AgNIC) – DotVoting.

Finally came the part of proposed concrete action steps in form of a card collection & sorting: each of us got a number of PostIts to write down specific action points/steps, keeping in mind earlier defined mission and key tasks or direction for AgNIC. I think we were again about 8 groups separately sticking the PostIts on the wall, grouping them and defining commonalities for each group in two words – verb & noun. Then each group presented the outputs – usually two words describing specific (not always) activity – e.g. ‘setting standards’. Two people were capturing all these outputs in parallel in two flip charts, ignoring duplicates or linking similar action points. In this way we have arrived in about 20 quite tangible action points.

Unfortunately this was the end of the process and the next steps will happen through email or online communication, which I am bit skeptical about.  Personally I think it would have been better if we had 1/2 or 1 more day is available. Selected group of people would work overnight little bit more on those 20 action points (e.g. including some more details/ideas from the PostIts) and tomorrow we would work in small groups on specific little projects, assigning responsibilities, tasks, timelines, priorities ….

Quo vadis Yammer?

Yesterday (Apr 25) I had an opportunity to participate in Yammer on tour event in San Francisco. It was really an eye opener for me. Currently Yammer has over 5million users and it’s growing in speed of approx 1/4 of a million/month.  If I got it right, it seems that through online social networks we are now witnessing several  paradigm shifts (which are reflected in some upcoming Yammer’s features:

• The rise of ‘consumerization‘ of enterprise  software = enduser decides
  • due to the fact that today a common employee (enduser) can pull the technology/software that suits him (from the cloud) without waiting on what the management decides and company implement is the utmost usability check – will they adopt or not?
  • Yammer’s CEO presented scheme summarizing, that while in 1990s most companies had their stuff and applications ‘on premises’; in 2000s ‘on clouds’, what leads nowadays is what he called ‘Fremium’ –   limitless number of choices that we all have (Indeed resulting in fragmentation of content/knowledge)
• Yammer is presented as ‘The new Intranet‘ –  transforming intranet to ESN (enterpse social network)
  • on cloud (instant, no upgrades, low costs)
  • social (people centric – by people for people)
  • mobile (fully compatible with mobile devices, pads etc)
  • viral = voluntarily adopted
  • Social network is about SPEED = sharing now, not tomorrow

• Yammer acquired One Drum - platform that carries a Microsoft Office app that allows users to edit Excel, Word and PowerPoint documents with colleagues in real time, the feature that is expected to be added to Yammer in Summer 2012. Another new feature that will come in few months is Sync – access to Yammer files from desktop through a shared folder – drag and drop synchronization with the Yammer cloud and coworker desktop
• Yammer’s Universal Search really works – universal search feature is being released in these days –  which will through individualized search algoritm provide better match for our searches
• PREMIUM groups – yammer-active teams can upgrade without waiting until (if) the whole company decides to upgrade. Premium features include more space for sharing files, possibility to moderate content and membership, mark files and pages as ‘official’ (e.g. final versions), enable external file sharing, etc.
• Yammer feeds can be embedded practically anywhere (but I understand that content will be visible only to those who have login credentials for given Yammer group/feed)
• Yammer guys also see as one of the keys to their success Mobile Apps so they continue to work on apps for all Iphone, Android, Windos Phone and BlackBerry.
• Philosophy of Yammer is not to rip & replace existing enterprise systems (which costed companies tenths of thousands of dollars), but instead integrating & migrate to yammer (with those most common platforms – e.g. Sharepoint or Microsoft Dynamics) and customizing (see all yammer apps at https://www.yammer.com/yotsf/apps)

 Changing from Intranet to ESN (enterprise social network) indeed is a paradigm shift, which requires thorough preparation. Four keys were mentioned as necesary for social success:

1. PLAN – roll out and sustain, define where you go, even if the way how to get there changes while ‘on the road’
2. TEAM – compose team with complementary skills
3. Create AWARENESS
4. Governance

As an example was discussed Yammer’s adoption in Deloitte:

• Deloitte has roughly 190,000 employees in 50 countries
• One team made experiment to replace email by yammer (nobody from the team wanted to return to use email after one week)
• Nowadays Deloitte’s Yammer has 50,000 registered users with in average 8,000 msgs/week (seems like 80:20 ration is true here as well)
• Used AFA concept: Aim – Fire – Adjust

and few learnt lessons/tips:

• Communicate early & often
• Adoption needs a lot of attention – it doesn’t happen on its won
• Expect skepticism
• There is no wrong way to use Yammer
• Keep rules to minimum
• Nurse group of champions (early adopters?)
•  Three mentioned strategies to speed up adoption:
  • ‘Make them do it’  -  involve managers/directors
  • ‘Make it fun’ – contests
  • ‘Remove other legs’ (cutting other comm channels or letting them naturally die)

‘Relationship is Conversation‘. If you are not having a conversation, you are missing an ocean of opportunity.

Some interesting resources:

* did you check recently Yammer feature list? No? do so – ever growing list of functions applications and tools at https://www.yammer.com/product/feature-list/

* Aragon Research: Special Report – The social enterprise

* Will social media kill off the intranet in years to come? 

* Yammer blogpost about the event itself and the links to PPT  and other resources -http://blog.yammer.com/blog/2012/04/thanks-for-rocking-out-for-yammer-on-tour-san-francisco.html.

Where are photos from my Flickr used?

Are you curious about who, where and how uses pictures from your Flickr? yes, me too

Indeed one simple option is to Google ‘Flickr’ and your Flickr ‘user name’. Dig little bit deeper (not just first 10 results) and you may discover surprises.

Other option is to go your Flickr account stats => Referrers and follow incoming links. Usually most referrers comes from Flickr itself, Google, Bing and Yahoo search (and Google, Bing and Yahoo pictures), but bellow are usually few links going to specific referral sites. The sad thing is that you can only see referrers  for one particular day (use arrows on sides of the date to check other dates) and that you can only go about 40 days back.

It seems that at this moment Flickr doesn’t offer more aggregated or older statistics for referrers.

do you know more? please suggest.

Running Samoan circles in parallel

This week I am facilitating some sessions of the Launch meeting of MAIZE and WHEAT CGIAR research programs in Mexico City. Agenda is largely driven by scientists and there is not much space for introducing more interactive facilitation methods. I was asked to run the whole day wheat session where morning was dedicated to three long PPT presentations each followed by panel discussion. That wasn’t really very challenging and went pretty well (having over 80 people in the room). After Lunch meeting continued with group discussions. We had only one room available (L shape) – I have tried to set up three large tables (25 people each), but that didn’t seem right. hence I have changed my mind and got chairs in the circle for my favorite Samoan circle.  Introduction was OK, no opposition from people, however few minutes after start it was clear that this will not work – room was a Babel with too much noise to be able to hear clearly and focus on one discussion only. I have decided to remove the central group top another room and leave only two groups in the the room extremes to continue.

In the new room was a’classroom’ setting. No time for change. We have placed 5 chairs in the front (in half circle arrangement) and  asked to continue with the same rules as in Samoan circle (how to get to speak) – surprisingly it wen pretty smooth  and people coming and leaving the ‘speaking space’ like if it would be the inner circle. So at the end, except the fact that we have lost about 10 minutes moving from room to room, we have achieved the planned objectives.

Maybe the three Samoan circles would have worked if these were smaller, but having the large groups (almost 30 people in each circle) made it really too noisy.

Finally the Science Week done differently

Institution where I work (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) is organizing every two years meeting of all research staff in Mexico to share experience, concerns, get updates on institutional services and policies – Science Weeks. The previous ones organized in 2006, 2008, and 2010 were bit frustrating to me – always series of loooong power point presentations (talk after talk after talk) followed by very short Q&A session and a maximum of interaction was achieved in some panel discussions. Well this year, finally a change happened:

After first morning of introduction, we have divided all participants (160) into 8 groups which were circulating among 8 stations (called Kiosks) – maybe somehow similar to ”Gallery Walk”, but significantly different. The groups spend in each ‘Kiosk’ about 75 minutes. Each Kiosk was organized by 2-4 people with short presentations (max 1/2 time of the kiosk visit = max 40 minutes). The rest of the time was dedicated to Q&A, discussions related to presented topics and sharing of experience.

Topics of the kiosks included (1) Human resources & risk management; (2) Corporate communications; (3) Research services; (4) Finances and procurement; (5)  IP rights; (6) Project management, fundraising and M&E; (7) Library and Capacity building and (8) Information & communication technologies.

The groups were carefully prepared as a mixture of new comers and senior scientists, both from headquarters and outreach offices, from different programs, to enhance interactions, knowing each another, sharing issues and problems or on the other side recognizing problems of the others. The whole program run for almost 1.5 day. Leaders of the Kiosks at the end presented key messages/issues in the short plenary session (review of review).

At this moment I don’t have yet evaluation survey from participants, but overall the feedback was very positive.  People liked the  interactions, dynamics of the two days, recognizing common problems, having opportunity to raise the issues and get direct feedback. I have one more facilitation method in my toolkit

classic beef stew (gulash)

For 3-4 portions of the  beef stew you will need:

• 1 kg of beef
• 1 kg onion
• oil
• salt and pepper
• sweet and hot pepper
• ground cumin
• garlic powder
• (flour or bread to thicken) – optional

Chop onion and fry it in oil until gets glassy. Put aside for a moment and sprinkle with pepper and gulash spices (sweet and hot pepper, ground cumin, garlic powder). Stir and return back to the fire, add the chopped meat and stir until it’s fried on all sides. Add salt, gently pour in water, cover with lid and simmer. Regularly stir to prevent burning. If necessary, again gently pour water (preferably hot), but as per my experience the meat releases enough juices. When the meat is tender, uncover the lid slightly in order to evaporate excess water. Someone let stew with all the juice and thickened it with flour disolved in water or  some bread.

The stew can be served with bread, rice, pasta, dumplings (potato, yeast, beer, bacon) or potato pancakes.

Facilitating 2-days meeting of Mexican milling industry managers with wheat breeders and farmer representatives

It took us about a month to get confirmation of participation of almost 20 managers from 7 major companies (wheat millers and processing  industry) in Mexico to meet with wheat breeders (INIFAP and CIMMYT), representatives of government of Mexico and representatives of farmer associations. I have to admit, I wasn’t very clear of the expected objectives and outputs:

• identifying key wheat production- and commercialization-related problems (seed availability, varieties, trading) and
• identifying possible problem-solving actions.

All within a context of demand for wheat in 2030 to 2050 and all existing and appearing problems and challenges (soaring international prices, costs of energy, urban population growth, climate change related effects, etc).

Challenge was here to be addressed. As any meeting where scientists are present, it had to start with official opening and three powerpoint presentations. However these presentations actually served very well to provide a panorama of the global food situation (and forecast till 2050) and its implications for Mexico – participants listened, despite the fact that one presentation was in English.

After a coffee break I have introduced the idea of starting the discussions with Samoan circle (using it as a method of self-organized brainstorming). Start was really slow and I have realized one big mistake – I have adopted the issues for discussion from the person in charge (of the content), but without verification whether actually participants agree that these are the main issues to discuss!!! Indeed there was some hesitation in the faces. The idea almost collapsed when people from outer circle started to ask ‘technical questions’ to people in the inner circle – I had to step in and reinforce that only people in the inner circle are allowed to talk. Other little issue was that people were hesitating to actually step in and replace somebody (touching the shoulder). I had to add that people from inner circle can leave whenever they feel they said what they wanted. Then the process started to flow.

My colleague / co-facilitator didn’t know the Samoan circle facilitation method and was moving all around, including the space in between the two circles –  I have noticed that it was distractive factor - so we continued from outside. Another factor that was bit distractive, but I didn’t find the way to handle was that after thirty minutes some people from the outer circle time to time stepped out and stood nearby or walked for a coffee – meaning sometimes there were not many people sitting in the outer circle … Important to note that all people were listening, just moving around ….

After discussing three topics (we took the main points on the flipcharts) which took bit more than 90 minutes (maybe too much?) we broke for lunch. After lunch, work in groups –  each discussing more in details the points captured during the Samoan circle. This was already way of work known to all. However, as always there were not so many volunteers to take notes in each table …. We finished the day by presentations of the group works in the plenary and quite animated plenary discussion – I had to actually step in and push everybody for a dinner when it became too long.

And then the surprise the second day – after 30 minutes review/reflections I asked whether they would like to continue in the same way as in day 1 – Samoan Circle. The response was very clear YES from almost everybody. 4 chairs in the inner circle were immediately occupied and new three topics discussed – we continued smoothly whole morning. People where so self disciplined!!! I just couldn’t believe it. The process flew practically without major input from facilitators – we just took notes.

Samoan circle when appropriate is simply an amazing facilitation tool!

Go, Jarmila go ;o)

My sister performing Stabat Mater by G.B. Pergolesi (she is the mezzo-soprano – grey dress

Customization of WordPress for kind of intranet

I have got a task from our board – they need a site where to share some documents that are definitely not public and with possibility to comment on the documents. The site shall be private and preferably sitting on our own server due to confidentiality and security of content. Some people board members shall have access just for viewing the docs, some members will need to have an option of downloading and modifying the documents.

I was thinking first of some existing options that we have:

• Joomla CMS (Content Management System), but I am not a techie guy and would need help with this. Furthermore it is a rather robust system for relatively small site and task
• Confluence (wiki) – would be my preferred solution, but … for experience with colleagues in my institution it seems to be not so user friendly – most people feel lost and didn’t really start to use it … I guess the same could happen to the board site
• Google sites / Google docs - quick and easy, but very little customization flexibility and I know that there is a kind of worry among colleagues, about where all that information is sitting and who has access … it was clear no also
• Dropbox - could be an option for document sharing, but same as in case of Google sites – again – where all that information is sitting and who has access? again no …

Finally, I came to option of WordPress.  I am WordPress (WP) user for years, but somehow I didn’t realize how much the use and the community of  WP users and developers grew over the last few years! Did you know that WP is now a leading Content Management System?

WordPress version  3.1.3. was installed on our server as we need some more customization than what is available in wordpress.com.        I have selected elegant and clean theme ‘Titan‘ (version 1.2.5.) by http://thethemefoundry.com . There is also professional/full version of this theme available for some costs – I may consider to buy it later.

To make the space private, I have implemented plugin called ‘Private Only‘ by http://pixert.com . Other alternative might be e.g. Angsuman’s Authenticated WordPress Plugin (but I have not tried this one).  Installing and activating is easy just following standard WP instructions. One little surprise that came was that  there are actually two plugins – ‘Private Only’ and ‘Private Only – Dissable feed’. Plugin works smoothly, but bit later I have realized when loging in sometimes I happen to enter the blog space (front-end) and sometimes the dashboard (back-end) – I am not sure how to configure where to enter after logging in….

I found helpful post about how to configure WP somehow into form of document repository.  First it is important to set up the system of pages and subpages (child pages) for which later on it is necessary to create new page templates. It was bit tricky, as I have absolutely ZERO php programing knowledge, but searching around I found a lot of pages with examples of php coding for what I needed:

• get attachment link list (I didn’t resolve yet the issue of listing the links under each another)
• get children link list (this one was actually easier

One important discovery – while I can upload docx (MS Office 2007 docs) to WordPress, and create the links, documents didn’t work/download to computer. With MS Office 2003 it is smooth.

And while working on this I have discovered several useful plugins:

• Template Tag Shortcodes
• WP FileManager – particularly useful when creating and modifying new page templates!
• EG-attachments
• also one more interesting theme – Extizeme

Now lets see whether the blue print of product will catch attention of its targeted users – board members ;o).

Finally nesting?

Several weeks passed with only indirect signs that the parrots would actually think about nesting seriously ;o). I have seen them mating several times, they were continuously VERY aggressive (the female  actually attacked me seriously when I was cleaning the cage last weekend). But there was one change – female was visiting the nesting box more and more often and both were REALLY hysterical, whenever I tried to  open the box to check what’s new inside.

But finally – today morning during the feeding the female didn’t left the box, was very silent  and same wise in the afternoon when I was preparing the cage for night (I am covering the cage every night with black cloth due to the lights of cars passing around and also to prevent very early  morning ‘singing’ of these two little beasts ;o).

I don’t wanna make anything wrong, so unless I find the female outside the box, I don’t think I will try to check it to see if there are  eggs or not.  Unfortunately I will be travelling outside the country, so no new update will happen sooner than in 2 weeks time.