How do we get better at storytelling? This article suggests five types of stories, with case studies, that every charity should be telling. They includes stories about ethics and values, social proof, founders, improvement and impact.

Geoff

On this site we are sharing experiences of local responses. Someone's local experience may inspire others to action but not all ideas transfer quickly. Here is an article by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker where he shares his experience of childbirth in Indian hospitals. Read how much effort is required to encourage change and the efforts he made to check progress was being made.

I went with some local NGO people as well as members of the Constellation to three villages in Karnataka in India in order to talk with young women in the villages.  The Bill Gates Foundation was supporting work with vulnerable young women and their response to HIV and AIDS. The villages were Nagenhalli, Morigeri and Sushilnagar. Local NGOs had already done much work in the…

[A story about mobilising resources]

Soon after I was seconded to UNAIDS in 2003 I went to Uganda to visit some communities. I learned more by listening to them than I was able to share with them. One of the communities was a fishing village which was reached after travelling for more than an hour off of the made-up road. The village was on…

I came across this quote today. It sums up quite nicely my philosophy on posting blogs:

"Do not tell me what to do, tell me what you do. Do not tell me what is good for me, tell me what is good for you.  If, at the same time, you reveal the you in me, if you become a mirror to my inner self, then you have made a reader and a friend."            - …

Blogs are often dominated by opinion. We are attempting to use it more for sharing experience. Here's a good blog from Chris Collison on the difference between opinion and experience

(in my opinion! :))

Geoff

Here are some lessons from a virtual knowledge cafe. What can we learn from these to improve our pooling and sharing of knowledge?

I particularly liked the statement "the students soon discover everyone is the expert, including themselves".  Now where have I heard that before? :)

Here is a good example of how someone has posed a question of the community (KM4dev) and then taken the time to distill the responses to provide a summary and linked to the original discussion and listed resources offered.  

The topic is "How to collect and present Lessons Learnt" but could so easily apply to our discussions.  I suspect they may have learned something from…

Lou Compernolle sent us this as it reflects our principles.

An enterprise in Addis managed to get 90% of its staff to test for HIV in 120 days by using Rapid Results. The head of the consultancy says: 

What’s missing to turn poor places into rich places isn’t more information, money, technology, workshops, programs, evaluation or any of the other things that development organizations normally provide. …

Here is another great talk from TED talks warning us not to force people to converse in English.  Conversation in any language leads to a sharing of thoughts and the creation of knowledge.

http://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_ryan_ideas_in_all_languages_not_just_english.html