Dissecting Transfer

[Claire Campbell]

 This may belong in the new ‘experience box’, but I’ll add it here for now…

 

Over the years I have been in many conversations about ‘transfer’.  What is it, how does it work, what is transferred – is it a thing, a vision, a process or all of the above and more.

 

My current role is working with the Department of Sustainability & Environment, Victorian Government (Australia) to help facilitate, build and develop a learning network of people connecting to people around the concern of fire in the environment. 

 

Victoria is the most wildfire prone environment in the world, and affects the way Victorians live, make choices, relate to each other, and to their environment.  Every summer wildfires threaten homes, lives and livelihoods.  Fire is also used as a land management tool, and deliberately put into the landscape for both community safety and ecological reasons.  This carries its own risks and impacts on community.  As such, for Victorians, fire is a year round issue. 

 

The Fire Learning Network brings people from all walks of life and experience, to connect for authentic facilitated conversations, to learn, share and build relationships that build capacity to respond to life issues.  The initial entry point to conversation has been ‘living with fire’, however as the network grows, the members increasingly focus on the critical role the network has in facilitating conversations that develop community connections that relate to more than a single issue.

 

How to transfer what the network is, its ideals and philosophy of how it can support community re-connection and development has increasingly been an issue of discussion within the network conversations.

 

The Fire Learning Network team (myself, Matt Campbell and Simone Blair) have run an annual ‘learning event’ where key champions of the network come together to share stories, re-energise and connect as a broader network team.  This year we decided to make one of the main the focuses of the weekend ‘transfer’.

 

Two weeks ago, 30 champions from around the state came together in Flowerdale, Victoria.  Together we went through a process of discussion and analysis that produced a self assessment and river diagram for what the group felt were the 5 critical components of transfer.

 

The group moved through the following 3 stages.

 

Stage 1:  Small group discussion:  What are the components of “transfer”?

In small randomly allocated groups participants were given a selection of images that reflected some sort of ‘transfer’.  Using these pictures and their personal experiences as a reference they were asked to discuss what did and did not illustrate/demonstrate transfer and why.

Groups were then tasked with developing a list of critical ‘components’ to successful transfer of knowledge, skills, energy, etc. 

 

Table 1 is a collation of all the components the groups came up with.

 

Table 1: Components of transfer

Common language Common understandings Overcoming constant movement through community Conversation Meeting places Use and development of new tools Passing on personal experience. Transfer = Relationship Fact based explanation Teamwork Sharing Knowledge and skills Communicate Verbal and non-verbal Coach/experience Right tool for the job Tools and techniques evolve Willing participants Physical action from knowledge to inform Compassion and empathy and caring Two-way conversation engage whole community Understanding different perspectives Respect Viral spread of information through different groups Teaching young Common ground connection Pragmatism Belief in self Investment, time, money, effort Technology transfers information. Development Evolution Respect Not everyone listened to everyone Relevant Clarity in own mind Receptive Tools Competition/collaboration not biting off more than you can chew. Coming together to create something new People who understand what happened and WHY it matters Let others know WHY it matters Translate into plans

Manner and method Willing to listen Reward, satisfaction Celebration Appreciation recognition Information must be conveyed accurately and concisely What’s in it for me switch Must be transferred in an appropriate manner Information must be relevant to audience/community Engagement Common topic Collaboration with compassion and empathy Understand and respect others E.g. values, needs, interests, views, ages!! Understanding different perspectives People must be receptive and willing to listen. Respect and receptiveness [meaning respecting differences] Allowing to evolve Clear understanding of topic Can be difficult. E.g. to create environment for it. To open up to understand others’ points of view. Need to feel ‘safe’ to be able to open up to new things Building community Need a connector/bridge/ Right environment and relationship Identifying key people who can actually get stuff done. Connections Clear and relevant

 

Stage 2: Dissecting Transfer

Participants were then tasked with grouping and sorting the components into 5 broad components.  Table 2 shows how the ideas were converged to a single word via facilitated discussion.  A brief descriptor for each word is provided to remind people of what that word refers to in the context of ‘Transfer’.

 

Table 2:  Distilled components of transfer

Critical components of transfer	Description/definition	Group discussion:  converging to a single word descriptor for the 5 group identified components of transfer
Nurture	Allowing something to evolve Building community Need to feel ‘safe’ to be able to open up to new things	Foster – nurture and care Patience Allowing time Comfortable Confidence (trust)
Purpose	Clear understanding of the topic Goal
Respect	Can be difficult to create an environment for it To open up and understand others points of view Respect and receptiveness (respecting differences and similarities) People need to be receptive and willing to listen Understanding different perspectives Understand and respect others e.g. values, needs , interests, views, ages, and other selves and types of knowledge Collaboration with compassion and empathy	Receptive Openness Conciliation Taking responsibility to understand and be understood Understand where people are at in their journey Respect Resultant behaviour Adapt
Connection	Common topic Connections Identifying key people who can actually get stuff done Need a connector/bridge/right environment and relationship Identify	Commonality Hook Viral Consecutiveness
Engagement	Engagement Information must be relevant to audience/community Must be transferred in an appropriate manner Information must be conveyed accurately and concisely People who understand what happened, understand why it matters Let others know why it matters What is the hook?	Commonality Hook Content = part of purpose Engagement/interaction In gear Interest Reciprocal benefit

 

 

Stage 3:  Self-Assessing ourselves on Transfer

Participants were broken up into community based groups. Each group was asked to reflect on each of the 5 components of transfer and assess their community’s ‘competence’ for each component on a scale of 1-5.  It was reiterated that the self-assessment exercise was not a competition, nor was it intended to be representative of the whole community – the value lay in the discussion, and the sharing with other community groups to learn about who can connect to who in order to get better at Transfer.

 

Having self-assessed, each group was asked to plot their assessment on a graph and share how they came to a decision on each component. 

 

 

Once all the communities were plotted a line was drawn above the uppermost scores and line drawn below the lowermost scores.  This transformed the graph into a ‘River Diagram’, showing that the assessments with the highest and lowest scores formed the bank of the river (the river being where our collective experience lies).  This highlighted for each component of transfer, who had something to share about how to do this well and who had something to learn.  This provided a stimulus for participants to connect across communities for learning.

 

Reflection on the exercise

Personally, I found the exercise extremely interesting and motivating.  It was fantastic to see a wide range of people engaging with the concept of transfer and really getting to grips with all of its layers.  The word ‘transfer’ seems so simple, but as one participant commented “we all talk about transfer and wanting to do it, we know it’s hard, and now we know why”.  She saw this as a stimulus for going back home and tackling the issue of transfer from other angles, with fresh ideas and significantly, strengthened connections to people who were equally as passionate about strengthening community.

 

Questions for the transfer group

1. What other experiences of dissecting the concept of transfer have been done?
2. What has been learned from such exercises?
3. What are the implications for how we go about approaching ‘transfer’?