Thank you Laurence

I got some little time today after meeting with our core reproductive health group in Iloilo City.

But still very much burdened by work, but still fuels me to go on.

See you in Chiangmai

Johnpierre

Hi Laurence..

Yea.. I am still volunteering in the Philippines as a PCV.. It's great!! My service ends in July.. Still deciding if I want to go back home to the states or go to Nepal and do a lil bit more volunteer work. When did you come to the Philippines??

It's really nice to see how active you are wit ur projects.. Hopefully we can talk more.. tc..

Hi Laurence,

Isn't it great to be able to exchange ideas in this way!

Concerning measuring change and levels of personal and cultural development, we have given this topic a fair deal of though and work. Pinning down the intangible aspects of a business has been a severe endeavor for scholars as well as consultants for quite some time. I think we have to be careful with the tendency towards making this measurable in general, but with that notion taken into account, there's quite some things to work on.

First of all, there's several quite useful quantitative measurement tools, in the form of online surveys, that take into account the soft side of organizations. Within this domain, we have selected three of these 'CultureScans', which we use with clients (usually at the outset of change processes). One is based on Spiral Dynamics (peopleSCAN), one is based on research by Denison (Denison Culture Survey) and one is based on the work of Richard Barrett (Corporate Transformation Tools). To really recommend one, I'd need to go in more detail with you.

Next to that, Diederick has been working with a department of the dutch ministry of VROM (housing, spatial planning and environmental issues), on what we call a scorecard. This enables the entire department to rate themselves monthly or quarterly on a series of organizational criteria. The good thing with this scorecard is that you generate the actual criteria through a workshop with the department staff. This way, they work to define the criteria they feel as important to them. This workshop is in itself a awareness-raising intervention, with all the employees (or stakeholders) reflection on what is really meaningful to them and going into conversation about it with each other.

Also, we have experience with various qualitative interview techniques, which we refer to as the flesh on the quantitative bones.

Take a look at http://www.realize.nl/en/measuring for more info.

Cheers,
Thomas

Hi Laurence,

I'm going to do a workshop in March about cultural differences within internationally operating organizations. I was wondering if you guys at aidscompetence have experience with that, and maybe also with methods to generate insight, awareness and understanding for cultural differences and the about finding out what strengths each culture brings to the table. This would be very valuable to me!

Thomas

Hi Laurence,

You asked me about self-measurement of change in communities. I've done some work around this with a company called Gaiasoft (www.gaiasoft.com), who have developed an online scorecard framework. I've used this both in our work around Millennium Development Goal #5 with the Dutch 'Meshwork for Mother Care' (20 NGO's, pharmaceutical companies, the government, professional midwives and gynaecologists associations and a number of other partners), and with some work I did with the Dutch Ministry for Spatial Planning and the Environment. At the ministry, we used it to develop a scorecard that helps (self-)measure and monitor cultural change in teams throughout the ministry. With the MDG5 Meshwork, we're looking at developing a scorecard that helps us (self-)measure and monitor the progress of the Meshwork's different projects (depending on whether we get financing for those, which we'll hear in about a week). We may also develop a scorecard to look at the actual impact around MDG5, but that's further down the line.

The way this works is, you sit down with the team, department, community, or whatever level of scale you're working on, and you answer a number of questions:

1) What is the purpose of our work? What's our goal?

2) What's the envisoned result? What needs to happen or come into being for this to be seen as successful (by us and potentially other stakeholders)? Specify this as much as possible. Really ask yourself: when are we 'done'? What will have changed? You can even imagine yourself in the future and describe the situation from the present, which can be easier sometimes.

3) What are the enabling conditions that allow for this success to be realized? What needs to be in place? You can try looking back from the imagined future situation of the previous question and see what have been the most important factors, variables and conditions that have enabled the community to be successful. It can be very useful to use Ken Wilber's four quadrants to specify these enabling conditions in a more integral way (individual/collective and interior/exterior; find more info here: http://www.realize.nl/en/integral). Look at what is needed in each of these four quadrants for the community to be successful and to achieve the purpose. Contact me for more details on how to use these four quadrants in this way.

4) Cluster the enabling conditions and prioritize them so you end up with just a few (I would say max. 10 or so) key enablers toward success. Then ask yourself for each of them: What would it mean to really excel at this, to really do this very well, and how could you make this visible? For example, if 'trust between community members' is a key enabler for success (may be abstract, but serves the purpose of this example), you ask yourself: What would it mean to truly trust each other in this community? What would that look like? How would things be different? How could we make this visible? How could we measure trust? This is where you start defining indicators. Make them as simple as possible. You won't necessarily have to be able to measure these in a quantitative way. You can easily use maturity models to do it, which would mean you'd take define 3 or 5 levels of maturity for the indicator, with level 1 describing the situation in which for example trust is almost non-existent, and with level 5 describing the 'excellent' situation that you know will enable the community to be successful. In between you define a number of situations and states that range from little trust to high trust. Make sure the descriptions of each of these maturity levels are (as much as possible) specific, relevant to the local context, positively formulated (don't say what is NOT there, say what IS there), objective (in the sense that you can come to some level of agreement of where on the scale you're at), acceptable (by the stakeholders) and practical. Theoretically this could be as simple as saying 1) low, 2) medium and 3) high, but the more specific and descriptive you can define these levels of maturity, the more powerful it is and the easier it is to come to some level of agreement on where you're at.

Using these indicators (e.g. trust) and the 3 or 5 defined levels of maturity (which are generally different for each indicator), you construct the scorecard. You could do this in Excel, on a flipchart, or in some other way. We’ve used the online scorecard provided by Gaiasoft, which I can tell you a little more about if you’re interested. Although Gaiasoft is a commercial party, I know the CEO well and he’s extremely committed to social change and community development, particularly in Africa.

Once you’ve got the scorecard, the real works begins. The self-measurement process consists of a regular ‘heartbeat’ of conversations. In an organization, this is often integrated into existing weekly, two-weekly or monthly meetings. On a regular basis, you take the scorecard and one or more or all of the indicators, and ask yourself: how are we doing on this/these indicator(s)? When the maturity levels of the different indicators have been defined well (what does ‘level 2 trust’ look like?), this really supports and speeds up the conversation. It can be powerful to have this conversation be facilitated by someone, so space is created for deep listening and real dialogue. The point of the whole thing, in the end, is not so much to all agree that we’re at level 4 on the indicator of trust, but the conversation itself, which raises the consciousness of those involved and helps them see (the importance of) trust (or whatever other indicators you define).

The power of this approach is:
- The more you define the envisioned situation, the more you create ‘pull’ toward that situation.
- In defining the situation, you ask the stakeholders themselves what is important to them, what is needed to get there, and what the process of getting there looks like (in the steps defined as maturity levels). You don’t impose a generic measurement framework top-down, but develop a custom scorecard bottom-up.
- Regular, deep conversation about the indicators is in and of itself a transformational process, because it has an emancipatory, awareness-raising effect. Also, using the scorecard, you’ll always have a visual reminder of where you’re at.

As a final remark, I talked to Gaston about an online social platform which we’re working with. This platform is called Gaiaspace. The reason I’m bringing it up, is that this platform, called Gaiaspace, was also developed by Gaiasoft and as such is integrated with the scorecard. In addition to the many of the functions of the Ning you’re currently using, it therefore has the measurement and monitoring functionality built in, as well as something you could call ‘deep profiles’, which are individual profiles that dig a little deeper that just ‘where do you live’ or ‘how old are you’, but get at underlying values and motivations. On the basis of these profiles, the platform is able to link and connect people with other people, initiatives and conversations in an emergent way (which means you don’t have to actively search for people you may want to get in touch with - the platform will bring them to you). This might be interesting for you as well. It’s still in the relatively early stages of development, but we’re also using this for our MDG5 project. While it’s not free, you may still be interested in checking it out? If so, let me know and I can connect you to someone who can give you a demo of Gaiaspace (using Skype and Gotomeeting).

That was quite a long comment. Let me know what questions you have, or what you want to know more about. And I hope you have a beautiful day!

hi Laurence
thanks for adding me.
hows ur work,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,!

Fantastique Laurence ! Quelle energie ? Quelle chance de t'avoir toi et Gaston
qui nous gratifient de si merveilleux recits ! Bravo et surtout continuez à partager pour nous aider à apprendre et toujours apprendre davantage
A bientot
Antoine

Thank you Laurence,
I'm glad you are the first that said "Welcome" to me in Ning, hhe :)
Now, i'm in Pontianak, my home, and ready to continue what i learned in IKF last week, unforgettable moment!!
Yeah, i already saw the photos, nice photo when we are in Phayau, really family, big family of AIDS Competence, cheers!!

Thanks Laurence, My picture dispeared would not with the stories. I will ask permission from the stories owner to it later. Again thanks for your giving opportunity for me to be a member.

best regards

Hi Laurence...
tnx for adding me,,but i need ur little help..
emmmh.. can you send me a press release from IKF by email..
its very urgent coz i need for make a report soon..
terimakasih banyak..
reply me asap..
muahhh...

Keep up the good work dear.
It's never i vain whatever you sow in life must come back to you in a magnified way.

Hi Laurence
Thanks for your comment. I had never heard of Ning or AIDS competence and chanced upon them while doing a bit of research on Wikipedia. Must say its a great effort, and it fits in completely with what I have felt about the money/medicine/technology response to AIDS.

Here in India I find a lot of money spent on AIDS awareness but I wonder how much of it impacts the target communities (there are some exceptions of course). Local community involvement in AIDS appears rather sporadic, more so because of the social barriers vis-a-vis those suffering from AIDS.

As for our hospital, we have purchased the land and the basic work such as the construction of the boundary, obtaining necessary permissions, etc is in progress. We are so grateful to one of our volunteers from Spain, Javier Pinto Sanz, an architect, who provided us with the plans and drawings for the hospital free of cost. I am in the process of creating a New Light Community on Ning, and hope to see you there.
Thanks
Sunil

Thanks Laurence...will do...actually searching for my photo!!!

Dear Laurence,
Thank you very much, first of all for accepting me on this big Team of AIDS Competence approach. As your advise of changing the name to individual, i will do it.
Iam sorry, my English is not so good so dont mention my writing error.

Kind regards,
Tereza.

I really missed being there, Laurence. I plan to be at this site more often too. I have uploaded my photo at last. You're right, a face makes the connection keener.

All the best!
Bernice.

Just looked at some of your photos. As we say here in the Caribbean - you wicked behind a camera, man! Nuff respect.

Bernice

Dear Laurence,
I wanna say thank's 4 ur comment and i'm so glad 2 b ur friend...
By The Way can u speak in bahasa...?

Best Regards from me 2 u and all there...
c u

Bonjour Laurence,
lol so we swapped. You get a guy from Amsterdam, I got a lady from Binche...
M.

hello laurence, thank you for welcoming me and for reading my blog. It's my very first blog, you see, and I'm inspired by your comment. Thanks. Let's keep connected

prénom Louis , c'est mieux et c'est 'tu' ...Ceci dit je découvre le site .J'ai été en contact sur terrain avec JL Lamboray en 1978-1979 ,à Kisantu.Il était medecin cooperation belge et moi prof volontaire ATG au Congo ..Très bon souvenirs et surtout très bon joueur de tennis ... (moi ;nul)...

Dear Laurence,

Thank you for having me on the site. I am in the third row, 2nd from Right next to the Tall, Elegant, White haired lady - Ms.Ena Singh who happens to be our Assistant Representative at UNFPA India.

Thats our whole team from UNFPA India office.

I will update my profile picture very soon.

Looking forward to share shortly.

Regards

Vandana

How great is this picture I have not seen? Wow!

Laurence, I am confuse! You said my picture should be attached to my profile - that you can see displayed. And you raise concern on few other areas. I really don't want to miss this opportunity of being a member. What do you want me to do precisely?

Dear Laurence,
Thanks so much for the details. I will be more than happy to contribute and learn.

Hi Laurence. I am getting familiar with the site little by little so I really hope you receive this answer back because I am not sure of what I am doing. Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for this welcoming message and that I am looking forward very much to meeting with you and sharing with you all. Lots of besos from Barcelona! Marion

laurence.
it is interesting to read your sharing and expereinces. do continue and i am sure i wil be able to share with you all very soon

lolia

Hi Laurence! Ik ben in Rwanda van 12 tem 26 september voor onderzoek! Constellation is present in Kigali?

Thanks Lau! Ik hoop enkele mensen te kunnen ontmoeten van de constellation!

Hi Laurence,

I'm glad this site and learn a lot of information. I will contribuate whatever I can with my experience.

Regards,

José NDJALI

Salut SALT,
Je vous annonce que la petite BELLEFIE a été orientée depuis hier, au centre AMO CONGO, de N'djili Q/7 et bénéficiera de la prise en charge médicale de ce centre, ceci après la confirmation de test VIH qui a démontré la présence du virus dans son sang.Elle sera donc aujourd'hui à leur centre de kasa vubu pour passer au test déterminant la charge virale, un test CD4 et autres tests, et pourra commencer les ARV qu'après les résultats de ceux-ci.
Ce qui reste maintenant, c'est d'être près de la famille pour la motiver et soutenir du côté nutritionnel et autres, car, il a été demandé à la famille de bien assurer l'alimentation de Bellefie, chose un peu difficile pour la famille, mais sa grand mère a promis qu'elle fera tout malgré sa situation socio économique, et bien vous aussi, vous pouvez la soutenir...Vous, c'est tout celui qui se sent disposer à assister cette fillette de 9 ans qui passe cette année en 3 ième primaire, malgré son état.
Les examens exigés, à kasa vubu, on doit amener 10$, qui semble déjà être difficile à être trouver...
A vous de réagir!
La grand mère de Bellefie vous remercie tous pour ce que vous avez fait pour BELLEFIE!
Qui, maintenant, est entre les mains d'un médecin.
Alain DIBAKANGA
RDCCOMPETENCE

Thanks Laurence :)
shall surely get in touch with John and am sure will gain a lot from his experience !

Salut Salt à toi Laurence Gilliot,
J'ai eu un petit retard pour réagir à ton message, suite à un problème dans le cyber de notre siège...Pour ce qui est de la question que tu m'as posée, ce poème, je l'ai conçu seul, mais, avant qu'il soit présenté dans un spectacle, je l'ai présenté d'abord, à l'assemblée du théâtre Elite du cosmos, notre organisation, là bas, il y a des enfants qui ont paticippé à la critique et à l'enrichissement.
Nous avons dans ce groupe, des enfants à partir de 9 ans qui sont des membres actifs, et interviennent plu dans notre programme DROIT DE L'ENFANT, où nous distribution aussi des rôles propres aux enfants.Leur participation nous est très important et son impact dans nos interventions. Ce poème est aussi acompagné des pièces et chansons dant les principaux acteurs sont des enfants.
Gilliot, s'il te plait, aides moi à mieux utiliser le ning,la plus grande des difficultés, c'est au niveau de joindre le fichier, tel que, joindre ce poème et autres photos. De deux, pour les compétents anglais, j'ai compris qu'il est difficile de mieux s'échanger.
Je sais qe tu arriveras à m'aider là dessus, car, j'ai beaucoup à partager.
Merci
Alain DIBAKANGA

hello Laurence
i went through your mail this morning and it was very encouraging for me to revieve from you though weve not met, came to know that your very strong and committed lady. Hope to meet you someday! Garland Achumi Dimapur, Nagaland

I can do lunch virtually anytime you are free. Looking forward to meeting you.

Thanks Laurence, today I read your comment and getting familiar with Ning :) .... warm wishes from a cold Kashmir! :)

Dear Laurance,
Thanks for ur greeting. I tried to add my photos but unfortunately connection is too bad at Muse, Myanmar. So I can't add my photos. But I think I can add my photos at next 1 or 2 weeks. I'll go to Ching Mai at Nov 8th as SALT visit from Myanmar. SO if possible, I want to meet with u .

we ven't came across personally, yet i know are the chosen one for the people of the world and so is mine. keep your ning on and on.......

thanks!

Thanks and best wishes!
Regards.
R.Gopal.

Thank you and noted!

I'm really impressed by your courage and will. I admire you! I've always dreamed about doing what you do.
Bravo! For so much courage and strenght.

Ps: I love your photos...

I am impressed with your dedication.
I just wanted my blog to be linked and seen,but being less computer literate cud not do.The blog's address is http://aagamritsar-bharti.blogspot.com
I would like you to see in totality and comment and in the same breath extend an invitation to visit Amritsar,some convenient time
Rakesh

Thanks Laurence Gilliot

Regards,
Avnish

Dear Laurence

I am really proud of the news of our group visit together with your SALT team.
And I believe that other group members will be also the same.
Wish you all a happy new year and Merry Xmas.

Best Wishes and Regards
Pa Pa

Dear Laurence;

Siti asked her husband and her daugthers to join her at family day by her office last week. Non of them were interested to join. Her husband even didn't think that its good way spending holiday. Siti again asked them to join but all of them refused. At last Siti said that she appreciate their decision but so sorry thta she had to join the family day at her office because she has team building activity at the act. Siti confirmed me thta her husband was smile and said that: Ok I will be your driver to the family day..!!. That's really surprised Siti. And she felt so happy with this. SALT really eases my life, she said.

Dear Laurence

I do thank you for your motivating responses to my posts. this learns me alot on how to appreciate simple things that really those simple things are in fact big things. another thoughts also :)

Great Laurence.

Dear Laurence:

Based on me why fathers interested in ARH because they care and love youths and after SATL visit they aware that ARH is part of youth life. Why did change happen? It is inclusion it self thta fathers include them self on taking care and loving youths along with better understanding on ARH since this not only deal with healts matter but also deal with other's youth life and attituted and the way youths responce to situation surround them. It's just my thoughts Laurence...

Hi Laurence,
Thank you for prompting me to add a photo. Can you please tell me how to do it after I have chosen the photo in "browse"? I can't seem to find the button!

Saskia

Hi Laurence,
I am still having the same problem. Your instructions to say to click on "choose file" and say nothing about "browse." The configuation I find on the "settings page" has "browse", but no "choose file," so when I have browsed and selected the file I wish to upload, I can find not means by which to "choose" it.
Thanks,
Saskia