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At the beginning of April, Knowledge Managers from diverse backgrounds travelled to Geneva to witness the formal inauguration of the Knowledge for Development (K4D) Partnership and to honor the UN Joint Inspection Unit’s (JIU) report on Knowledge Management in the United Nations system. There was a broad consensus that the lack of ways to measure impact inhibits the potential of knowledge management and that the community needs to raise awareness for the importance of KM in preventing reinventions of the wheel.

By Natalie Frei, SDC

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“The play button is the most compelling call to action on the web” says Michael Litt, CEO and co-founder of Vidyard, a platform hosting business video content for distribution to websites and social channels. Not very surprising quote considering his position, you may say. But the success of the company reflects also the importance of video not only in marketing but also in other forms of communication. In this blog post, we want to have a closer look at the benefits of video in communication and introduce Lightbulb – a new format for sharing new and innovative learning experiences of SDC collaborators, units and networks. By Leonie Pock

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In SDC learning is taking place in the networks – learning about approaches, about experiences and about good practices. The networks meet regularly in f2f-events in order to engage in this learning. But does it have an effect? What is the outcome of these events? By Beverly Wenger-Trayner, co-author of the Value Creation Framework

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We made stories. Making stories is great learning. This we know, this we experienced. Using stories is the next step. In knowledge communication there are many options to integrate digital stories into sharing and learning processes.  In this blog post we collected 11 ½ ideas for you how to use your story or stories created by your colleagues.

Carmen Eckert, Leonie Pock and Nadia von Holzen, SDC (more…)

Behind each story there is another story. Our stories are connected. So is the story about the Mongolian herders connected with Udval, a young leader supporting herder communities in Western Mongolia. Udval uses participatory video to give the herders voice and to support their sharing and learning. Soyolmaa Dolgor, communication specialist working for SDC Mongolia, travelled with Udval to Tsetseg soum, Khovd province to document her meeting with the herders’ community.

Soyolmaa Dolgor, SDC Mongolia

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Alfonso Flores is a networker. He definitely has a networked mindset when he has the idea to connect his Latin America team with the Learning & Networking team based in Switzerland. After having participated in the digital storytelling workshop organized by the Learning & Networking team, his aim is to bring not only the idea of short digital stories back to his colleagues, he also wants to connect them with the Swiss team. To do so he asks the Learning & Networking team members to explain their services in short video statements. And what he shares back to the Swiss team is this blog post.

 Alfonso Flores Bermúdez, SDC Nicaragua (more…)

In 2008 Maria del Carmen Alarcón Lizón started working as communication specialist with the SDC Cooperation Office in Bolivia. Over these years the communication approach within SDC Latin America has evolved from diffusion of information to a more integrative and participatory approach putting communication in the service of programmes and projects. An essential factor in this shift to communication for development (C4D) was sharing and learning among the communication practioners in SDC, for example in the communication network Redcolatina. A manual named “Comunicación para el Desarrollo – Una guía práctica” is the tangible result of this cooperation. 

Maria del Carmen Alarcón Lizón, SDC Bolivia (more…)

The end of an assignment offers a great opportunity for reflection.  Carsten Schulz shares some of his “take away points” as Team Leader with Georgian experts in a market systems development project. He underlines the importance of creating, using and sharing knowledge in a project context. “Knowledge is like a garden: if it’s not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.” A sharing and learning culture needs to be cultivated and cared for by the leader and requires action and engagement of all team members.

Carsten Schulz, currently working for GIZ in Armenia (more…)

Let’s create learning events that really generate motivation and impulses for our work! This blog post suggests three approaches how to plan for more inspiring and powerful events: ask more than you tell; inquire one case deeply; and make it a learning experience for all senses.

Corinne Sprecher, Agridea

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Like many other organisations working in International Development Cooperation DFID has the challenge to enhance the cooperation and sharing between teams and to break the “silos”, to ensure the transparency about what is going on, to strengthen the sharing of experiences and the learning from each other. Always with the aim of becoming more effective and making the best use of the resources and to create – where possible – synergies.

By Charlotte Nager, SDC

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For Beverly Wenger-Trayner, social learning- and network-specialist, social learning starts with negotiating what to learn. Therefore, the very crucial questions that a Community of Practice or a network has to answer for itself are: What is it all about; what do we want to get better at, and why do people join and engage? Learning creates value for the community and each member. ”Value stories” are best suited to make the benefit visible.

By Charlotte Nager, SDC (more…)

“It is fundamental to have conversations with each other.” These are the words of David Gurteen, the founder of the Knowledge Café. A Knowledge Café is a simple process allowing people to engage in meaningful conversations to have deeper insights, to understand issues that are complex and challenging and to be in the position to make better decisions.

By Kuno Schläfli, Mirjam Walser and Nadia von Holzen, SDC (more…)

The SDC Learning & Networking Blog is about sharing and learning. Every speaker and participant at the 2015 Leaders Forum wanted to both share and learn beyond the forum’s rapid-fire 15 minute presentation format. Sharing and learning require a degree of courage and persistence. At the outset of the dialogue, Doris Leuthard and Yolanda Kakabadse explicitly instructed all participants to discard bashfulness and “Be a pain” to senior speakers and officials during breaks. This open invitation to debate was enthusiastically accepted and insight-fuelled discussions coursed throughout the corridors during breaks.

By Lawrence McGrath, Institute for Media and Communications Management of the University of St. Gallen (more…)

Desperate about your search results with Google? Results are tailored to who you are, based on your saved search history and click history. But there is a means of escape: DuckDuckGo

 By Simone Decorvet, SDC

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We all have the right to privacy, even in the Internet. But it seems that privacy is incompatible with Open Data, Social Media and high speed Internet connection. Hooray! Here are some basic options to protect your privacy. By Simone Decorvet, SDC

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 The Gender Equality Network as well as the Agriculture and Food Security Network decided to organize their face-to-face (f2f) events in the same week June 2nd to 6th and to have a joint program during three of the five f2f days. The joint days were especially important to demonstrate with practical examples how gender equity in a natural way is always part of any social reality. Felix Fellmann, SDC Agriculture & Food Security Focalpoint

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Did you know that today more than 40.5 million new blog posts go online every month? That’s about 1.3 million each day in an average month. In fact, every 60 seconds 60 new blogs are created worldwide. And over 409 million people view more than 14.4 billion blog pages each month. So what does that mean for you, the aspiring blogstar? Christina Stucky, Head Communication Management Unit, Media and Communication Trainer, SDC

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In January 2013 we blogged: “A blog is conversation.“  And that’s what we had: conversation. 32 bloggers – guests, SDC colleagues and team members – contributed their thoughts and observations the whole year through. We jointly wrote 42 blog posts. And 60% of our posts received comments from you dear readers. Thank you! Also in 2014 we blog for being in conversation with you. For us bloggers, each blog post is a learning moment. Blog writing is digestion time. Reflection is vital.
Nadia von Holzen, SDC (more…)

Face to face meetings are magic moments in a network’s life, full of life, interaction and social weaving. How can networks hold this vibrancy after the face to face meetings? “By creating a virtual face to face ambience,” says Hynek Bures. “With the Internet and today’s social media your colleague actually sits next door.”

By Hynek Bureš, dubbed perceptions

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For the SCO Macedonia the networks of SDC are an important tool for learning and sharing. The exchange with peers and the joint reflection of practices is stimulating, instructive and rewarding. Even as lurkers – as the time constraints limit sometimes proactive participation – the benefit is high. And the networks are shaped and co-owned by its members; this makes them so valuable.

Ibrahim Mehmeti with contributions from the SCO Macedonia team (more…)

Have you ever thought about starting to twitter? Are you still wondering how Twitter works? Then this  2‘53‘’ video is the right starting point. It explains the basics.

By Nadia von Holzen, SDC with the support of Nadja Schnetzler, Word and Deed; Nadejda Loumbeva, Helvetas-Intercooperation; Daniel Stoller-Schai LerNetz (more…)

Shared leadership is at the source of the drive and the dynamic of the Swiss Knowledge Management Think Table. At the last meeting at ILO in Geneva, the members experienced and reflected the meaning of shared leadership in a playful way. (more…)

This blog entry looks back to the face-to-face meetings held in 2012.
14 members of 5 SDC networks remember them one year later as inspiring moments for networking and new thinking. Concrete action steps resulted from these gatherings. (more…)

The crew of the Swiss Cooperation Office (SCO) Moldova is member in several networks of the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC). They are engaged and sometimes busy absorbing the wealth of information coming from networks. The team has expectations but also a few ideas how to tame the information beast and how to make networking time more valuable. (more…)

With „Creating images in mind and memory“ we start a new blog series. We reflect what images and metaphors can do. We promote that images and metaphors belong to every facilitator’s toolbox. (more…)