Conditions and Functions of an Informal

Conditions and Functions of an Informal
International Knowledge Network



Considerations for ICT Support

4
th

Metaphorum Conference

St. Gallen, March 9
-
10, 2007

Jan Jacobs

Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
-
10, 2007

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1

4

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The International Knowledge Network (IKN)

Functions of the network

Functions of communication

Specific conditions of ICT use

IKN experiences and strategies

Overview

Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007

The International Knowledge Network for Sustainable Development (IKN)


Participants: academics and practitioners from all continents.


All active in some field of sustainable development.


IKN columns:


Research


Education


Application in practice


International exchange and network building


Personal and institutional capacity building.


IKN ideology:


Exchange and cooperation in partnership.


Participatory development, considering from sociocultural conditions and endogenous
resources.


Coordinators: Prof. Werner Siebel and Stefan Wolf (Berlin), and Prof. Osvaldo Romero
(Sancti Spiritus, Cuba)

Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007

The International Knowledge Network for Sustainable Development (IKN)

IKN projects (examples):


Training of Nicaraguan community representatives in Cuba, to become multipliers of
applicable knowledge of renewable energies.


ARCA
-
Net summer schools and regional conferences (as consortial partner).


Master and doctoral thesis projects.


El Pan Alegre: integrated waste management, bio gas, and nutrition project.


Community development in Mongolia.


Intense bio gas research cooperation.


…



Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
-
10, 2007

The International Knowledge Network for Sustainable Development (IKN)

Informality and personal ties:


Easy access and integration of new potential partners


No clear limit of participant group


Projects emerge through IKN and are supported by it, but do not necessarily belong to the IKN


Each project
in the context of

the IKN is individual:


Group of participants and partners


Responsibilities


Formal institutional base


Financing


Formal institutions:


TU Berlin project group under Prof. Siebel, and



other universities and professor positions.


Inter
-
university cooperation agreements


NGO AgEnt e.V.

Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007

IKN Communication

IKN Communication


Resembles personal character and informality.


Mainly along personal ties or within project / meeting groups.


Hardly any communication of the coordinators to all participants / contacts.


Hardly any communication among all participants.


Media


Face
-
to
-
face personal / group meetings.


E
-
Mail to one or many recipients (no mailing tools).


Telephone / VoIP / Instant Messaging.


IKN and AgEnt information flyers.


Internet forum of Berlin group in 2003.


Internet use since 2005
-
> see below.


Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007

IKN Network Functions

Conceptual Division between Network and Projects:



The network…


…is mainly informal and consists of personal ties.


…is open to new people and ideas.


…has no clear group of members. People participate in different ways and different and
changing degrees of involvement.



The projects that emerge in the network…


…have a clearer group of participants.


…have more specific goals.


…require personal commitment and responsibility.


…need to acquire their own funding.


…might get legally formalized.

Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007

IKN Network Functions

How does the IKN network make possible and support concrete projects?

Through…


…the brokering of trustful personal connections.


…the mediation of other resources.


…the dissemination of information.


…the provision of identity.


How do the projects help develop the network?


Participants get in contact and develop trustful relations on the occasions of concret
cooperations.


The IKN’s identity and perspectives develop through its experiences in activities.

Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007

Functions of Communication

What communication is needed to provide the network functions?


External
-
> open internal
-
> confidential internal communication.


External communication


Attractive and comprehensive presentation of the IKN


Contact info.


Idealy, short presentation of ongoing activity.

Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007

Functions of Communication

Open internal communication


Involves members as well as new / potential participants.


Concerns ongoing and potential activities, ideas, experiences, useful information…


More one
-
to
-
all and all
-
to
-
all communication should support and complement, not
replace, communication through personal connections.


Confidential group communication


Need for good knowledge of each other, including cultural backgrounds and institutional
conditions.


Need for frequent reassurance of the others’ motivations, intentions, and
understandings.


Need for detailed discussions and for coping with conflicts.


Collaborative work on documents and data collection.


Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007

Conditions of ICT use


No money for commercial solutions & limited own programming knowledge


Use publicly available, easy
-
to
-
use technologies.


Some participants have very slow computers and internet connections.


Use technologically simple solutions.


No coordinator or other person with much time for website editing and maintenance.


Shared or distributed responsibility for website and subpages.


No single common language, but many multilingual participants.


Tools should support many languages.


Neutrality regarding the language of the contents.


Sort
-
by
-
language function.

Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007

Conditions of ICT use (Cont.)


Openness and gradual limits of IKN communication sphere


Content should be as public as possible, but as confidential as necessary.


Different levels of accessibility / confidentiality


Personal user account


Easy and non
-
bureaucratic creation of user accounts.


All participation and communication is voluntary


ICT must convince participants. No use can be commanded.


IKN has been acting and communicating for years.


New solutions must be non
-
exclusive to existing technologies and practices.


Offer a communication tool kit.

Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007

IKN Experiences and Strategies

My analysis and our discussions led to a concept for an integrated Internet Platform for
Information and Communication, in the summer of 2005.

Since then, we have not succeeded in implementing such a platform.


Change in perspective:


Away from a ‘solution’, thought of as a state or integrated platform.


Towards a process of trial and error and
–

hopefully
–

overall improvement.


Process of communication improvement characterized by overlapping, recursive activities:


Discussions among the IKN participants: what are information and communication
problems and potentials? What could be solutions?


Individual or small group experimentation with technologies. Implementing technologies
for use in the IKN.


Motivating IKN participants to use new technologies. Developing new information and
communication practices. Making experiences with technologies in practice.


Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
-
10, 2007

Discussing communication problems, needs, and potentials



Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007

Small group experimentation with technologies. Implementing
technologies for use in IKN.



Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007

Developing new information and communication practices

Motivating IKN participants to use new technologies.

Making experiences with technologies in practice.


Our new attempt is to use a patchwork of simple and available technologies:


E
-
Mail


Instant

Messaging

and

VoIP

through

Skype,

MSN

Messenger

et

cetera


Yahoo!

Group


Unfinished

Drupal

content

management

system
.


A

simple

static

HTML

website
.


Free

blogs,

e
.
g
.

on

blogger
.
com
.


File

storage

and

exchange

systems,

e
.
g
.

BSCW
.


Simple

content

management

system,

e
.
g
.

Joomla
.


…


Jan Jacobs

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4th Metaphorum Conference, St. Gallen, March 9
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10, 2007

Thank you for your attention!


http://home.arcor.de/anjamocker/ikn/index_ikn_eng.html