Online-Offline-Neighborood-Network

Isn’t it strange, how the internet changes our offline life? I’ve moved into my neighborhood (Capitol Hill in Washington DC – also called “parentville”, because the baby-less are a small minority) a year and a half ago. And while I enjoyed the fact that people great you on the street right away, I didn’t feel [...]

Philosophical and methodological issues

Paolo makes an interesting point below about the research philosophical issues you would run into by developing what he calls Net-Map 0.2. The fact that by rating links following a mechanical rule (depending on their distance to the interview partner) one does not necessarily get closer to meaning and that it might lead us into [...]

Search it in the library, ask the librarian (or ask everyone)?

I’m not that old (or maybe I am) but when I started to study, I was annoyed that they were making us take computer classes because I was convinced that I would never need to use a computer in my work life. This might be why a lot of my analogies that help me understand [...]

What is your profession?

Traveling in Europe last month, introducing my baby to the family meant: I was traveling in the real world, meeting bakers, nurses, administrators and car mechanics. The people who make the world go round and have never heard the word facilitator or thought about things being participatory. If you ask them what their job is, [...]

Thought of the day

It’s the d-tours that teach you about the lay of the land.

Business as usual leads to results as usual

As regular readers know, I love having guest writers on my blog who describe their network mapping experiences and who enrich the discussion about potentials and challenges. The question that Hippolyte asks below reminds me of a network mapping session with American/European researchers and African policy makers. We asked (after mapping out the policy network): [...]

Hippolyte Affognon (ILRI) writes: Implementing knowledge acquired through Social Network Analysis training

Eva Schiffer, an expert in Social Network Analysis (SNA), gave training on SNA on the campus of ILRI Nairobi, Kenya from 13 to 17th October 2008.
After the training we applied the knowledge acquired in many workshops in West Africa to identify relevant and effective pathways for disseminating research results on a BMZ funded project on [...]

If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind,

of what then, is an empty desk? (Albert Einstein)
Triggered by Nancy White’s comment I’m curious about the benefits of mess and stumbled over “A Perfect Mess” (by Eric Abrahamson and David H Freedman), a book about “The hidden benefits of disorder – how crammed closets, cluttered offices, and on-the-fly planning make the world a better [...]

How to find out everything about small reservoirs

If you want to understand the use and usefulness of small reservoirs in developing countries, you need to know about water, landscape, people, agriculture, fisheries, politics etc. etc.
Working with my colleagues of the Small Reservoirs Project (funded by the Challenge Program for Water and Food of the CGIAR), I was often amazed about the [...]

Researcher, Facilitator, Advocate?

I just talked with a colleague who wants to do some Net-Map research about water governance in a big irrigation project in Africa, where commercial interests and small farmer needs clash. She has a number of different goals with her research, ranging from “getting a PhD” through “doing high quality exciting research” to “facilitating a [...]