How does one deal with resistence to change in Government?

In a recent project on computerisation in a government ministry, I had the chance to see the functioning of the various officials, be it senior IAS Officers/ Bureacrats or that of the officers at the junior levels, there is immense resistence that one can see in the day to day operations.

Take for example, if we were to deal with keeping the work place congenial and pleasant, it requires that the seniors (in designation, but could be junior in age) must deal people with respect. But in the government, what one sees is that people have become insolent and impertinent to seniors, due to the scenario of being insulted, not recognized for the hard work they put in.

Given that the Ministry is planning a computerisation programme that will span next five years, and the programme will undergo many changes, both technically and as Government Process Re-engineering, New ways of knowledge sharing and communications are to be introduced, people to be trained, and leadership celebrated.

These, and other change management strategies are being worked out and I am delighted to be an important strategic consultant for this! See more posts on Change management and capacity building from me here on.

Creating one's own archives

Search Engines can only find what has been stored and indexed well. Even clever engines like Google are not able to find a number of my publications. I know that if we indexed them well with proper keywords etc, they will get accessible.

Wonder if anyone has faced the problems like I have, and then begun to organise their own writings to be put on the archives. I have for example work that was published before the birth of the Internet.

But, since this was published in a research journal, Springer, they have archived the content in a pdf. And Google Scholar (beta) was able to detect it. But there are whole lot of work that exists which is not online. So, one can imagine, if all of us just began to retrieve, index and organise our own works, we might create a new bundle of knowledge.

Check out this paper (lot of science, I am afraid) and my move from the Environmental Physiology to ICT4D and Knowledge Sharing domains!

http://www.springerlink.com/content/lm67852m62n60u21/fulltext.pdf

Are all agricultural reseach institutions talking to each other? Can icts help in Knowledge sharing?

When I attended the sessions of eAgriculture at eINDIA 2009, what amazed me was the intense and critical research work being done by various reseach institutions on the one hand were sharing amidst peers, but little was being done for knowledge sharing. Their value could enhance tremendously if they collaborated and promoted knowledge sharing amongst scientists of other institutes, extension activities could be enhanced through effective use of ICTs.

120000 extension workers are working in India. ICT makes information and knoweldge and networks accessible. the UN solution Exchange is an excellent example of the impactful kind of work. http://www.un-solutionexchange.org

Three critical values of Knowledge Sharing especially using ICT4d

In the last decade and over that I have been engaged in knowledge sharing activities that brings various practitioners, experts and domain persons come together to interact, learn, share knowledge and experiences, I have noticed that the role of the facilitator is very important. It is so important that it can make or mar a communities strength. A lot of energy and investments of time, effort and sincerity are made to make it possible for a moderator or facilitator of a community to build and nurture an online community.

While working on various aspects of this theme, and having myself moderated a number of discussion groups, and having lead the programme management of CoP, I have learnt that there are three key and critical values of knowledge sharing.

Free knowledge sharing happens only when there is a free flow of knowledge, experiences and events; narratives are told, only when one feels comfortable and respected, and finally, the virtual community needs to accord immense trust with the person sharing as well as the knowledge shared.

The situation becomes even more complex when one tries to look at the features more carefully:
- trust
- will
- sincerity

The online world comprises of spaces that are out there in the open, and one is treading unfamiliar paths. Our minds are not so easily tuned in to "new spaces" and "open spaces". Thus, it is important that the community defines its space, sets its rules collectively, and honours it, keeping in mind the culturally plural nature of virtual spaces.

It is thus important to build the three core critical values.

Even in organisations working on lofty goals and working in new domains, the same philosophy holds good.

What happens when a team gets demotivated?

When team members put in their very very best and then the management does not take cognizance of it, it puts off the team members. The demotivation can be due to lack of timely acknowledgement of the contributions made, not providing sufficient motivational career growth opportunities, delays in providing recognition, incentives and bonuses...

The worst is when one's contribution is only measured in the quantum of money brought in ... i mean when only marketing department's productivity is seen or is visible... but NOT ONE of the contribution of the content or knowledge team is recognized...
This is the biggest and most tragic of the circumstances.

It is happening.. But it is important for people to know that this demotivation will make good people leave, and the organisations will be left with mediocrity that will soon bring down the brand value of an organisation.

More on this subject...

Communities of Practice - eINDIA 2008 an event to remember

Working to engage with the stakeholders of a thematic community, and developing a collective agenda that works as one of the thematic tracks of the eINDIA 2008 conference, the fourth in the series of annual events organised by Centre for Science, Development, and Media Studies was the most enriching experience in the last four-five months of intense preparations.

Now that the conference is over, its time to reflect and look back at the learnings. The opportunity to bring together face to face, at single location, experts and practitioners from all over the country, and also a few guests from outside India (almost 35 countries) provides a space for multiplying the energy and ethos of knowledge sharing, where ideas flow like water in the river, and where no barriers are hard to overcome.

This was the state of affairs at India's largest ICT4D event held in Pragati Maidan from July 29-31, 2008. The way and processes involved in bringing together partners from different verticals, from different academic backgrounds and experiences make it all appear like an easy task. But it was not. The unique strength of the event was that it proved to be a delicate balancing job of bringing the voices of different ecosystem players in a way that make ownership of the event large, and varied but one that was unifying.

The exhibition was also very unique in that it showcased products, institutions, initiatives, services all under one roof.

The best part: over 10,000 foot falls in three days! This was 2.5 times higher than what we had projected. The logistics team led by Vicky Kalra, and supported by Ajit Kumar and Bharti Malhotra, and various other staff of CSDMS and eLets technomedia private limited were worth noting. They made it look like a cakewalk! Kudos to them.

More with pictures when I get around to sorting over 18 DVDs recording the events.

Jaya

Telecentre Magazine's third issue is out!

Juanita, Vignesh and Jaya (self) have been delighted to work on this current issue of telecentre Magazine, our third issue since the conceptualisation of this magazine.

As a key ICT4D knowledge sharing tool, the idea was really born out of informal conversations between Mark Surman and Ravi, Jaya and Frank Tulus, Richard Fuchs and Ravi, about the need to really do an indepth analysis and research publication for the telecentre community.

The challenges that most grassroots telecentre leaders face is their difficulty in telling a story. Its often difficult to write and even more difficult to publish. Narration is the first part of the active documentation, but the vision of telecentre magazine is to make it a "Economist" of the telecentre domain.

Let's all celebrate this collective vision between telecentre.org and CSDMS.