Since 2011, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) has been organizing various training courses on social media, communication and knowledge management, with the brand name ‘Komms Klinics‘.

Looking back

In 2011, the various sessions were organized for staff to get acquainted with different communication and social media  tools they could use in their research work, such as Yammer, iGoogle, wikis, blogging among others.

Last year the focus shifted away from tools and sessions were organized around six blocks of communication and knowledge management. These included:

• Engaging audiences in our research (see the presentation)
• Organizing effective events and conversations (see the presentation)
• Public awareness (see the presentation)
• Finding and managing information (see the presentation)
• Working with multimedia (see the presentation)
• Publishing and design (see the presentation)

Facilitated and organized by the ILRI communications team, the idea was to help participants understand the value of communication in research and how they can apply it in their work. The sessions were web streamed to other ILRI offices around the world. More than 150 ILRI and hosted institutions’ staff participated in them.

Evaluations conducted after each session revealed areas to improve including: quality of the sound especially when web streaming the sessions; targeted sessions instead of general audiences; more practical hands-on ‘tools’ sessions rather than theoretical presentations.

Plans in 2013

We are drawing lessons from past cycles to organize a better cycle this year. A survey aims to gather a more solid feedback and recommendations for improvement. A new set of klinics will kick off in the second quarter of this year.

If you attended a Komms Klinic in 2012, please share your feedback.

For 2013, we anticipate to focus on communication tools training,  for instance, repackaging our existing materials and incorporating content from the social media guide for African climate change practitioners.

More information

• Keep updated about upcoming sessions on the Komms Klinics training wiki, on ILRI’s Yammer (restricted access), on our Google Calendar, and on posters across ILRI campuses.
• See all Komms Klinics ever organized on this ILRI training wiki page.
• To join a session or for more information, contact Tsehay Gashaw or Ewen Le Borgne in Addis Ababa, Angeline Nekesa or Evelyn Katingi in Nairobi.
• See the communications tools used across ILRI
• ILRI staff: Find answers to ILRI communication questions at http://ilri-comms.wikispaces.com