Rural Water Supplies Collaborative: Best Ways to Build Social Collaboration (August 2011)

8/6/2019 Rural Water Supplies Collaborative: Best Ways to Build Social Collaboration (August 2011)

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SMARTLESSONS AUGUST 2011 1

The Water Partnership Program(WPP) provided unding or

the Rural Water SuppliesCollaborative (RWSC).

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

ELIZABETH L. KLEEMEIERis a Senior Water Supply and

Sanitation Specialist in theWorld Banks Water Anchor,Sustainable DevelopmentNetwork Vice Presidency. Shemanages the content o RWSC.

JOY KAZADIhas a part-time position asSocial Collaboration consultantin the Water Anchor. She isalso a graduate student inCommunications at Universityo Maryland.

APPROVING MANAGERSusanne Scheierling is theActing Manager o the WaterAnchor.

Rural Water Supplies Collaborative:Best Ways to Build Social Collaboration

The Water Anchor manages a group called the Rural Water SuppliesCollaborative (RWSC) on Scoop, the World Banks internal social collaboration

platform. 1 RWSC is widely admired and has the trappings of success: lots of activity, large group membership, and a group space that is consistently oneof the most visited on Scoop. But genuine success? Not yet. This SmartLessonexplains how RWSC achieved the success it enjoys, but also why it representsonly a baby step in the direction of meaningful social collaboration.

Background

RWSC was conceived during the 2010 WaterWeek in a session co-hosted by the RuralWater Supply Thematic Group and the GlobalPractice Team or Rural Water Supply. Sta

rom the Water Anchor, in the BanksSustainable Development Network Vice-Presidency, volunteered to set up and managethe group. The original idea was to create avirtual space to discuss a proposed joint study.The study idea died, but the group space livedon as a orum to expand pro essional networksand knowledge-sharing on rural water supplyissues.

The current goal is to supplement, notsupplant, ace-to- ace networking and liveattendance at learning events. Those kinds opersonal interaction are antastic, but theopportunities or them are limited, especially

or Country O ce sta . Even Headquarterssta can attend relatively ew Brown BagLunch (BBL) presentations and other learningevents due to work pressures and schedulingconficts. Personal networking over lunch andco ee is alive and well in Washington, butthat too is limited. O ten those kinds opersonal contacts keep people within the siloso their normal work environment. Somethingelse is needed to oster broader contacts.

Virtual networking and learning cancomplement the traditional approaches.

1 Scoop is similar to the IFCs iCollaborate. All World BankGroup sta can access Scoop and RWSC at: http://commu-nity.worldbank.org/pg/groups/78111/rural-water-studies-collaborative/ . Typing rwsc in the address bar will workon the Banks Intranet, but not on that o the IFC.

Going virtual makes opportunities available24/7 to all Bank o ces, and encourages stato let their interests and expertise be knownto the rest o the community through writtencontributions to discussion threads.

With this goal vaguely in mind, RWSC wasestablished in April 2010. Numerous initiativesto build the RWSC community werespectacular ailures. For instance, RWSCarranged two big events with ood, drink, andcomputers to demonstrate RWSC and getpeople to join the group on the spot.Relatively ew people attended, and even

ewer bothered to look at RWSC.

However, by April 2011, RWSC had the mostmonthly page views o the 597 Scoop groups,and has consistently rated among the top vegroups on this metric since late 2010. At 167members, RWSC is also one o the largerScoop groups. Below are the top ve lessonswe learned about promoting a socialcollaboration group or a sector communityo practice interested in rural water issues.

Lessons Learned

1) Hire a talented social collaborationmanager

The grand myth o social collaboration groupsis that they will manage themselves, becausemembers can upload their own materials.That works about as well as never cleaningthe o ce re rigerator because everyone will

AUGUST 2011
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2 SMARTLESSONS AUGUST 2011

clean up a ter themselves. RWSC has two managers: onespecialized in content, and the other to look a ter themechanics o the groups collaboration. The rural watersupply specialist in the Water Anchor manages content byidenti ying issues, people, projects, and publications thatshould be brought to the communitys attention. Thats

airly typical or Scoop groups. The distinctive eature oRWSC lies in having a collaboration manager.

The collaboration manager enhances RWSC in three ways.Firstly, the group space has more content, more variedcontent, and better organized content as a result. Secondly,the social collaboration manager osters all kinds ooutreach activities. Implementing the next two lessons in

act depends on having a social collaboration manager toimplement themthe workload is just too great otherwise.Thirdly, beauty counts. The collaboration manager devotesconsiderable time to the graphic design o the RWSC spaceand associated materials (e-mails, publications, printedmaterials, and so on). Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the high

aesthetic quality o RWSC products. Even the SustainableDevelopment Network Vice-President sent an e-mail sayinghow much she liked the newsletter in Figure 1. Surely parto the reason it caught her eye was the visual impact.

The position o social collaboration manager requires talentand dedication rather than ormal quali cations and jobhistory. It is an entry-level, part-time position or someonewith a great graphic or artistic sense and an aptitude orlearning and using so tware applications. The WaterAnchor has hired one collaboration manager or 150 days ayear to support its growing number o thematic groups andcommunities o practice, six o which have Scoop groups.

2) Buy a camcorder and swivel tripod

The video clips and multimedia presentations on RWSCmake it stand out and have contributed to the increase inthe number o users. Figure 2 next page provides anillustrative example o how these are incorporated into a

Figure 1: Excerpt rom the May 2011 RWSC NewsletterThe newsletters are distributed by e-mail. Their purpose is not to provide in ormation, but to entice readers to visit RWSC by clicking onthe links. Good graphic design is part o the enticement. Readers particularly like photos.


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discussion post. Clicking on the image starts the videotapedinterview with Max Hirn, an RWSC member. Other links inthe posting go to a videotaped presentation, a Post-EventPresenter (PEP) talk by Max, and a pro essionally produced

lm on his work in Liberia on rural water point mapping.

A camcorder makes these short video clips possible (alongwith a collaboration manager to do most o the work). The

rst videos were recorded by the Audio-Visual Departmentduring presentations. That is airly expensive and limitsrecording to rooms equipped with cameras. A camcorderand tripod cost less than one pro essional recording, andmake it possible to lm small and in ormal presentations onshort notice. Now Country O ce sta can have access tomore o the impromptu networking and knowledge-sharing that goes on in Headquarters. The camcorder alsoopens up the opportunity to lm peoples comments. Thatreally expanded RWSC content. People are much morewilling to be lmed in their o ces talking about a topic or510 minutes, than to write a post or a blog on the sametopic.

A camcorder turns out to be a better technology choicethan a fipcam, because the battery li e on a camcorder islonger and it can work with a real tripod. In act, the tripodis critical. To lm group discussions and question-and-answer periods, one needs an adjustable height tripod withan arm to swivel the camera toward each person as she orhe speaks.

3) Use e-mails to pull people to the site

RWSC sends out a monthly newsletter by e-mail about everysix weeks. 2 Unlike a typical newsletter, the purpose is not toin orm, but to tease. The idea is not to give people a summaryo the RWSC content in the newsletter. Rather, it is to getpeople onto RWSC in order to have discussions.

There ore, the newsletter comprises very short paragraphsabout new content with a link that takes the reader directlyto a discussion, presentation, blog, or other material on2 The newsletter employs humor strategically. For example, the newsletter al-ways contains a short paragraph encouraging people to join RWSC, with a link to a cartoon on the space. The security setting is fxed to allow only membersto see the cartoon. Dilbert is particularly good or increasing membership.

Figure 2: The Social Collaboration Manager enables RWSC to have more content, more varied content, and betterorganized content The Social Collaboration Manager flmed, edited, and posted to RWSC this interview with a RWSC member visiting rom Nairobi. Themanager also inserted links to other materials on RWSC on the same topic, including an integrated video and PowerPoint presentation(PEP talk) that she produced.


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4 SMARTLESSONS AUGUST 2011

RWSC. Figure 1 gives an example rom the May 2011newsletter. Each photo o a water supply manager is a link toa short video o him discussing the challenges acing ruralwater supply. A member can ask a question or make acomment by posting it in the Comment box under each videoclip.

A second type o e-mail relates to Learning Events Online(LEOs), which the RWSC managers developed as a supplementto BBLs. A LEO comprises a videotaped presentation orremarks on a topic rom several people, along with otherrelevant materials such as Web sites, blogs, and documents.The video clips and other materials are posted to RWSC, withlinks and an explanation o the topic distributed in an e-mail.A LEO e-mail resembles the BBL announcements that Banksta receive several times a day, but with the di erence thatthe presentations and in ormation are immediately availableon RWSC. The Question & Answer period and discussion,however, un old over the period o a week or more, as peoplepost their comments and others respond. Figure 3 shows thetop portion o the rst LEO, or which the topic wassmartphones and water point mapping. This e-mail and LEOled to a large spike in membership, page views, and postings.

4) Make it about the members

Unlike a Web site, RWSC cannot succeed simply by makingin ormation available to viewers. The goal is exchange oin ormation: networking, and knowledge-sharing amongsta . There ore, RWSC has to help sta get to know eachother: their interests, areas o expertise, and projectexperience. Also, sta have to come away eeling thatin ormation-sharing is positive and worthwhile, that theire orts in this regard will be appreciated and recognizedand will have some kind o impact. Without that personalmotivation, knowledge-sharing is not going to happen.

RWSC is advancing toward this goal in baby steps. Onestep has been to show appreciation when people join orcomment. A mouse pad is sent to every group memberwho uploads a picture or his or her pro le (which thenappears next to all that persons postings). Whenmembers make a major e ort, such as writing a blog orparticipating in a video, they get a fash drive. Those whocontribute any kind o posting are rewarded with a pen.This may sound gimmicky, but members do express theirthanks and appreciation or these little tokens orecognition.

Figure 3: Excerpt rom the e-mail announcing the rst LEO, RWSCs alternative to a BBL In addition to the video clip o the guest speaker, this LEO (Learning Event Online) included a blog, videotaped remarks by severaldiscussants, and Web sites. All the material was posted on RWSC, with links provided in this e-mail. The LEO caused a signifcant jumpin RWSC membership, page views and posts.


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participants to continue the discussion onRWSC. This served to bring the people mostinterested in the topic to RWSC. Thequestions were very speci c, a littleprovocative, and tied to the discussions thathad begun during the live events.

Conclusion

The attention and praise given to RWSC havebeen grati ying. This has been due mostly tothe look o the RWSC group space, and themany associated activities such as the e-mails.Social collaboration on RWSC has beengoodbut unevenas the last lessonexplained.

The next activities will concentrate less on theRWSC space per se, and more on building tieswithin the community o members. This workwill begin with a surveyplus many phonecallsto nd out the services that memberswant rom the Water Anchor, the types olearning events and topics that they areinterested in, and so orth. What we know orsure now is this: its all about the members.

DISCLAIMERSmartLessons is an awardsprogram to share lessons learnedin development-oriented advisoryservices and investmentoperations. The ndings,interpretations, and conclusionsexpressed in this paper are thoseo the author(s) and do notnecessarily refect the views o IFCor its partner organizations, theExecutive Directors o The WorldBank or the governments theyrepresent. IFC does not assumeany responsibility or thecompleteness or accuracy o thein ormation contained in thisdocument. Please see the termsand conditions at www.i c.org/smartlessons or contact theprogram at smartlessons@i c.org.

A more recent step has been to change thetone o the newsletter. It now ocuses ondescribing what members are doing onRWSC and elsewhere. The newsletterexcerpted in Figure 1 illustrates how this isdone. Photos and names eatureprominently. The text is short, and the mainmessage is about what members are doing.(For example, Christophe and Motaleb havecommented on Mings remarks).

RWSC Quick Reads, a brie ng notes series,will give urther credit to RWSC members ortheir knowledge-sharing. A Quick Read is a4-page synopsis o a major discussion thattook place on RWSC, produced as a means tosummarize the major points and providelinks back to the most important in ormationthat was shared. Everyone who participatedin the original discussion is listed as anauthor, and the two RWSC members whopeer-review the note are also prominentlyacknowledged.

5) Find good discussion topics

Figuring out what questions and topics willspark responses turns out to be quite di cult.Most discussion topics have allen fat, in thesense that no one posts any comments.

The spectacular exception was the discussionaround water point mapping using mobilephones. This was the subject o the rst LEO,which comprised 1 blog and 2 video clips onRWSC. Twenty-one people participated inthe discussion. The blog got 9 comments,one o the videos received 21 comments, andthe other got 12. Two new discussion threadswere started with a total o 7 comments.

Packaging the material on water pointmapping as a LEO got people to RWSC, but itwas the topic itsel that inspired onlinecomments. The secret ingredient in this topicseems to be the obvious utility andwidespread applicability o the technology,and that knowledgeable people wereavailable to answer questions throughRWSC.3

Other success ul discussion threads have notelicited as many postings, but the answers tothe questions posed have been thorough andthought ul. In these cases, the questions allstemmed rom ace-to- ace learning eventsand webinars by Water Anchor and Waterand Sanitation Program rural water supplyspecialists. The presenters speci cally asked

3 In act, the LEO discussants reported receiving a waveo e-mails. The managers posted an appeal requestingmembers to use RWSC to ask questions, rather than bur-dening the discussants with individual queries via e-mail.

Documents

Rural Water Supplies Collaborative: Best Ways to Build Social Collaboration (August 2011)