Knowledge transfer We’re coming to the end of a 2 year programme of work funded by the LDA, working with museums, libraries, archives and business in London to explore ways in which the cultural sector plays, and can play, a role in business transformation and innovation. A book looms.
A living archive During 2009, we’ve worked with the Asian Development Bank to develop a series of core assets and practices, a group of ‘narrative practitioners’ who’ll take the recollections, stories and experiences of current and former ADB people and build these into an active, living presence that breathes the past and present into the future direction of the Bank, helping it bring its 2020 vision into being. We made a book, a CD, a collection of materials to be used to trigger new conversations in different settings and a narrative practitioner training. The book and CD have been included in the 2010 employee engagement strategy.
Tools for employee involvement. We’re working with the Royal Mail to shape something we’re calling a Frontline Involvement Toolkit (FIT kit), equipping frontline managers with tools and techniques to make meetings into satisfying events where responsibilities for what’s said and what happens as a result is shared collectively. This builds on previous work for the Royal Mail on something we called In Their Shoes. You can find a fuller description of the work here. At the moment we’re rolling out both products with a group of managers in the North West Region.
Business narratives. We’re working with the Audit Commission to extend the scope of fieldwork into strategic financial management and governance, using a series of business narrative workshops to find the quieter stories and anecdotes that illuminate the more formal case studies that are being gathered.
A data-driven knowledge strategy. We’re working with the World Health Organisation to redevelop the knowledge strategy for emergency response in health, reversing the normal strategy development to build a strategy up from experiences in the field. For this we recently visited Darfur and we’re using that trip also to explore the overlooked narrative, participation and knowledge possibilities in running missions.
Meeting, participation and assembly. We’re also working with the WHO on a two month work/learning project that’s enquiring into new forms of meeting, assembly and participation. We’ll be writing more about this as the project gets up and running.
Knowledge strategy. Later this year we’ll be kicking off a knowledge strategy for the Caribbean Development Bank and we’ll say a bit more about that nearer the time.
Conferences and presentations. There’s quite a bit going on here. Victoria is off to Washington to the Golden Fleece in April, with David Gunn of Incidental who we worked with on the ADB CD. Then in June, she’s chairing the Ark km conference in London, and in September giving the keynote at the Origins storytelling conference being run by Patrick Lambe and Shawn Callahan in Singapore. In May, Philip and Chris will also be presenting the Royal Mail work at a communications conference in London.