1.
Online collaboration:
Back to the future
Peter Ballantyne
km4dev knowledge café, 21 May 2020

2.
Outline
1. Some history
… eConferencing, eCollaboration, workspaces, dgroups
2. Dgroups today
… a,b,c,d
3. Your help needed

3.
Some [personal] history . . .
1989 – remote electronic meetings (among cgiar people)
1998 – ‘watsan’ think tank and knowledge sharing pilot of World Bank;
with: WEDC, IRC, OneWorld, WaterAid; partners of partners …
2000 – dfid strategy consultation [don’t remember what about]
2001 – iicd/dgis and iicd/bdo workspaces on bellanet
2002 – dgroups set up as a joint initiative to scale the bellanet work
2006 – dgroups ‘roadmap’: strategy, governance, directions
2008 – dgroups platform moves from lyris to igloo to wa research

4.
WatSan eConferencing: First
Conclusions (2000)
Cooperation and capacity-sharing can work
Cooperation needs time and trust
A neutral forum helps
New skills are needed
Multi-media approaches extend reach
Participation is possible
Participants are willing
Absorption capacity is a constraint

5.
Creating Dgroups [2001]
Need for simple, reliable, and accessible communication
and information-sharing tool
Communities of practice the basis for knowledge sharing
Increasing ‘team’ focus – also with country partners
Partners themselves keen to e-discuss, to e-disseminate and
perhaps to e-collaborate
Technically, avoid in-house development and hosting; focus
instead on content and communication and work through
partnerships
[from an internal IICD ppt]

6.
eCollaboration: Dgroups (2002)
• discussion and collaboration spaces – email and web
• easy to set up and administer, and participate
• for ‘communities’ of interest/practice
• tool for other collaborations
• joint venture – bellanet, iicd, oneworld, unaids, dfid + others
• a tool for ‘us’ . . . . . for our partners - and anyone else!
[The most important aspect of Dgroups is that the knowledge so
generated belongs to the community, and is not owned by any one
organization – Jaya Chittoor, km4dev list, October 2003]

7.
1999
I think

8.
June 2002

9.
Dgroups Today

10.
More than the platforms …
From 2008-2018, dgroups was mostly associated with a ‘platform’
– dgroups.org
A springboard for many partners and groups, like km4dev, to
vibrantly live our tagline ‘development through dialogue’
In 2019 and 2020, we re-imagined the core of the Dgroups
partnership as (once again) being about online collaboration,
communication, learning and dialogue …
By working together, better, more inclusive collaboration and dialogue
leads to better development results.

11.
• Dgroups provides simple, effective and affordable
solutions, knowledge and expertise that support
online collaboration among organizations, projects,
networks and campaigns, and individuals in
international development.
Mission
• Dgroups enables people, communities, projects and
organizations to engage in dialogue and
collaborate for more effective development and
social justice.
Purpose
• Dgroups is an international development
partnership that brings together the best choice of
tools, support and experience to engage and
collaborate effectively online.
Vision

12.
ABCD - what we do
•we help facilitate peer-
to-peer learning,
mentoring, coaching,
training and support for
effective online
collaboration and
advocacy
• we host online
discussions and
events on
international
development
• we provide advice,
guidance and
negotiated
preferential access
to third-party online
solutions and
platforms
• we help make
development
communities,
their knowledge
and expertise
accessible
Access Brokerage
CapacitiesDialogue

13.
A foundation and a partnership
• We (the foundation) negotiate and broker preferential access for our partners to
different community platforms;
• We (the foundation) promote links across our partner groups and communities, we
connect you to like-minded communities and people doing the same collaborative
things as you;
• We (the partnership) help you find, facilitate and manage online community spaces
or platforms;
• We (the partnership) support online communications, collaboration and dialogue
that increase the effectiveness of our collective online experience;
• And, through Dgroups, our online interactions can achieve more visibility, reach
and impact.

14.
Help needed

15.
Devising a Dgroups dialogue
Following the km4dev 2 July event, we want to hold a first
Dgroups eConference and dialogue …
About online collaboration, dialogue and interaction – what works
and what doesn’t in international development … [beyond the
pandemic of zoom meetings!]
Guided, facilitated, documented, …
An ‘experience capitalization’ approach to draw out our individual
and collective insights to produce actionable knowledge.

16.
Help us identify critical topics
In your groups [someone please capture the key points]
1. Which factors are the most critical to successful online collaboration,
conferencing, dialogue and CoPs? [eg: technology, participation, facilitation,
connectivity, capacities?]
2. Which issues or topics do we need to know more about? To improve how we
operate