ddf_comms_training

== Communications and Knowledge Sharing Skills Development Training for the Livestock and Fish Tanzania Dairy Value Chain

ILRI, Nairobi, 12-14 May 2014 toc

=Objective= To strength the capacity around DDF communications linked to a dairy page under Agri-hub Tanzania currently managed by the proposed trainees and make DDF partners aware of various communication elements to make the platform vibrant.

= Participants = (as appearing in the image on the right, from left to right) Amos Omore - Resource person, ILRI Deo Mlay - Tanzania Dairy Board Katarina Mungure - SNV Mayasia Simba - Tanzania Dairy Board Edga Twine - ILRI

=**Agenda**= ILRI Komms Klinic: Communication and knowledge sharing (KS) tools, products, platforms and support systems and workflows at ILRI. //standard komms klinic for ilri staff – to gain insights and food for thought// || **Tsehay and Angela** || 4.45 – 5.30 || **Tools and Approaches -1** Discuss some of the tools which could be most relevant to strengthen communications, knowledge sharing, outreach and collaborative capacity efforts of the Dairy Development Board and the Dairy Development Platform. //What do different tools offer, not offer, strengths and weaknesses// The ‘vision’ for maziwa zaidi and how comms and ks contribute to MZ and DDF goals/outcomes. //What would comms success for DDF look like?// || **Joyce and Angela**
 * **Day 1 – Monday 12 May** ||  ||
 * **Time** || ** Content ** || ** Facilitator/s ** ||
 * 11.30-12:30 || * Welcomes and introductions
 * Overview and objectives
 * Expectations
 * Housekeeping || **Joyce** ||
 * 12.30-1.30 || break ||  ||
 * 2.00 – 3.30 || **Comms and KS tools at ILRI - introduction**
 * 3:30 -3.45 || Break ||  ||
 * 4:00 – 4.45

**Amos** || 12.00–12.30 |||| **DDF audiences, needs, demands** Map out comms & KS needs/priorities of DDF (**audiences**, outcomes, current channels)
 * **Day 2- Tuesday 13 May** ||  ||
 * 9.00-12.00

Map the different tools/platforms/products that the dairy partners are already using, gap analysis between needs and current supply

Develop an inventory of comms & KS ‘products’, services, platforms and opportunities that they can/should produce Prioritize in relation to audiences and capacities Quick assessment of current comms skills/knowledge of participants and gaps || **Ben, Evelyn**


 * Joyce** ||
 * 12.30-1.30 |||| Lunch ||  ||
 * 1.30 – 3.30

4.00 – 5.30 |||| **DDF communications products, tools, platforms** Building on the morning work, identify and map out ‘use’ cases or scenarios that are DDF comms ‘entry points’ (moments/activities where comms is likely to be intense). Examples are (these should fall out from the previous sessions defining audiences and needs): - Event planning, documenting, reporting- Online conversations/discussions & facilitation- Getting media coverage for an activity- Influencing policy makers- Capturing and sharing/reporting stories from projects- Engaging members, partners and stakeholders on social media- Keeping partners and stakeholder updated (Producing online newsletters, updating a website, sending out emails…) For each, define a set of concrete tools and products and platforms and skillsets/capacities that would be needed to make them happen.

Finalize/decide set of tools and products that DDF needs (now, later) and prioritize when to set up (or upgrade if already existing) and what’s needed for each.

Decide and set up online communication tools/accounts as needed e.g. practical coaching session could be provided on how best to set up ‘DDF’ account and manage them. || **Evelyn, Joyce, Paul** || Sharing on specific skills/tools/issues – making a good presentation; designing a poster; making a photofilm; using twitter, writing a blogpost, posting pictures on flickr .. Based on individual needs/interests. Hands ON! || **Joyce, Paul, Tezira** ||
 * **Day 3 – Wednesday 14 May** ||  ||
 * 9.00-12.30 |||||| **Comms tools refresher for ILRI comms people with DDF people (peer assist and learning)**
 * 12.30-1.30 ||||||  || break ||


 * 1.30-4.00 |||||| * Re-cap of key learning
 * Develop an action plan for the next 6 months, come up with a small set of key milestones to improve DDF as well as maziwa zaidi comms and ks
 * Wrap up || **Joyce, Tsehay, Angela, Evelyn** ||

= Notes and Resources =

Training expectations

 * Equip self with communication skills
 * Get knowledge to communicate with stakeholders very well
 * Learn how to create a vibrant dairy sector in Tanzania through communication as it's central to any interaction
 * Equip team with communication skills to increase the vibrancy of the maziwa zaidi
 * Equip with dissemination skills
 * Sensitize policy makers
 * How to use appropriate tools e.g. website, twitter
 * Creating traffic to the online platforms
 * How to create and develop online sharing tools e.g. wiki
 * How to communicate with journalists

**Tools and Approaches used by the participants**
Agri-hub Tanzania by Katarina Challenges > Other effective communications approaches for the forum audience includes: Mobile services that can help support the online platform and Face to face interactions
 * How to motivate people in the platform

Existing / applicable tools and approaches by Deo
 * Public awareness – face to face meeting
 * Event organization – skills for organizing such events
 * Wiki – for partners and internal use
 * Video - Youtube
 * TDB website

= DDF audiences, needs and demands = The session aimed to identify audiences, communication goals, desired behavior changes, appropriate channels and content to deliver the basic building blocks of a future communications strategy. Based on the detailed picture that emerged, we prioritized training needs for the individual particiapants. We started by inventorying all the tools already in use and proceeded to analyse three key audiences in more details using the worksheet linked below.

Resources for the session

 * Conversation guide: Needs Assessment
 * Slide: POST Exercise
 * Worksheet: POSC Exercise

Inventory of tools and platforms currently in use

 * Tanzania Dairy Board website / webpage: Tanzania Dairy Board; Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries ??
 * Agri-hub portal: Ning page: http://apf-tanzania.ning.com managed by Katarina
 * Twitter @MaziwaZaidi
 * Face to face conversation
 * E-mail distribution lists (about 100 contacts)
 * Physical - mailing letters

** Overall project objectives: **

 * 1) Increase national dairy herd
 * 2) Reduce seasonal effects on feed availability
 * 3) Dairy technology & Agribusiness

Likely older Tanzanian men. Not particularly conversant with online media. ||
 * || ** Priority Audience 1: **
 * Value Chain Actors ** || ** Priority Audience 2: **
 * Consumers ** || ** Priority Audience 3: **
 * Decision Makers ** ||
 * ** Audience profile ** || Producers, processors, service providers such as vets, etc || Anybody buying milk || Key policy makers in government and non-government agencies.
 * ** DDF goals & objectives ** || * Increase herds
 * Address effects of feeds seasonality
 * Coordination and regulations
 * Reach the value chain actors to improve the business environment / business opportunities
 * Disseminate evidence for policy advocacy
 * Linking information || * Influencing consumption patterns
 * Change attitudes & beliefs
 * Raise awareness on nutrition quality
 * Increase product sales and processing capacity of the factories || * Be change agents
 * Facilitative roles
 * Fill implementation goals (human resources, financial)
 * Affect policy
 * Raise awareness ||
 * ** Audience’s own objectives ** || * Business management
 * Finance skills
 * Advisory services
 * Market information
 * Organization development support
 * Access to input and services
 * Policy information
 * Dairy production || * Better milk options
 * Milk availability ||  ||
 * ** Desired relationship/behavior change **

(Progress markers: expect to see, like to see, love to see) || **Expect**: Be more business oriented

**Like**:

**Love**: || **Expect**: Buy more milk

**Like**: Buy more processed milk Consume more processed dairy products

**Love**: Pay premium for quality || **Expect**: Participate in the dairy activities and forums


 * Like**:


 * Love**: Bigger TDB budget ||
 * ** Content, Channels & Conversations ** || * Face to face conversation
 * Meetings & workshops
 * Exhibitions
 * Letters
 * Emails
 * Media e.g. radio, newspapers
 * Brochures
 * Dairy sector data
 * Educational: milk hygiene || * Websites
 * Social media
 * Exhibition
 * Media e.g. radio, newspapers || * Parliamentary committees
 * Meeting & workshops e.g. milk week, dairy annual council
 * websites
 * Progress reports
 * Policy briefs ||

** Training ** ** Needs **
Prioritized communication tools and approaches identified for further training and capacity building by participants.
 * 1) Website
 * 2) Blogs
 * 3) Wikis
 * 4) Social media
 * 5) Event organization and documentation
 * 6) Managing multi-stakeholder platforms and facilitating networks
 * 7) Media training


 * Comment by Ben**: The resulting prioritization of training needs reflects a strong demand from the group to be trained in online media management. This may not reflect the actual presence of target audiences on social media channels. See the paragraph on social media in Tanzania below.

**Social Media in Tanzania**
Facebook can serve as an indicator for the overall potential of social media to reach key audiences in Tanzania. Facebook is the platform that usually has the biggest number of users in East Africa, Twitter, Youtube usually come second and third. It is assumed that users are disproportionately located in urban centres.
 * User density: Of 50 million people only 705, 460 use Facebook, 1,5% penetration rate (Source: [|Internetworldstats])
 * Age: Half are under 25 years old, a third are 25-34 (Source: [|SocialBakers])
 * Gender: Three quarters are male

= Organizing events = Organizing effective events and conversations

= = =Facilitation Skills and Techniques= = =









= = = =

= = = TDB website review =

Review document:


 * URL @http://www.tanzaniadairyboard.or.tz/
 * CMS: Drupal
 * Content admin: Mayasia and Deo
 * Design & Tech support: someone at the university

**Overall recommendations**

 * Site goal is not clear: if it is to supply registration documents and permits, give people a direct link from the front page that allows them to accomplish this goal.
 * Simplify site and remove elements that require constants updates if the content is not there
 * Alternatively develop and commit to a content strategy that delivers regular updates acreoss various channels
 * Invest in better pictures
 * Increase font sizes overall
 * Move menu on top, use full width of page, make sure it adapts to mobile use

Review and detailed recommendations

 * ** Page ** || ** Review ** || ** Recommendation ** ||
 * Front page || Slider: Picture transition too fast || * Slow down to 3/4 sec per pic
 * Remove slider from all pages except front page
 * Zebu cows/more variety
 * Aim for highest quality pictures you can afford
 * || Low traffic – average 3 people per day visiting || * Develop content strategy to drive traffic to website and increase unique visitors (see resource below)
 * Keep up good practice of using Google Analytics, review data regularly and act on it ||
 * || No social media integration || * Add widget with share buttons and social media icons
 * If there is a blog coming up, integrate it on front page ||
 * || News is old, gives impression that site is not maintained || * If you do not have regular content for the site remove the news section.
 * Alternatively commit to regular updates (via Blog?)
 * Maybe link some content from the NING platform every now and then ||
 * || Visitors box: the counter does not add any value || * Remove ||
 * Stakeholders || Is this current and complete? || * Review partners and stakeholders names
 * Add logos ||
 * Registration and permits || Is this the main goal of the site? || * Consider making big buttons for front page, one each: “Download Stakeholder Registration”
 * “Download Import / Export Permit”
 * “Download Carrier/Containers Permit”
 * Consider online registration forms only after checking bandwidth of users ||
 * Advertisement || No content. Not sure why this is here, to raise money? || * Remove page and menu item ||
 * Events ||  || * Add picture thumbnails ||
 * Contact us || Fine as is || * Could consider online form ||
 * Contact us || Fine as is || * Could consider online form ||

Summary

 * Appearance**
 * Photo slide is occupying a big space of the front page, better use of space should be applied. This should be considered across the website.
 * The picture transition is too fast for a reader to read through the photo captions. The appearance could be more improved by reducing the picture transition speed. Pictures used should be of a high quality, all pictures not of high quality should be removed. The variety of cow species in the pictures should also be more balanced.
 * The hierarchy of the importance of information and items across all the pages should be reviewed to ensure that more important news and information are most visible on the pages. An example would be more prominently positioning the ‘Events’ tab on the front page.
 * Consider removing the Counter and IP numbers on the home page and consider having some more relevant statistics if available.


 * Information content**
 * The content on the website needs to be updated more frequently. It could also feature news and updates from stakeholders to make it richer and also capitalize on the uniqueness of the forum.
 * Content and reference materials could also be linked from the ‘Agri-hub’ platform.
 * Information from all the pages need to be reviewed and where possible some of the content could be merged for instance the ‘About us’ and ‘Mission and Vision’ page. The partners and stakeholders names and logos should also be updated.
 * The events should be listed in a more chronological order starting with the most current events.


 * Design**
 * Wise use of space should be applied across the site.
 * Photo slides that appear on all the other website pages besides the front page should be removed as the images distract the user from focusing on the page’s content. Alternatively these can be less prominently placed on the right side bar of the page but not on the main content space.


 * Interactivity**
 * To increase the interactivity of the site the developer should consider inserting the share/subscribe buttons on the site such as RSS feeds and ‘subscribe’ tabs options.
 * Related existing social media sites for the form e.g. twitter account, facebook account should be inserted on the front page of the site once

Content Inventory

 * Use [|this Content Inventory template]
 * The purpose of the exercise is to find out which parts of the website need updating
 * Go through it page by page and decide whether the content is redundant, outdated or trivial

**Content Calendar**
 * Use this [|Content Calendar template]
 * The purpose of the exercise is to coordinate in advance which pieces of content can be recycled on what channels
 * Coordinate the blogging efforts, NING group, Facebook and Twitter to drive traffic back to the website

=Action Plan=