CommunitySensor

15
Jul
2020

Greater than the Sum meets CommunitySense: the full interview series

Over two years ago, I was asked by Christine Capra of fellow participatory mapping consultancy company Greater than the Sum to be interviewed by her on my ideas on participatory community network mapping. This interview turned out to be something much more than that. Of course, over the years, I have already published many (academic) research publications on the development and application of the CommunitySensor methodology. However, I have never been able to put the grand essence of my mapping philosophy into words as artfully as Christine has, adding her own refreshing perspective as an “outsider to my inner thoughts”. In all, that first conversation became a whole series of reflective blog posts. In Christine’s own words:

“It’s been over two years since my original interview with Aldo.

… Read more...
Posted by Aldo de Moor in CommunitySense, Ideas, 0 comments
14
Sep
2019

From Climate Action Confusion to Collaboration: Towards Common Agenda Setting

All over the world, organizations are gearing up to address the causes and effects of climate change. However, none of them can do this on their own, joining forces is of the essence.

The 2015 Paris Agreement was a major milestone in accelerating this process of global collaboration:

The Paris Agreement builds upon the Convention and for the first time brings all nations into a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so. As such, it charts a new course in the global climate effort.

Although the intentions in Paris were good, as we all know there is still monumental confusion and dithering everywhere about what exactly needs to be done, in what way, when, and by whom.… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in CommunitySense, Ideas, Projects, 0 comments
11
Sep
2019

New publication: Co-Discovering Common Ground in a Collaborative Community: The BoostINNO Participatory Collaboration Mapping Case

A. de Moor (2019). Co-Discovering Common Ground in a Collaborative Community: The BoostINNO Participatory Collaboration Mapping Case. In Proceedings of C&T 2019, June 3–7, 2019, Vienna, Austria

Abstract:

Collaborative communities are learning communities aimed at accomplishing common goals within often complex collaboration ecosystems. Their development requires catalyzing the process of co-discovering collaborative common ground. BoostINNO was an EU networking project aimed at building a collaborative community in which ten major European cities who are leaders in social innovation shared knowledge lessons learnt. We show how the CommunitySensor participatory community network mapping methodology and the Kumu online network visualization tool were combined to support participatory collaboration mapping among the BoostINNO community members. Two experiments were conducted: (1) finding collaboration partners and (2) comparing social innovation lessons learnt on urban spaces developed by each of the cities.… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in Conferences, Projects, Publications, 0 comments
14
Jun
2019

New publication: Common Agenda Setting through Participatory Collaboration Mapping – a Knowledge Base-Driven Approach

A. de Moor (2018). Common Agenda Setting through Participatory Collaboration Mapping: a Knowledge Base-Driven Approach. In 16th Prato CIRN Conference 24-28 October 2018, Monash Centre, Prato, Italy.

fig7 conversation agenda

Abstract:

Globalizing society faces an ever-expanding web of wicked problems. Community networks are at the heart of building the required collaboration capacity for achieving collective impact. One bottleneck is the process of common agenda setting among such widely diverging stakeholder networks. Participatory collaboration mapping can help build firmer actionable and conceptual common ground between existing projects, programs, and initiatives on which to base the common agenda-setting process in community networks. By jointly creating and aligning collaboration maps, stakeholders can catalyze, augment, and connect existing collective impact initiatives. To be scalable, this requires a knowledge base-driven approach.… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in Publications, 0 comments
19
Mar
2019

Mapping the social innovation ecosystems around public libraries together: the Czech connection(s)

Public libraries are cornerstones of civil society. They form the “third places” where individual citizens meet and mingle, get informed, learn, as well as form and share opinions. Increasingly, however, public libraries are also seen as the meeting and co-working hubs of the many communities making up the rich fabric of urban society. Thus, public libraries are getting new, societal roles as city labs and social innovation catalysts.

The Tilburg Public Library  is known for its groundbreaking library innovations, such as the recently opened LocHal, which is truly a “world-class urban living room for Tilburg in an iconic former locomotive shed of the Dutch National Railways”. More about that in a future post. Another one of its strategic innovations concerns the KnowledgeCloud, the “network in which persons, communities and organisations meet one another both online and offline to discuss current, societally relevant themes”.… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in CommunitySense, Projects, Services, 2 comments
07
Dec
2018

PechaKucha presentation on “The Power of Communities”

Last week, I gave a presentation at the 12th edition of the PechaKucha Tilburg event.  PechaKucha is a lively presentation format in which anybody can share an idea(l), project or passion close to their heart. The challenge is that this has to take place in 20 slides of 20 seconds each, so you really need to be very focused in telling your story in exactly (and only…) 6 minutes and 40 seconds! As the photos attest, the event taking place in the Tilburg theatre De Nieuwe Vorst was packed and the atmosphere was vibrant.

In my presentation, I talk about the need for new ways to look at and address the multitude of “wicked problems” such as climate change, biodiversity loss, poverty, and migration that humanity has to deal with.… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in Ideas, Presentations, 0 comments
08
Sep
2018

PARTICIPATORY mapping of agricultural collaborations in Malawi

[Scroll down below for the full VISUAL story]

A first seed action to be further nurtured that came out of mapping the INGENAES Global Symposium and Learning Exchange conference was to use the combined CommunitySensor methodology and online Kumu network visualization tool for the participatory mapping of agricultural stakeholder collaborations in Malawi.

This Southern African country has an agricultural governance system consisting of many layers of organizational structures between the national and the village levels. This can result in collaboration inefficiencies if not carefully coordinated. In a joint initiative by INGENAES (Integrating Gender and Nutrition within Agricultural Extension Services)  and the Malawi-based SANE (Strengthening Agricultural and Nutrition Extension) sister project – both being implemented by the University of Illinois –  a pilot was started to use participatory collaboration mapping to strengthen the District Agriculture Extension Services System (DAESS).… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in Projects, 2 comments
06
Jul
2018

New publication – A Community Network Ontology for Participatory Collaboration Mapping: Towards Collective Impact

A. de Moor (2018). A Community Network Ontology for Participatory Collaboration Mapping: Towards Collective Impact, Information 2018, 9(7): art. no. 151.

Abstract

Addressing societal wicked problems requires collaboration across many different community networks. In order for community networks to scale up their collaboration and increase their collective impact, they require a process of inter-communal sensemaking. One way to catalyze that process is by participatory collaboration mapping. In earlier work, we presented the CommunitySensor methodology for participatory mapping and sensemaking within communities. In this article, we extend this approach by introducing a community network ontology that can be used to define a customized mapping language to make sense across communities. We explore what ontologies are and how our community network ontology is developed using a participatory ontology evolution approach.… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in CommunitySense, Publications, 0 comments