Knowledge Centre blogs

By: Kieron Kirkland
On: 29th May 2012

We all know capturing social impact is difficult, especially when you’re developing new models and trying new approaches. That’s how we all justify spending so long talking about it ;-)

If you’re working with a consistent cohort of individuals over a significant period of time then you can roll out all the nice traditional pre and post measures to track their progress. But, real life’s not generally like that. If you’re working with hard to reach clients sporadically or intermittently, how do you go about capturing and assessing the impact of the work?

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Jazz hands - how to run a Skype meeting

By: Kieron Kirkland
On: 4th May 2012

One of the difficult things about working on Skype or Google Hangout is that it strips us of the social cues that normally oil the wheels of good conversation, that little lean forward, opening of the mouth, intake of breath before someone interjects. (If these social cues don't mean anything to you then you are either spending way too much time online, or bereft of social skills. Either way stop reading this and go and talk to someone immediately)

One of the things we've been exploring at Nominet Trust is how do you replicate a natural flow of conversion when working on video conferencing that just isn't subtle enough to pick up on these?

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How do funders measure success, especially when a traditional funding model just doesn't cut?

By: Kieron Kirkland
On: 13th April 2012

One of the questions that should keep any funder awake at night is: are we doing the best that can be done with the money?

Answering this naturally leads any funder to ask how do we measure our success?

On one level they can obviously reflect on the work of the projects they fund or partner with. After all, a core measure of success is what happens with the money. But in a wider sense, funders work in different ways and so to understand their effectiveness there has to be an understanding of the strengths or weaknesses of their funding model. For example, are they all about supporting the continuation of work by existing organisations? Or are they an early stage investor who tries to get new ideas off the ground? In this case, how do you measure success when you're starting up new projects? more >

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I would never have thought archiving would be quite such a fascinating thing.. .

By: Kieron Kirkland
On: 7th March 2012

You, like me, probably think of archiving as towers of dusty books locked away in a bomb proof basement somewhere, solely of interest to aged historians. You might also think that this is a long way from the world of open data, however today I’ve discovered that they may be inextricably linked.

This is all thanks to Andrew Cooper, Research Manager at The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund who held a fantastic event today with Jack Meyers, President of the Rockefeller Archive Centre to talk about archiving in foundations.

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Reflections on Opening Doors open data event

By: Kieron Kirkland
On: 6th March 2012

Well the dust is only beginning to settle on the Opening Doors conference on Open Data last week, and we’re beginning to bring together all the learning from the day.

We had a great opening session with Karl Wilding (Head of Research and Policy at NCVO) throwing down the gauntlet and asking why we should really be interested in open data at all – how can it help charities? Dan Sutch, Head of Development Research here at Nominet Trust, starting to answer that question by highlighting how developments in technology map on to an historical strength of charities in trying to improve how we address social challenges (including an example from 1854 http://understandinguncertainty.org/coxcombs). more >

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The feedback loop that keeps on (Globally) giving

By: Kieron Kirkland
On: 14th February 2012

In my last post RCTs should only be part of the story I argued that:

We need to accept that different types of evaluation are suitable for programmes at different stages of development
A crucial role of evaluation is to create formative feedback loops not just summative snaps shots

So if you’re working in a space where you have lots of pilot projects testing new ideas, and are interested in how you get continuous evaluation of more >

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