I’ve been a little negligent of the blog recently as things have got busy with new ARACY agendas and, excitingly, I attended the Australasian Evaluation Society (AES) conference in Sydney two weeks ago.
(My friends have informed me that I’m perilously close to a new level of geekdom with the growing fascination with evaluation and how we use it. What appeals more than evaluation itself is how it assists in the development and efficacy of programming and policy….yep, a little daggy)
As mentioned in the last posting, collaboration is a term that comes up time and again when discussing how evaluation/research is moved from paper into reality. The AES conference focused on how evaluation and research can influence action and again we heard a lot of key words from the world of collaboration.
What struck me most about the conference papers was the similarity in the challenges faced by collaboration facilitators and knowledge brokers. Both are focused on balancing competing demands and agendas and encouraging action amongst the partners in the relationships they are trying to broker. The range of skills required to do this bear great semblance (which would be logical considering they face the same challenges).
Sandra Nutley touched on the role of knowledge broker in her keynote presentation. She discussed the knowledge broker’s leadership, capacity building, relationship management and networking and knowledge management skills. Discussions both during and after the conference also referred to change management, communication and strategic planning skills. Rampant opportunism and entrepreneurism also seems to be central in the success of the knowledge broker.
Like collaboration facilitators the poor old knowledge broker is also something of an unsung hero, advancing and guiding established leaders to champion action in the interest of the knowledge exchange activity.
It’s a big ask for anyintrepid knowledge broker. I had a side discussion with someone who thought that perhaps it might be necessary to build teams with varying skill bases around any knowledge brokering efforts. The reality is that it’s rare for one person to bring the huge variety of skills and knowledge into a single brokering effort.
The presentations from the AES conference should be posted on their website in the next week. I’d recommend both knowledge brokers and collaboration facilitators take a look at a very interesting set of presentations and discussions. Here’s the link.
Both groups might also like to join ARACY’s Knowledge Brokering Network and its associated Linked-in page. Rachael’s doing a bang up job linking folks to relevant discussions, articles and events.
Have a great weekend
Jennifer
