As I wrote over the weekend, I headed to #ICT4Ag13 in Kigali with lots of Excitement and Skepticism. Yesterday (Monday 4 Nov) was the Plug & Play day, and it was a blast, and it reaffirmed my excitement (and skepticism).
To start off with, the scene is great. Met so many interesting people, and the vibe is one of opportunity and growth. A real "start-up", (social) entrepreneurial atmosphere. Fantastic networking opportunities and I won't be surprised if several collaborations won't be traced back to this event. All the makings of a "Plug" atmosphere.
I'm happy with the logistics so far. Organizing large workshops isn't easy. So far my hierarchy of logistics needs from a conference (wifi, clean cool air, good food & breakout spaces - in that order) is met . So good conditions to "Play.
What enhanced my excitement? The facilitattion method (Kudos to Pete Cranston and team) allowed me to "speed date" lots of interesting projects. There is so much going on in this sector right now. One cannot but be excited about this movement and its posible potential. I was particularly interested to learn about some of the work of TRAC.fm (and their work with Harvest Plus / the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH).) - particularly because they are mixing the present (radio) with the future (mobile/web) in what seems to be a really neat way. Great stuff. Would love to know of more organizations doing this - please point me in the right direction!
What enhanced my skepticism? A few things. For one, the scale. For all the talk of the potential scale of mobile (in the billions), most projects I saw were pilots, with outreach of several thousands to low 6 figures (active and passive users combined). Pilotitis anyone?
Also, there is lots of duplication. If I had a drink every time I heard the phrase ("so we built this platform...") I would have been drunk long before the first coffee break. Yes, to a certain degree this is inevitable in such a start-up environment. Still, many of the players are at least partially publicly funded, and we could (should) really question the coordination in funding so many similar platforms. Either way, I foresee some serious consolidation before we can start going to scale and moving to more mature, holistic products.
Finally, there was too much focus (to my liking at least) on channel, and too little on the content. Yes, I know new tech is exciting and sexy, and old school instructional design and (adult) learning theory are in comparison slow and tedious. However, we should be VERY careful not to end up ith great platforms that suffer from the "Garbage in - Garbage out" syndrome. I know that there will one (or more?) sessions looking at the content today and am really looking forward to these. By and large though, the content seems to be the poor cousin in this gathering - which is a red flag for me.
Still, if I had to place my feeling on the excitement/skepticism scale, it is tilting towards excitment. Plenary of the conference about to start - looking forward to a fun week ahead!
To start off with, the scene is great. Met so many interesting people, and the vibe is one of opportunity and growth. A real "start-up", (social) entrepreneurial atmosphere. Fantastic networking opportunities and I won't be surprised if several collaborations won't be traced back to this event. All the makings of a "Plug" atmosphere.
I'm happy with the logistics so far. Organizing large workshops isn't easy. So far my hierarchy of logistics needs from a conference (wifi, clean cool air, good food & breakout spaces - in that order) is met . So good conditions to "Play.
What enhanced my excitement? The facilitattion method (Kudos to Pete Cranston and team) allowed me to "speed date" lots of interesting projects. There is so much going on in this sector right now. One cannot but be excited about this movement and its posible potential. I was particularly interested to learn about some of the work of TRAC.fm (and their work with Harvest Plus / the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH).) - particularly because they are mixing the present (radio) with the future (mobile/web) in what seems to be a really neat way. Great stuff. Would love to know of more organizations doing this - please point me in the right direction!
What enhanced my skepticism? A few things. For one, the scale. For all the talk of the potential scale of mobile (in the billions), most projects I saw were pilots, with outreach of several thousands to low 6 figures (active and passive users combined). Pilotitis anyone?
Also, there is lots of duplication. If I had a drink every time I heard the phrase ("so we built this platform...") I would have been drunk long before the first coffee break. Yes, to a certain degree this is inevitable in such a start-up environment. Still, many of the players are at least partially publicly funded, and we could (should) really question the coordination in funding so many similar platforms. Either way, I foresee some serious consolidation before we can start going to scale and moving to more mature, holistic products.
Finally, there was too much focus (to my liking at least) on channel, and too little on the content. Yes, I know new tech is exciting and sexy, and old school instructional design and (adult) learning theory are in comparison slow and tedious. However, we should be VERY careful not to end up ith great platforms that suffer from the "Garbage in - Garbage out" syndrome. I know that there will one (or more?) sessions looking at the content today and am really looking forward to these. By and large though, the content seems to be the poor cousin in this gathering - which is a red flag for me.
Still, if I had to place my feeling on the excitement/skepticism scale, it is tilting towards excitment. Plenary of the conference about to start - looking forward to a fun week ahead!
