Social Reporting: many voices building conversation
CIAT’s Communications and Knowledge Management Unit decided to implement and promote “social reporting” during the APR 2015 as a way to build a collective memory of the event, facilitating dialogue and interaction among participants.
Social reporting is the use of social media (Twitter, Facebook, Google +, YouTube, Flickr, Instagram, blogs, among others) to jointly report a specific activity. In communications and knowledge management, it is a tool of interest because it allows sharing photos, videos, PowerPoint presentations, abstracts and comments in real time, which increases the chances of “adds to the ‘official’ documentation a rich mix of stories and conversations. It means a contribution to both facilitation and documenting. And it has human voice and a philosophy of inclusion and empowerment[1].”
This practice “began spontaneously among participants, but now has been incorporated as a service in organizing a conference and is a test of how some social networks are catching on and winning niche in science communication.” (Robinson, Delgado & Torres, 2010, p.241)[2]
During the APR 2015, several voices joined this initiative and enriched the documentation with their tweets, photos, reviews, and synthesis of each one of the sessions. The contributions could be seen in real time on a screen located outside the main auditorium, and now we share a summary using Storify app.
[1] https://onlinefacilitation.wikispaces.com/Social+Reporting
[2] Robinson, N., Delgado, E. y Torres, D. (2011). Cómo comunicar y diseminar información científica en Internet para obtener mayor visibilidad e impacto. https://ec3.ugr.es/publicaciones/aula_abierta2011.pdf