220 – RMS Workshop Reflections: Presenting Results

[00:00:06] Lucie: Hi and welcome to the IDEMS podcast. My name’s Lucie Hazelgrove Planel, I’m a Social Impact Scientist and anthropologist, and I’m here today with David Stern, one of the co-founding directors of IDEMS.

Hi David.

[00:00:19] David: Hi, Lucie. It been a while since we’ve done an episode.

[00:00:22] Lucie: It is. Well, we’ve been busy, well, I’ve been busy, you are always busy. 

[00:00:27] David: But in particular, we’ve been travelling to Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and this is what I think we’re gonna discuss, isn’t it? 

[00:00:34] Lucie: Yeah, exactly. So for a while now we’ve had funding to do a RMS workshop for the whole of the community of practice in West Africa of the Global Collaboration for Resilient Food Systems. This agroecological community of researchers, farmers, NGO workers, you name it, and a whole name of actors working in West Africa.

And each year we do a different topic, we have a different theme according to the interests, according to the needs we sort of see within the community. I’m trying to remember what our theme was this year actually, oh, visualisations, research visualisations. And this is leading up to the 20th anniversary celebrations too, of the community of practice. 

[00:01:15] David: Yes. It’s been a really interesting sort of process because we started with a webinar and then we had these face-to-face meetings, where we brought together key members of the community practice, all the projects were invited. 

[00:01:32] Lucie: And I should say, when you say we brought together, it’s themselves bringing themselves together.

[00:01:37] David: Yeah. and it was really interesting, I think, that we recognised that there was a need around powerful visualisations for communication beyond standard audiences. And indeed, this is what we found, that it’s something, although this isn’t necessarily the core of our strength, it’s something we’ve been exposed to, we know it’s about, and introducing this to the community, this is what really resonated for me at the end of it and on reflection, that these ideas of thinking about how journalists think about visualisations and how you need to think about visualisations differently if you’re doing it for, let’s say, policy makers, and so on.

It was really fascinating to see how stimulating this was for certain members of the community. Of course, there’s always variability about how much different people engage, but by and large, this was something where the community engaged in this so much more than I expected, and really saw why they needed this. It was really interesting. 

[00:02:41] Lucie: Yeah. And we’ve sort of mentioned before that there’s some projects which are mostly NGO based, some which are more academic based. And so, the academic ones, they’re very used to doing statistical graphs, they tend to always use the same types of graphs when they’re presenting to mixed audiences even, I think. And similarly, the NGOs, their sort of tools for communication… and they’re perhaps less skilled on the more academic graphs and the more diverse ways of presenting hard evidence. So even bringing in those two, enabling people to share and learn from each other too, I think.

[00:03:16] David: Absolutely. And the idea of bringing in how do you bring qualitative information into a visualisation.

[00:03:23] Lucie: Which is something we always, well, I mean there’s a lot of projects who struggle with the idea of qualitative data. So valuing it as something which is actually going to communicate something important is also just something which is really important to highlight the power of. 

[00:03:42] David: Absolutely. And one of the projects, the example which came around centering a really very complex visualisation around a simple quote. And so the quote really was what draws people’s attention, but then they had different variants of it for different audiences. But for the scientific audience, they then had a lot of deep information in very different ways, and it was fascinating. Really, really interesting how they engaged with this.

And I suppose this does come back to something we’ve discussed before, which is our Explore, Describe, Present, and how the way we are now presenting this and helping people to think about their data analysis, you have an exploration phase, before you think about your objectives, you then start saying, well, what are my objectives, and you then do your describe phase where you actually dig in, that might include modeling, but that’s really the deeper analysis to get to your results. And then the present phase is when you then think, well, who’s my audience?

And there was this wonderful example that came out through the workshops where we had three different versions of the same results being presented differently to different audiences, and where the audience is central to thinking of what is the presentation, what is the visualisation, what are you trying to communicate and how, and how do you expect people to receive it?

As workshops go, these were, I suppose, the least structured we’ve given. We give these sorts of workshops regularly, roughly once a year we go through the three countries and give workshops. And we deliberately decided that if people were going to engage in this, a lot of the time was for them to be working.

[00:05:29] Lucie: And working on their own data on their own communication tools.

[00:05:32] David: Exactly, yeah, so more than half the time was spent with the partners actually working on their own visualisations, and this was really inspiring to see the journey that different groups went on through the course of the three days in each case, or two and a half days.

[00:05:49] Lucie: Yep. It was quite challenging, I think, for quite a few projects. And even identifying the message, identifying the key point that they wanted to communicate. I mean, some of these projects, they’ve been going for 10 or more years, 20 years perhaps even, so they have so many messages, so for them it’s really hard.

Other projects have only just, well, they’re still at the phase of collecting data, so they don’t even have any data to really communicate, so it’s more hypothetical. And many of the other projects are just still in the thick of it, and so they’re not really sure, well, is this an important message, are there better ones, more valuable messages, or more impactful messages perhaps that they could communicate?

[00:06:31] David: Absolutely. And that was sort of all part of what was so fascinating about the way people engaged in the workshop. Different groups were at different stages, and one of the things which came up a lot, especially with the more, I suppose, NGO partners, who some of them were very good at the idea of embedding evidence in the visualisation, that’s something which was not as deeply ingrained.

So this distinction between a visualisation which communicates a viewpoint from a visualisation which communicates evidence.

[00:07:05] Lucie: Yeah.

[00:07:06] David: That was a really big part of what we were discussing, what was coming out, because after all, the Global Collaboration for Resilience Food System is a research program, so evidence needs to be central in what we’re producing and what we’re enabling partners to produce.

[00:07:25] Lucie: Whereas a lot of the NGO partners, they’re much more used to doing advocacy, which they do very well, some of them also have great evidence that they can use to really strengthen their message.

[00:07:36] David: And recognising that the value that that brings, and the need to differentiate. I mean, this is challenging anywhere, but it was really fascinating to see how different partners engaged with these topics in ways which were, well, really inspiring. I left inspired, as I often do when we go to visit the regions, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, it’s such a fascinating region.

We were there at a time when the fuel problems in Mali, the queues where people were queuing for days to get fuel. This is a challenging region at the best of times, and at the moment it’s a particularly challenging region. And I’ve just heard the news that, I think, the US has now added all three countries to their exclusion list. Such amazing countries with so much, well, so many inspiring people. 

[00:08:33] Lucie: Definitely in the community we work with. Yeah. 

[00:08:36] David: Yeah. Absolutely. We’re really privileged to work with such a wide range of dedicated people across different sectors, but really doing amazing work. 

[00:08:49] Lucie: Now something I struggle with the visualisations aspect is that to me, a lot of them, if you’re thinking of doing visualisations for perhaps more, let’s say, normal communities, farmers, everyday communities, then perhaps you can get away with not hiring a professional.

If you’re thinking of really working with governments and trying to get governments to change their policies, change how they think about things, then my difficulty is how can you do it without hiring a professional? This was sort of discussed, we discussed what tools literally can you actually use to do visualisations? 

[00:09:25] David: The point is, in a lot of these contexts, those professionals may be few and far between, and it may be that you can’t access them. So, actually, this idea that the funds are there to hire those, yes, they all have grants which could support this, but even though the funds may be there, actually, getting the right people with the right skills is not always easy.

And what I found really inspiring was that a lot of the teams do have talent and skills in their teams, and so it is also about recognising, as came out from the workshop, that if your message is impactful enough and important enough, then put the time in, be willing to go through multiple iterations, to see it in different ways, to get feedback from different people, to iterate and improve, to really be going through a journey with just the communication tool.

And I think that’s something which was also new for many of the researchers in particular, who, for them, the work goes into getting the results, not to communicating them as much, as this is something which is widely understood now, the importance of scientific communication is paramount. I found it great to see some of the researchers really engaging in this process.

[00:10:56] Lucie: And it was interesting too that there were ideas that it doesn’t always need to be the researchers themselves who identify what the key message is, the most important one. So especially if you’re thinking of working with farmer groups or if you are thinking of communicating with them, you know, key takeaways, then actually they’re perhaps best place to help identify what the key takeaways are.

Obviously as researchers you can say, well, actually this wasn’t backed up, perhaps, or, yes, this, we have really great evidence to show it. So it can be that discussion that sort of, as you were saying, well, I can’t remember if you said give and take or…

[00:11:28] David: Negotiation almost, yeah.

[00:11:30] Lucie: Yeah. And then to see, well, once you’ve understood the message and once you’ve started putting ideas on to paper of how to actually communicate that, well, testing does it actually work? Because you know, as you said, you spent so much time, so many resources into actually getting the evidence for this, that not putting the time and effort into how you’re gonna communicate it, it’s a waste, it’s such a waste.

[00:11:58] David: Yeah. Well, especially when in the community we work, there are some amazing messages that were coming out. The one that springs to mind, or a couple that spring to mind, things like the nutrition related to the transformation project where the results they’re having are just mind blowing, where they’re transforming child nutrition in villages which have this intervention and they have really solid evidence for this now. 

[00:12:27] Lucie: And this is Moustapha Moussa’s project, who’s already been on the podcast episodes. Yeah.

[00:12:32] David: Absolutely. And just seeing some of those results come into focus. 

[00:12:38] Lucie: And not only that they’re transforming nutrition, but they’re doing it in a way where it’s community led, I would say, and it’s at very reduced costs compared to normal interventions.

[00:12:49] David: Not just reduced cost compared to normal interventions, it is locally scalable, this is what they found. They found their primary sites, which, actually, they needed support from the researchers that were built up, they were not really very different from the secondary sites, which were all just scaling locally from the primary sites.

That’s what’s really exciting, there was a slight improvement of primary over secondary sites, but the secondary sites were still having similar nutritional impacts in their communities. And the cost of actually the secondary sites to the research project had been almost nothing. And that’s what’s so exciting, you could see how these approaches were scaling in their context and could be scaled much more.

And that’s why there was something extremely powerful that could be communicated to government or to policy makers, which, I believe, taken up in the right ways would have transformative impact on nutrition at a large scale in communities.

[00:13:54] Lucie: Yeah. And this is also, we, and especially you, make the most of the opportunity of being in person to work perhaps 20 hour days or something, to work with all of the projects individually and support them in whichever needs, whether it’s identifying and really recognising the importance of their results, or just getting started, those first steps of starting to analyse their data. 

[00:14:17] David: It’s interesting, it’s so hard when you are not there in person to actually keep the momentum, keep things moving. And so, making the most of the time when you’re there in person is critical. I haven’t done 20 hour days for a while now, that was the case a few years ago, but they’re way down from that.

[00:14:35] Lucie: And we were fortunate too, there were quite high numbers of attendees at the workshops, I think there was about 40 or something in the Burkina workshop, which if you think that each of those, well quite in many cases, each of those participants had their own data sets, their own messages they wanted to communicate, supporting them individually is quite a lot of work. So fortunately we had our team, our regional team helping us, who are much more stats focused and able to support on those.

[00:15:06] David: But they were learning a lot from this process as well because this was all new to them. This is all part of that broader capacity building ’cause they’re in the region and can provide that day-to-day support in an ongoing way. But, Issouf in particular was at all three meetings and has now, I believe, got some of the ideas and the skills of this, he’s getting there so he can offer that continued support.

[00:15:31] Lucie: Yeah. Yeah. So how do you feel about the workshops? Yeah, reflecting on it now, it’s been a few weeks.

[00:15:38] David: They’re always challenging, they weren’t perfect, but I’m generally feeling good. I’m nervous that we do need to follow up on them, we need to see them through, we need to get some of these products out. And so I am a little nervous about that. But, no, generally I’m feeling pretty good.

[00:15:55] Lucie: Yeah, that’s a big question that lots of the projects wanted to continue working on their messages, on their visualisations. ’cause obviously you can’t do much in two and a half days.

[00:16:04] David: Well, the one which I’m really excited about is, since we left Fuma have sent some of their data that we discussed. We conceptualised the visualisation when we’re there, which would tell some of their story, and they’ve sent the data on that, and Lily’s actually working on this now. So I’m really excited to see if that visualisation actually comes to fruition, and there’s something interesting which we can present and display, which will have impact.

This is the thing, they have a story which is just phenomenal, and to have a visualisation which captures the essence of that would be amazing.

[00:16:41] Lucie: Yeah, and Fuma is one of the projects where they know very well what their powerful stories are. It’s just the technical things of how to visualise it in a way which works for them and should work for the potential audiences.

[00:16:54] David: Absolutely. And they have the data, they have what they need to tell some of these stories. And so if we can upskill them to be able to get some of these visualisations, it’s gonna really make a difference.

[00:17:04] Lucie: And we discussed this in the workshops too, that often when we are there in person, the projects, they all say, yes, we want support, we need help on this, this, this, this. And then they never find the time to get in touch, or not in the way that would make it easy for us to support them.

[00:17:22] David: Well, I mean, this is the thing, the realities of their environments are just extremely challenging. I still remember when I was living in Africa, the just day-to-day challenges, things are unpredictable. So actually scheduling a call is relatively easy for us now in our context, but it’s not easy in those contexts to be able to predict in advance, and schedule that call, a lot is less predictable.

And that means that that remote support is much harder to give, which is why we focus on trying to build up the local teams as well. But we need to be able to do more remotely. It’s a very interesting challenge, is very interesting situations, but the question of whether we can really support people to see this exercise through remotely is an open question in my mind. 

[00:18:15] Lucie: Exactly. And that’s, to me, the point here that, yes, I think we all came out of the workshops knowing that we can support more, they are asking for more support too, but how, in practice, can we organise it so that, well, in our timetables, it works better to schedule things in advance, in their’s, it doesn’t so much, and then supporting so many different projects at the same time too. 

[00:18:38] David: And I think the simple thing is, you know, in the new year it will be our teams on the ground going and actually spending time with projects and then scheduling time in while they’re there face-to-face, that is consistently what works and what works well. The projects really appreciate that in person support, and while that in-person support is there, it is easier for us to schedule in times to sort of drop in remotely. And that’s probably the model that we’ll continue to use for this.

[00:19:09] Lucie: Yeah. Yeah. Great. Any last reflections or comments about the workshops, David?

[00:19:15] David: Just how much I appreciate the way that you put them together. This is sort of one of the first set of workshops like this where I don’t feel I was the one actually organising it. You did most of the work, and so thank you so much because it was great, they were really effective, and I really appreciated that initiative that you took to take charge of these. So thank you.

[00:19:37] Lucie: Well, I’m slowly taking on more responsibilities in that way. But it was good.

[00:19:41] David: It was very good. So well done. Thanks.

[00:19:45] Lucie: Thank you.