Orla Cronin Research

Social science research and strategic consultancy

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Category Archives: Blog Post

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13
Apr

I have just become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.  It’s hard to know how significant this is.  On the one hand, there’s an element of the old Groucho Marx quote “I wouldn’t want to be a member of any club which would have me”, but on the other hand, I’m excited at being a member of a community of 27,000 Fellows “with the shared values of creativity, inclusivity and responsibility.”  The RSA is “committed to finding innovative and creative practical solutions to today’s social challenges”.  Being a Fellow is one step on a broader journey of mine where I’m taking part in conversations and finding a variety of ways to contribute to civil society over and above the work I deliver directly to clients. I’m particularly looking forward to learning more about two key themes in particular – “Public service and communities”  and “Creative learning and development” . I’ll also start figuring out how I can engage with and contribute to some of the cross-cutting projects, in particular the Social Brain.   And if my remote Northern location ends up limiting the extent to which I can participate in person, well, that will be a learning too, and I will just redouble my efforts in virtual workshops and virtual facilitation!

 

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13
Mar

Learn to facilitate fantastic virtual meetings and workshops

The revolution in remote working and virtual meetings has taken hold, but our skills haven’t necessarily kept up.

Learn to run excellent virtual meetings and workshops.  ICA USA and ICA UK have been in existence for over 50 years, teaching people how to maximise engagement and participation in the voluntary and NGO sector.

Now our skills have been applied to remote facilitation.

Over 8 weeks (approximately 1.5 hours a week plus ‘homeplay’), you will:

  • Gain competency leading virtual meetings with Adobe Connect, and ToP Focused Conversation.
  • Build your confidence as a virtual facilitator.
  • Learn tools and techniques for eliciting participation, virtual meeting design, and best practices for smooth and engaging facilitation.

No special skills or equipment needed apart from a computer with an internet connection, and a headset.

Sign up here for the next course, which starts on 5th April 2016 at 4pm BST or contact Orla Cronin for further information

 

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29
Feb

One of my intentions this year is to pay much greater attention to “connection”.  Part of that is taking part in conversations happening both in my areas of expertise, and in the broader world of international development, civil society.

What better way to both connect *and* procrastinate than to generate a “listicle” of my 10 favourite blogs?

These are not necessarily the only or the best blogs I follow, but they provide just the right balance for me of breadth, depth, interest and technical know how.

From Poverty to Power

A classic: insightful, varied, conversational and occasionally funny.  Written by Duncan Green (strategic advisor for Oxfam GB)

InterAction blogs

A blogging community with guest bloggers and cross postings. A rich source of ideas and resources

Aid on the edge of Chaos

Ben Ramalingam’s blog which accompanies his book.  A critical perspective on NGOs and international development in general.

Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex blog

Combines existing blogs on Impact and Learning, Knowledge Mobilisation and Impact, Participation and others into one gobal IDS blog.

Motive Means and Opportunity

Frameworker Bruce Britton’s blog on learning in NGOs

And blogs relating to my particular or current interests….

African Universities Research Approaches blog

I am currently consulting on this project, and use this blog to get a bird’s eye view of the whole programme

Fresh Spectrum

Chris Lysy’s glorious and astute cartoon blog on evaluation and visual data

Monitoring and Evaluation News

A rich resource edited by Rick Davies focusing on developments in monitoring and evaluation methods relevant to development programmes with social development objectives

Online facilitation wiki

Not quite a blog, and a work in progress, but a growing repository of expertise and tools on facilitating virtual groups and communities. Maintained by Nancy White who also blogs here.

Barefoot guide blog

The team at Barefoot are starting to convene the informal community which exists around Barefoot guides, starting with their blog.

And a ‘spare’: for pleasure and general ‘saw sharpening’….

Brainpickings

Written and curated by Maria Popova, this blog regularly receives accolades in the blogosphere.  According to Maria, it involves over 450 hours of work each month, and it shows.

As she describes it, Brain Pickings is “your LEGO treasure chest, full of pieces across art, design, science, technology, philosophy, history, politics, psychology, sociology, ecology, anthropology, you-name-itology”

Perfect with Sunday morning coffee! Oh, and apparently she writes standing on a wobble board.  I wonder if there’s might be a causal effect between standing on a wobble board and producing a wonderful blog?   I may need to do some shopping…..

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28
Feb

New tools and resources available via Framework

blog trash

To celebrate Framework’s 30th birthday, we have trawled through our filing cabinets and uploaded some of our favourite tools and reports to the the resources page.  Come and see us at Stand 12 at the Bond Conference on 29/2-1/3/2016 to discuss them with us (Orla will be there with her Framework hat on on Tuesday)

Feel free to use these resources, including sharing them and modifying for non-commercial purposes. A credit would be appreciated!

Tools for working in organisations which we’ve recently uploaded include:

Organisational Assessments

Capacity building methods overview

Capacity building programme matrix

Monitoring & evaluating capacity building: A practical tool

Impact grid exercises to explore organisational change

Working in consortia

 

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05
Aug

Review of 2014-2015 in Framework

Bruce Britton, one of my Framework colleagues, put together this delightful animated timeline of our work as a collective covering January 2014-June 2015.

It is best viewed in full screen mode. The music is the 3rd Movement of Steve Reich’s  Electric Counterpoint played by Catrin Finch

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01
Jun

Online training for virtual facilitation: Course starts

  • Learn to lead engaging online meetings that elicit innovative thinking and creative problem-solving.
  • Develop competency in leading virtual meetings using Adobe Connect and ToP Focused Conversation.
  • Build your confidence as a virtual facilitator.
  • Learn tools and techniques for eliciting participation, virtual meeting design, and five best practices.

Weekly online interactive session of 1.5 hours, over 8 weeks from 9th July 2015
Further information available here

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21
Apr

Open University of Catalonia/Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

I’m teaching the M&E module on the Masters in Sport for Social Coexistence and Conflict Resolution which is offered by the UNESCO-FFCB-UOC Chair at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. I’m really looking forward to meeting my students tomorrow and having a fast and furious romp through the mysteries and delights of monitoring and evaluation over the next five weeks.

uoc2

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27
Mar

Barefoot Guide 4: Exploring the real work of social change

Delighted to see that the Barefoot Guide 4 has now been published. It is available to buy in hard copy, and is downloadable free from http://www.barefootguide.org/barefoot-guide-4—english-final.html

Proud to have helped, and looking forward to reading the finished product.

barefoot

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28
Apr

New collaboration with Framework

I’m proud to announce that I’ve just been accepted as a full member of the Framework Collective.  Framework has been existence for over 20 years, and aims to provide peer support and professional development to the independent consultants who comprise its membership.  In addition to collaborating together on projects when wider expertise is required, we focus on improving the quality of our professional practice through peer supervision, development days, an annual retreat, and regular sharing of expertise, advice and resources.

Orla Cronin Research continues to thrive – so much so that I  missed the opportunity to celebrate a DECADE since our establishment. Perhaps I shall manage to celebrate the undecennial instead? I look forward to continuing to serve existing and new clients, and to deepening and broadening my practice by learning and collaborating with Bruce Britton, Brenda Lipson, Gopal Rao and Catherine Squire.  You’ll continue to encounter me working as Orla Cronin Research; I’ll occasionally be working under the Framework banner, and I will also continue to work with other wonderful collaborators such as Martin Gilbraith, colleagues at ICA:UK, ICA:USA, InFocus, 5Deep, VisualEdge Solutions, and many others.

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28
Apr

Sakharov Centre for Armenian Human Rights

Having now had the opportunity to meet members AD Sakharov Armenian Human Rights Centre team in Berlin, I’m very excited to have booked my flight to head to Yerevan for two weeks at the end of next month.

The Sakharov Centre works to support the building of civil society and the development of democratic institutions in Armenia.

With my colleague Bruce Britton of Framework, and in collaboration with a local consultant, we will be conducting a critical review of SAHRC’s work. This will provide the basis for the Centre’s strategic plan from 2014-2018.

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