Reflections From a Broker’s Spring Travels / Réflexion d’un courtier en tournée printanière

Michael Johnny, RIR-York

1 Broker.  3 Conferences.  5 Flights.  10 National Partners.  16 days.  62 Presentations attended.  140 conversations.  6334 Kilometers.  Being an RIR knowledge broker in the spring…priceless!

1 courtier. 3 conférences. 5 vols. 10 partenaires nationaux. 16 jours. 62 présentations écoutées. 140 conversations. 6334 kilomètres. Être un courtier de connaissance du RIR au printemps… ça n’a pas de prix!

Yes, it’s that time of year, travel season!  And the totals above only represent June 1-16 and do not represent RIR’s presence at CAURA/ACARU in Montreal in May.  During this 16-day window, I had the pleasure of attending in an RIR national network meeting, the annual Canadian KMb Forum, Congress, and the recent CU Expo.  I am sitting in Corner Brook, NL as I write this, the CU Expo only recently formally closed.  This year things feel different and I mean that in a very positive way.  Each of these events over the past 16 days has provided transformational learning opportunities for me.  This reflection piece has provide me pages and pages of notes to look over, business cards to read over and follow up with and chances for me to leverage new knowledge and information to help make me a better knowledge broker.  So… with all that, here are some thoughts:

1. The value of a network – my bias with regard to RIR is strong; I believe in it and feel invested in it.  On June 1 and 2, members of RIR met for informal and formal meetings where we looked at the roles, responsibilities and tasks for our members, both at a Director and Broker (operational) level.   I will share a takeaway from a CU Expo session on June 14 about Innovation in Newfoundland, where one panelist shared this about collaboration, “You get out of it what you put into it”.  That makes me feel encouraged because all participants worked hard to come to some common understanding about what RIR can be, and have self-identified roles to help achieve value for us all.  These two days may help propel us on a good trajectory for the next two years!
2. Vision – Peter Levesque is President of the Institute for Knowledge Mobilization and led the extremely successful 2^nd Annual Canadian Knowledge Mobilization Forum in Mississauga, ON.  One of the services offered by his Institute is a KMb strategy building session.  One item he has shared in this session which really stood out for me is the continuum of KMb planning, from vision, mission, strategy, action, outputs, outcomes and impact (and there are likely others, but this is suffice for now).  I am drawn to Peter because he is a visionary and working in the same field he does is a fortunate circumstance for me.  However, let me fast forward to today, June 15, 2013, where I had the extreme pleasure of hearing Dr. Vianne Timmons, President and Chancellor of University of Regina.  Dr. Timmons provided one of the most powerful and visionary talks on community-university engagement I have ever heard.  The reason for this was her messages of enhanced needs for service and for deep meaningful engagement between university and community.  I manage a service unit at York University and take that responsibility seriously, but Dr. Timmons’ messages provided for me passion and renewed commitment to work harder to achieve a statement His Excellency, Governor General David Johsnton made, “this community belongs to this university”.  Here, in my work, the takeaway is a clear vision that roots KMb with neighbouring communities enables success by following Peter’s spectrum along to where action can result in positive outcomes and significant impact.  Daniele Zanotti, CEO of United Way York Region, in his keynote talk at the KMb Forum, enlightened me on some of the impacts of the work of York’s KMb Unit, impacts I was unaware of until he shared them.  At the foundation of my work in knowledge mobilization is a vision, which for me, is rooted in service and meaningful engagement.
3. Impact – RIR partner institution and CU Expo host, Memorial University (in fact, four of the five CU Expos have taken place at RIR member institutions) were able to showcase their excellent work in community-university engagement and KMb.  Rob Greenwood, Executive Director for the Office of Public Engagement for Memorial U, and Executive Director of the Harris Centre spoke about accountability as an important aspect of transformation in collaborative work.  Accountability has developed a negative connotation which is not always necessary.  David Phipps of York University has written that impact is felt at the level of the end user.  It is my feeling that in a collaborative model of engagement between universities and communities, there is shared accountability and impact helps to reinforce the desired outcomes, as well as the unanticipated or unexpected outcomes of a collaborative project.  This places importance on shared governance, a common vision and activities that are realistic and measurable, and lastly, as Rob stated with such passion, communicate, communicate, communicate!

Grenfell Campus, MUN, Corner Brook, NL

These are all large and significant takeaways from a busy schedule.  And here are a couple more.

• It is all about the relationships.  Technology and tools matter, but people want to meet face to face and we need to enable this.  I know this from my work of seven years as a broker, but this has been reinforced and explicitly stated at the RIR meeting; Congress in Victoria, BC; CU Expo in Corner Brook (three separate times in presentations).
• Details matter – The CU Expo in Corner Brook was the most well organized conference I have ever attended.  Every detail for a delegate was addressed and questions were dealt with immediately, individually and to the satisfaction of the person asking (me!).  Armies march on their stomach and brokers plan, play, share, scheme and dream with theirs too (along with some pints)!

ResearchImpact booth at CU Expo 2013

I do have specific ideas to consider (or, takeaways that can improve my practice, because I didn’t spend all my time thinking big!):

• A regional network of knowledge brokers (many people assume these duties without the job title).  Can we connect and convene to learn, share and do our work better?
• Explore a policy-centred delivery mechanism so policy issues from our partners can be better addressed with academic research support.  There are examples of good practice to consider.
• Begin to read literature.  An even better idea when your Director recommends it!
• Alternative forms of engagement… brainstorming needed.  FM radio, 100.1 CU Expo Radio was one of the most innovative resources I have witnessed to engage community around KMb and other processes of community-university engagement.
• Work with partners to strengthen marketing and communications.  And the best thing about this is we’re a partnership… I don’t need to have all the answers!

David Phipps at the ResearchImpact booth at Congress in Victoria, BC

I’m tired. I miss my family.  I miss my office.  But it is these opportunities; the laughter, the seafood, the screech-in, the business card exchange and the significant one-on-one time with partners who are now friends that make me appreciate the value, importance and responsibility of doing this work.  My support system has expanded greatly over the past 16 days.  But like His Excellency shared, “How do we exercise our responsibilities?”  Due to the lessons learned over 16 days, I am better equipped to answer that.

Time for more seafood and more reflection!

The Potential of Sharing: University-Community Partnerships Proving Successful

This article was first published by The Western Star, Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador on June 14, 2013. Corner Brook was hosting the Community University Expo 2013. RIR is pleased that The Western Star chose to feature Krista Jensen (RIR-York) speaking about the RIR collaboration that involves Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador (RIR-MUN).

For the original post please see: http://www.thewesternstar.com/News/Local/2013-06-14/article-3276858/The-potential-of-sharing/1

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By Adam Harnum

Special to The Star

CORNER BROOK — The sound of voices echoed the halls of Grenfell Campus’ new Arts and Science extension Thursday afternoon, as people from the community and universities across the country gathered to share their community-university partnerships and engagement initiatives with anyone interested in listening. Krista Jensen, a knowledge mobilization officer at York University in Toronto was present at the Engagement Fair, an event scheduled as part of the CU Expo 2013, and was willing to shed light into their partnership with Memorial called Research Impact.

“Research Impact is a network of 10 universities across Canada that each have their own knowledge mobilization unit,” she explained.

Jensen added that the Harris Centre at MUN has been their partner for a number of years.

“So each unit works to connect research and researchers with external groups such as committee members, government, private industry, basically anything that is policy ot practice relevant,” said Jensen.

She said it works both ways, in the sense that either a faculty member can come looking for new partners they might be interested in pairing with, or the community member who is looking for research expertise can come to them for help with
a project.

“We don’t actually do the research ourselves, but we can match them up,” said Jensen of those seeking research assistance.

Carol Galliott, a spectator who visited the Research Impact Network booth, felt the information provided to her was clear and interesting.

“She told me that 10 universities across the country were working together to look at research,” added Galliott. She further elaborated that the group of universities started off in Victoria, B.C. but has since expanded to 10 and Memorial is one of the universities which share and work together to make research more usable and more accessible throughout the network.

“Sometimes we don’t know what services are out there so pulling people together and sharing what each has to offer,” said Galliott of the Engagement Fair.

Jensen shares much the same feelings as her spectator in relation to the potential of such an event.

“It is really great to hear what other people are saying and maybe they are developing tools that we can use for our local community.” said Jensen. “The capacity to just learn from one another is valuable.”

Jensen does credit Memorial for being involved in engagement fairs for such a long time, and admits that when York University first got involved with the events, Memorial was one of the first places her manager contacted regarding information.

“They were just so helpful in sending us information about how they have been doing and we have taken some of that and adapted it for our own local purposes.”

Social Good and Business Hooked up and I Saw it Happen

Christian Quaresma,York University

This is a guest post reposted with permission from York University student and poet, Christian Quaresma. Christian attending the Collaboration for Social Good event held on April 18, 2013, in Markham (read more about it here) and composed a poem “Untitled” during the event, along with fellow student and poet Sara-Jane Gloutnez. 

Yesterday, April 18th, was a strange day in my poetic career, and a challenging day as a human being. I attended a conference on Collaboration for Social Good in Markham Ontario in order to view the gathering of NGO’s, businesses, and government, through the lens of a poet. At some point I was to give a short performance of a piece I composed on the spot. The organizers sat me at a table with CEO’s, social workers, a professor from Schulich  School of Business, and entrepreneurs, where my identity remained incognito until I took the stage toward the end of the day.

I realized pretty quickly that this event, put together by the York Region Women’s Centre, York U, and other social enterprises, was going to be focused on business strategy. I hadn’t hoped for much more; this romantic poet has a pragmatic streak. Throughout the event there was a lot of jargon tossed around, words like crowdfunding and collaborative consumption (a good idea with a terrible name).

But among the shop talk and the Tony Robbins-like crowd peppering, there were two things that astounded me. First, was the sense of community right from the opening speaker, in a room full of professionals, many normally contained in their respective “silos”. The speakers themselves believed in their causes completely, and their ability to shape capital expenditures toward social good. The second thing was the language of consciousness forming underneath the speakers’ themes as the day rolled on smoothly. From the beginning I had penned down in my notebook “communism/ revolution, inherent contradictions of capitalism?”, wondering how these theories I spent four years learning informed the actions of these business-people.

And there were radicals at the table! They even took the stage and talked about new currencies in terms of social capital, things likes reputation (merit for you classists out there), time banks, and fun. Yes, fun as a form of currency to transform the system of exchange. I even saw strategies for economic growth mapped out on a backdrop of the Fibbonacci Spiral, and explained in terms of “strange attractors”. The amateur physicist in me teared up with joy.

During the lunch hour I met up with my accomplice, poet Sara-Jane Gloutnez, to compose a collaboration for our performance. I crammed in a quick sandwich, which left my nervous stomach empty by the time we took the stage, so that I was shaking a little during my reading. We did our bit, and I yoked together some strange combinations like “entrepreneurial vines” and “perennial investor”. The poems will be posted on the event blog, links forthcoming.

I left the conference with a million good feels vibrating in my body, especially after hearing the soul-lifting stories of Neil Hetherington, former CEO of Habitat for Humanity, Toronto. It seemed to me there was an atmosphere of experimentation in the air, a willingness to explore ways of improving our lives beyond the traditional market and to expand the notions of life-chances beyond GDP, or even the HDI, to include people’s dignity.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

David Phipps, RIR-York

Ten universities. Sixteen people (brokers and directors). ResearchImpact-RéseauImpactRecherche (RIR) held its annual meeting one day before the Canadian Knowledge Mobilization Forum. We started out with an overview of knowledge mobilization by Peter Levesque (@PeterLevesque) from Knowledge Mobilization Works (@KMbW_Updates) and the Institute for Knowledge Mobilization. Shawna Reibling (@mobilizeshawna) from Wilfrid Laurier University (RIR-WLU) spoke about knowledge mobilization practice at universities and in communities across Canada drawing connections between community engaged scholarship, engaged scholarship, community based research and knowledge mobilization all of which are practiced by the RIR partners. I then spoke about networks and Communities of Practice (CoP) and how the CoP model can help inform the how RIR members can create and derive value from the network.

We found out that when he was a boy Brent Sternig (RIR-UVic) wanted to be a patent agent, Steve (RIR-Kwantlen) wanted to be a basketball player, Melanie (RIR-UVic) wanted to be a clown and Krista (RIR-York) wanted to be a tea pot.

Moving on….

We used a dotmocracy process to identify priorities for the network over the next year. These included: internal communications and information sharing including capacity building; external communications including branding and social media; evaluation and metrics. Directors and Brokers identified the working groups they wished to support. Next step is to develop work plans to move these priorities forward.

We then ended with a presentation by Peter Lemish, U. Southern Illinois and the Mid-Western Knowledge Mobilization Network. Together we explored how two knowledge mobilization networks might be able to connect and create spaces for mutual learning.

Going round the room to collect personal reflections on the day there was a lot of “a-ha” and “so that’s what we could be” and one knowledge brokers said she had a renewed passion for her job.

Nice. Very nice.

Pizza and wine and a movie and we knew that not only something funny (tea pot) but something wonderful happened on the way to the Forum.