Auto-play video is changing everything
If you’d have told me a few years ago that the future of social media was text-heavy 90 second videos, I’d have laughed you out of the room. But ‘auto-play’ video on Facebook and Twitter is changing the game, when it comes to digital content creation.
10 top tips for researchers who want to change the world
Let’s face it, a lot of research just gathers dust on a shelf. An analysis of World Bank publications once showed that a third had never been downloaded, by anyone – ever! Most researchers I meet want to change the world, it’s just that very few of them know how. They sweat blood doing the […]
The Little Big Thing
Everybody’s talking about ‘the little big thing’. We’re all working on big things: ending poverty, reducing maternal mortality, gender equality, financial inclusion, universal education, action on climate change… But sometimes we forget about the little thing, that makes the big thing happen.
Policy briefs in a swimming pool
There’s a time and a place for everything. But the best time for policy briefs is not six o’clock in the evening at the end of an all day conference. And the best place for policy briefs is not at a cocktail party, and certainly not floating on the surface of a hotel swimming pool.
Hands up: who’s in the room?
I’ve just been at a conference attended by 450 people from all across the world. In the opening session, the facilitator asked for a ‘show of hands’: “Hands up: who has come from another country in Africa?” “Hands up: who has never been to this country before?” “Hands up: who is sitting next to someone […]
PowerPoint karaoke: unless there’s music, it’s just not infotainment
How your heart sinks when a presenter clicks to their next slide, only to reveal a wall of text, which they then proceed to read out: word, for word. We call it ‘PowerPoint karaoke’ and it grinds your audience down. It also provokes either complete disengagement or a stream of hostile attacks in your Q&A.
Uwezo – making itself heard across the region
Uwezo’s annual learning assessments have in only five years become the gold standard for finding out whether our children are learning. Each year they assess children in their homes and put out reports detailing their findings for Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and the region. The cyclical nature of Uwezo’s work and the fact that there have […]
APHRC – patience and planning rewarded
The African Population and Health Research Center is a world-renowned pan-African research institution that conducts high quality policy-relevant research on population, health, education, urbanization and related development issues across Africa.
Mango Tree – Coordinated communications reaping rewards
When Mango Tree started to see astounding results in the reading and writing skills of primary school learners from their Lira literacy project in Lira, Northern Uganda, they wanted influential people in the Ministry of Education to know about it. This would help them in their relations with the ministry and administration.
