News & Events
» Latest updates

January 18, 2012

The Ketso team ran a workshop as part of the BEMIS/GRAMNET Research Seminar Series at the University of Glasgow. BEMIS is "the national Ethnic Minorities led umbrella body supporting the development of the Ethnic Minorities Voluntary Sector in Scotland". GRAMNet "aims to bring together researchers and practitioners, NGOs and policy makers working with migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland".

The focus of the workshop was 'Research, Ethics and Active Citizenship: Towards Guidelines for Ethical Research Practice'. More than 25 participants from community groups, NGOs and research departments across Scotland attended the event. An in-depth dialogue prompted some serious questioning of the nature of research. Particpants developed a draft set of guidelines for use in research, which will be circuluated amongst the BEMIS and GRAMNet networks for further comment. We will post links to the reports that emerge from this research seminar series.

January 2012

Spaces are filling fast at our upcoming events in January (Learning from Renfrewshire’s Community Planning Conference success - Edinburgh ).  In February  our Health and wellbeing: learning from each other in a time of change - workshop in Manchester has been so popular that we have put on an extra session in the afternoon on Feb. 10th. There are stil places on this workshop, but the morning is fully booked. For more information and to book a place, see here. 

November 29 - 30, 2011

Ketso was used to gather input from delegates in a workshop entitled 'Effective Partnerships' at the 2011 Engage Conference held by the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement.

Following presentations from two successful partnerships, twenty-five participants from Universities, community groups and existing partnerships explored what makes an effective partnership. Delegates spent thirty minutes working as a group following these presentations to share ideas on what works, and to develop shared top tips.

A report from the workshop can be downloaded here.
The full set of results (216 ideas) can be downloaded here.

November 16, 2011

Participants in a Methods@Manchester training event brainstormed ideas around 'running a good workshop'. Ketso was used to gather ideas from participants from Universities across the North West and Midlands. 

You can download the ideas here.

November 7, 2011

Nineteen participants involved in health, community development and research from Norwich and across the South East attended a workshop on creative engagement and planning a workshop with Ketso, which was hosted by CUE East, a Beacon for Public Engagement.

November 3, 2011

Ketso was featured as one of eight case studies in a video produced by the ESRC on impact from the social sciences. This video was shown in an event with over 100 senior academics and policymakers, entitled 'Celebrating the social sciences'. The guest speakers were David Willetts MP, Minister for Science and Universities and Mark Easton, BBC News Home Editor.

You can see the press release and see the video from this link.

October 17, 2011

The Beacon for Wales hosted two workshops with Ketso at the University of Cardiff,  'enhancing the student experience, a cross-university dialogue', and an all day workshop 'Participatory approaches to data gathering'.

Over thirty participants from across Wales engaged in a lively discussion around ways to enhance the student experience, and this was used as an example of data gathering. The afternoon was spent discussing how to gather and analyse data using Ketso, and setting Ketso in the context of other research methods. Participants had an opportunity to explore their own research projects and ways to engage stakeholders in them. Results will follow shortly.

Oct. 5, 2011

Nearly 100 delegates, PhDs from across the North West, used mini Ketsos at the 2011 Methods@Manchester Methods fair to discuss 'what inspired them to do their PhD', 'what they hoped to get from their research training' and 'what they hoped to get from the day'.

At the end of the conference, delegates were encouraged to give feedback on the day using Ketso leaves and creating an instant picture of the experience of the day for the organisers.

 

Oct. 3, 2011

Spaces are filling quickly for the workshops we are running in Cardiff on Oct. 17, with over 40 bookings, but there are still a few spaces. We have an interesting range of people coming from all over Wales. The all day workshop looks at participatory data gathering, and the morning of this is a dialogue around 'enhancing the student experience'. Job titles of those attending include: Associate Director of Research;  Communities First Coordinator; Information Literacy Development Officer for Wales; Innovation and Engagement Manager; Participation Cymru Advisor; Research Grants Officer; Rural Communities Co-ordinator and Widening Access Officer. We are looking forward to a lively and interesting discussion on the day.  For more information and to register, see this page.

Sept. 26, 2011

Health and Wellbeing - an ageing dimension

Fifteen participants from local authorities, health agencies and consultants working in health and wellbeing from across England attended a workshop on the 26th September 2011, which launched the Ageing Well – health and wellbeing programme (part of the Ageing Well Programme, of the Local Government Group). Participants worked in teams to discuss ways to include an ageing dimension in the shadow Health and Wellbeing Boards that are in the early stages of development across the country.

The discussion throughout the day was lively and involved some searching debate about the role of local authorities and the various bodies involved in health and wellbeing. There were some serious questions asked about changing cultures and practices. Whilst there was recognition that these were difficult times, there was also a sense of hope that opportunities to share ideas such as this workshop offer an opportunity to question assumptions and could lead to new ways of working. You can download the results here:

 

Sept. 13, 2011

Creating Better Neighbourhoods - Communities planning for a better future

Elaine, our office manager, showcased Ketso to the 'Creating Better Neighbourhoods' conference in Preston, an inspiring event led by Locality as part of the Building Community Consortium.

Attended by community organisations and local authority staff from across the North West,  the day allowed delegates to explore the implications of the Localism Bill and debate the ways in which local communities can offer sustainable alternatives to top down development and regeneration programmes.  We took Ketso to teh conference, because these are some of the issues at the heart why we developed the toolkit - to improve the effectiveness of collaborative workshops.

Elaine said afterwards that “for me, living in a flat in the city and active in my own community as a tree warden, the most interesting part of the day was gaining an understanding of the design features essential for creating a safe and sustainable neighbourhood. I felt that was essential information that anyone involved in community planning activities needed to know”.

The question of funding to undertake planned community activities under the Localism Bill is apparently as yet undecided, but we feel there is huge potential for using Ketso in this arena, as it is already proven as a tool for drawing out and developing creative ideas from community members and stakeholders in a cost effective and non-confrontational manner.

Sept. 7 - 9, 2011

Ketso was used at the International Enterprise Educators' Conference 2011 in Coventry University,  to stimulate dialogue amongst over 100 delegates. The questions asked were: What works? Why does it work? How do we know it works? Ideas for action were also developed. 887 ideas were developed in forty-five minutes of active dialogue. Feedback from delegates was positive, especially after a summary of they key ideas developed were fed back in the final plenary session. 

Sept. 5, 2011

Ketso is being featured as 'Product of the Month' by Urban Mines - see this page for more details. On their Product of the Month page, Urban Mines says they aim to "support private companies, social enterprises or voluntary groups, manufacturing from recycled materials or providing innovative services through our Product of the Month feature". 

Sept. 5, 2011

Renfrewshire Council in Scotland is running their Community Planning Conferences on Sept. 12, 14 and 20th, 2011. They will be using Ketso for the focus groups with community members,  covering the following topics:

  • Your local area
  • Bringing communities together
  • Citizens and services: working together
  • Tackling crime and offending
  • Improving our health
  • Improving Renfrewshire's economy
  • Learning and skills
  • Breaking the poverty cycle
  • Sustainable living

 

July 29, 2011

A report summarising the results from a workshop hosted by Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce and the Business and Enterprise team at the University of Sussex has just been posted on the Ketso website, for details, click here.

July 17 - 22, 2011

Ketso was used to stimulate discussion and interaction amongst over 150 delegates at the 55th Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences and the International Symposium for Knowledge and Systems Sciences.

This week long conference was held at Hull University Business School, with the theme: All together now – working across disciplines: People, principles and practice. Delegates used Ketso in the opening session to discuss 'what is working well' and 'ideas for improvement' for the organisation and systems thinking in general.

The key ideas from this workshop were then pinned up alongside posters, for delegates to review and add comments to throughout the week.

A Ketso grid was used for delegates to map their interests and to see what connections they had with other delegates. In the final session, Ketso was used to capture speedy and interactive feedback about the conference.

The use of Ketso stimulated a lot of dialogue and interaction. A delegate commented: "Ketso was great for getting instant feedback, and building a warm atmosphere of shared experiences at the end of the conference". Minna Takala, School of Science, Aalto University, Finland

 

July 19, 2011

Engagement, outreach, skills development and enterprise promotion in a time of budget cuts; a cross-University dialogue - Newcastle

Over thirty participants from across the North East of England attended a workshop hosted by Beacon North East at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle. There were both academic and non-academic participants (working in a range of sectors from refugee issues to education to health). The topic of the dialogue was engagement, skills development, widening participation and outreach, and enterprise promotion in Universities in a time of budget cuts. The results can be downloaded from the links below:

Actio

(Photo from Gavin Duthie, courtesy of Beacon NE)

July 8, 2011

Joanne has been awarded an AESOP Excellence in Teaching Prize 2011. AESOP is the Association of European Schools of Planning, and the prize was awarded at the World Planning School Congress in Perth (Australia), which was held 4th-8th July, 2011. The award was for innovative teaching methods developed for the second year module, Settlement Project.

In the announcement of the award, AESOP said: "the jury appreciated the innovative way to teach a very large studio class in an interactive approach, in a student-centred way without needing excessive tutor support. This is a challenge that is awaiting most of the European university courses with more demanding students and diminishing funding and resources. The interactive approach is developed by a specific and original technique [Ketso], which appears well tested and which shows its efficacy in supporting "student oriented teaching"."

July, 2011

As part of Ketso's social mission, we are supporting the development of the RoundView, a framework for sustainability innovation. This has been tested and developed with over 200 members of staff in Tesco in action research funded by the Sustainable Consumption Institute.
This innovative idea, which aims to support learning and design for a sustainable future, has won two prizes in the first Low Carbon and Environment Competition held at the University of Manchester. These prizes will enable Joanne to work with both University of Manchester Intellectual Property (UMIP) and University of Manchester Incubator Company (UMIC) to develop the RoundView and enable it to be spread further.

Tony Walker of UMIC said:
“RoundView has a significant potential to become a framework for influence in a move toward a sustainable future. Again it could be a Manchester ‘first’ in its contribution to global economic and social well being, it was great to be able to support the further development of Dr Tippett and her work in what I hope will be a globally recognised philosophy for positive change.“

Professor Alistair Ulph, Director of the Sustainable Consumption Institute said:
“It is gratifying to see Dr Tippett’s research recognised by these two significant prizes. As lead investigator on two SCI research projects, her team identified the skills necessary to embed sustainability in the workplace. Their research has been presented widely, at prestigious events and organisations such as the World Economic Forum and UNESCO, and as importantly, has created a programme of accessible training on sustainability which is set to be rolled out further afield.”

Joanne, Fraser and Bill are currently working with the Ellen Macarthur Foundation to develop further learning tools and to make the RoundView more widely available. For further information see: www.roundview.org.

June 29, 2011

Over 50 people attended two Ketso events at the University of Sussex. In the morning, staff from across the University of Sussex entered into a dialogue about how to enhance the student experience.

In the afternoon people from a range of companies and the voluntary sector attended a session called 'Let's Go Ketso!', in an event jointly hosted by the Business and Enterprise Team at the University of Sussex and Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce. Participants discussed ways to work together for the common good.

June 6, 2011

Report published from 'Speed Ketso' session hosted by National School and Civil Service Learning at Civil Service Live, Birmingham

Nigel Ward from the National School of Government facilitated a workshop using Ketso at Civil Service Live. You can download the report from National School of Government here.

May 16, 2011

 Fraser ran a workshop for approximaltey 70 staff and students at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), developing themes and principles for a student charter.

May 12, 2011

The Ketso team ran a workshop at the Staff Development Forum's Spring Conference, exploring the theme of the conference; 'Fit for the Future', looking at how the staff development community can help Universities to be fit for the future.

May 9, 2011

Forty-three people from across the South East, and as far away as Dublin and Sheffield, attended a cross-University dialogue looking at how to enhance the student experience. The discussion was quite intense, with some deep questioning about the future of higher education. There was a great deal of creative thinking and learning from best practice. At least one person came saying he had been feeling discouraged, but left inspired and with renewed optimism. We would like to thank the Community Engagement team of London South Bank University for hosting this event. Results from the workshop will be posted soon. 

April 28, 2011

We have calculated that since Ketso launched in 2009, the Ketso team has run workshops for over 1,640 people in over 70 events.  This is in addition to the hundreds of students who have used Ketso through Joanne’s teaching at the University of Manchester, and the workshops that will have been run by our customers.  Ketso has also been used on each contient apart from Antarctica!

April 21, 2011

We have over 40 people from over 25 organisations signed up so far for the cross-University dialogue we are running in London on May 9th. Participants are coming from as far afield as Australia and Ireland. There are still a few spaces left for this free event.  The subject of the dialogue is 'enhancing the student experience', and it is being hosted by the Community Engagement Team at London South Bank University. Click here to download the flyer. We are considering opening up a morning session on the same day to meet demand.

April, 2011

Planning is getting underway for Ketso's involvement in a major EU funded Seventh Framework Programme,  CLUVA
CLimate change and Urban Vulnerability in Africa. Joanne is involved as a researcher, bringing her social science expertise to the multi-partner research team. Ketso will be used as part of a range of data gathering techniques looking at stakeholder perceptions and understandings around climate change, vulnerability and ecosystem services in the five African cities of the partnership (Addis Abeba, Ethiopia; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania ; Douala, Cameroon;
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso and Saint Louis (Ndar), Senegal), working with local researchers and partners.

March 14, 2011

Joanne ran three workshops hosted by GRAMNET at the University of Glasgow. The first brought together Masters students and their partners to develop collaborative Masters Projects. This is an innovative new project run by GRAMNET to enable research projects in the area of asylum, migration and refugee research to be carried out with partner organisations, but led by Masters students. One participant commented: "I can't believe how much work we got done in just over an hour! I thought that would take three weeks."

This enabled the partners to meet each other and explore resources available to them to complete these innovative research projects, which will not only provide valuable work experience for the students, but will produce timely research projects of real value to the partner organisations.

The second workshop brought together the wider community of GRAMNET to explore current issues around migration, refugees and asylum seekers. The discussion was lively and led to interesting insights around the nature of the public debate and media, as well as a better understanding amongst partners of the existing work that is going on and creative possibilities for future actions and research.

In the third workshop, ideas for possible collaboration between GRAMNET and Ketso were explored. This led to the idea of a further training session in the early summer and a more in-depth exploration of participatory research methodologies.

March 9, 2011

Joanne led a research seminar at the University of Manchester, discussing her recent research with Tesco under the auspices of the Sustainable Consumption Institute. The use of Ketso as a tool for gathering research data was explored.

March 4, 2011

Joanne ran a workshop for the second meeting of the new North West regional group of ADSHE, the Association of Dyslexia Specialists in Higher Education. The workshop focused on supporting students with dyslexia, with a broad ranging discussion around the need for culture change and shifts in attitude to be able to maintain the excellent work that has been done in supporting students with dyslexia in the coming time of budget cuts and potential loss of staff.

March 1, 2011

VITAE have posted a full set of training resources around social enterprise aimed at researchers and trainers working in developing research skills.  This features Ketso as a case study. You can see the Ketso case study here, and the training resource for introducing social enterprise here.

VITAE is "a national organisation championing the personal, professional and career development of doctoral researchers and research staff in higher education institutions and research institutes" (http://www.vitae.ac.uk).

VITAE has also produced a series of videos as part of this resource:

March 2011

Big Society Report released

A report synthesising the results of a major workshop about the Big Society, with environmental stakeholders from across the North West has been posted on the North West Environment Link (NWEL). You can download the report here.

You can read the response to this report  from Richard Benyon MP, Minister for the Natural Environeamt and Fisheries here. The recommendations in the report were passed on to the Natural Environment White Paper team for consideration.

Feb. 28, 2011

Joanne introduced tools for community engagement (and Ketso) to fifty postgraduate level students in Urban Regeneration and Town and Country Planning at the University of Manchester.

Feb. 21, 2011

Joanne ran a workshop for 31 members and guests of the Association of University Administrators, North West branch, discussing 'improving the student experience' and 'doing more with less'. People attended from Universities across the region (and some traveled over from Yorkshire) and the discussion was thought provoking and challenging, with a lot of creative and interesting ideas developed. You can down load the results from the workshop here - and the mini action plans that participants developed around the next steps that they will do after the event, here.

Feb. 17, 2011

Bill ran a workshop for about twenty staff of the Environment Agency at The Barn, Cuerton (nr Preston). The title was "Alt Crossens area- sustainability". Alt Crossens is the peat area of West Lancashire, with a lot of market garden use. It is the only area where the drainage is managed by EA (elsewhere in country local drainage boards do the managing) and will be subjected to fund reduction. The workshop aimed to explore alternative ways of managing this area, looking at the wider picture of sustainability - and indeed, one participant stated that she had benefited by seeing a wider picture than previously around the topic.

Feb. 17, 2011

Joanne introduced Ketso to HELOA (Higher Education Liaison Officers Association) North West branch in a regional meeting at the University of Central Lancashire.

You can download the results from the short exercise looking at 'Attracting Students to Universities', which have been collated with those from a similar workshop with the Widening Participation team at the University of Manchester, here.

 

 

Feb. 9, 2011

Joanne and Fraser ran a workshop on the RoundView Guidelines for Sustainability for over 60 of Tesco's Green Champions at Theobold's Park in Cheshunt. Participants used Ketso to explore ideas of what Tesco was already doing to move towards sustainbilty and to develop creative new ideas for the future. In the last session of the day participants used Ketso to develop ideas and action plans for their activities in Climate Week.

Feb. 9 2011

Elaine attended the stimulating event 'Who's curriculum is it anyway?', hosted by Whole Education, in Manchester.

Feb. 2011

Ketso is being introduced into two new courses in the School of Environment and Development. One is a first year Environment and Society course, where it is being used for students to explore their understandings of sustainability and to develop their group posters about a management plan for the Sefton Coast. The second is a postgraduate course, the client based project, where students are using Ketso to plan their projects, and where appropriate, to engage with their clients or stakeholder groups.  If you are interested in observing these workshops, email elaine [at] ketso . com to enquire about dates. The picture here shows Ketso in use in a student led project, in a second year undergraduate course for 75 students, called Settlement Project.

Jan. 27, 2011

Joanne ran a workshop at the University of Cardiff, in the School of Planning, for 36 Masters students studying urban regeneration. The students used Ketso to explore existing assets, possibilities and challenges for a site in Cardiff that they are working on with community members as part of their degree.

The students were both developing ideas for their project and learning new skills in community engagement - some students may go on to use Ketso in engaging with the local community and stakeholders as part of this semester-long project.

Jan. 25, 2011

Joanne attended the NCCPE event Museums, Researchers and Engagement, which educated her about the range of resources and skills on offer in museums around the country.

Jan. 24, 2011

Forty six people attended the cross-University dialogue we hosted to explore 'engagement, skills, outreach and enterprise in a time of budget cuts. Results from this lively workshop can be downloaded from this page.

Jan.19, 2011

Ketso had a stall at the IEMA Knowledge Exchange Event in Manchester. This lively event was attended by 200 people from academia, industry and the public sector.

Jan. 18, 2011

Eighteen people from Merseyside NHS Trust and their partners came to a talk by Joanne for the Creative Leadership Forum entitled creative engagement "from the mountains of Lesotho to a former landfill in Manchester".

There was a half hour exercise following the talk to try out Ketso, during which 191 ideas around 'how to improve health and wellbeing' were developed. This event was part of the launch of the Decade of Health and Wellbeing, and used the Five Ways to Wellbeing developed by the New Economics Foundation as the basis for the discussion. These are:

  • Connect
  • Be Active
  • Take notice
  • Keep learning
  • Give

 Key ideas about what works well already that were highlighted included:

  • Exercise
  • Fresh air and green open spaces
  • Spending time outdoors
  • Enough time
  • Control over own circumstances
  • Friendships
  • Feeling secure
  • Helping people
  • Fun at work

 

There was a brief time to develop new ideas for the future.  The need to lobby for cultural partners and to create new partnerships was discussed. Nature and the value of time in open space was a common theme. there was a lot of discussion around exercise and the need to walk and move around more, as well as the need for healthy nutritious food. Giving in creative ways and volunteering was discussed, as was the value of developing coaching skills and more mentoring opportunities to increase connections between people. The idea of abolishing boring meetings was also brought up. A 'next step' that was placed next to the future possibility 'Treasure your wellbeing project' was  'Reflect on use of Ketso in my role'.  You can download the full set of results here.

Jan.13, 2011

Joanne ran a workshop at the University of Salford with researchers on a new international research project, ELIE: EMPLOYABILITY: LEARNING THROUGH ENTREPRENUERSHIP, which is funded by the European Union Erasmus Scheme Lifelong Learning Programme.

ELIE’s aim is "the development and piloting of a learning framework (LF) that facilitates Employability and Entrepreneurship in a Cross-Cultural Environment with particular emphasis on providing knowledge and skills sets for SMEs and students in accessible informal and formal settings".

The project is using action research methodologies. In this workshop, Ketso was used to develop the interview questions and samplling strategy for the intial round of interviews with immigrant entrepeneurs.

Jan. 7, 2011

We have only a few places left on a free workshop we are running at King’s College in London in the afternoon on Jan. 24th. We will use Ketso to facilitate a cross-University dialogue around delivering engagement, outreach, skills development and enterprise promotion in a time of budget cuts. To date, we have bookings from over 40 people over 30 different institutions, with a range of job roles, from: Researcher Development Adviser, to Widening Participation and Disability Officers, to Transferable Skills Tutor, to Director of Participation Officer, to Corporate Volunteer Coordinator, to Head of the Knowledge Management.

Dec. 21, 2010

The first example workshop plans in a series have been uploaded to the Ketso website, in the 'Resources and Downloads' section. Each of the workshop plans in this series is based on a workshop that was run successfully.
in addition to the workshop plans developed and tested by the Ketso team, we intend to build a library of user-contributed plans and suggestions, creating an open resource for effective use of Ketso for engagement and change.

Dec. 10, 2010

26 people from Universities across the North and Midlands attended a workshop at the University of Manchester to discuss how to continue the excellent recent progress in engaging with the public, widening participation and outreach, skills development and enterprise promotion that Universities in the UK have been making in the last few years. The context was that of budget cuts - and a wide range of creative solutions were developed. One participant commented she was surprised by the number of solutions and positive ideas developed, despite the challenging times we are facing. The results are posted on this page.

Dec. 9, 2010

GRAMNet hosted an event exploring the isuses facing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Scotland.  One of the organisers commented: "This Community Consultation event, as part of the Everybody In project, a collaboration between Equality Network, BEMIS and the Glasgow University Refugee, Asylum and Migration Network (GRAMNet) explored LGBT issues for asylum seekers and was about 'engaging the public in research'. Ketso really worked well in helping people explore research issues but also to think about how to convert them into action".  Rebecca Kay, Professor of Russian Gender Studies, University of Glasgow

Dec. 7 - 8, 2010

Joanne attended the NCCPE Conference Engage 2010: The Engaged University - Embracing Chang. She gave two taster sessions introducing delegates to Ketso, and was privileged to attend the launch of the new Concordat for Engaging the Public with Research. 

Dec. 6, 2010

Stakeholders from across London and the surrounding region attended a workshop to discuss 'Delivering Value in a time of Budget cuts'.  Results from this workshop and the related workshop in Manchester are posted here.

Key ideas about opportunities to emerge from the series of workshops were:

  • Using budget cuts as an opportunity to change - 'break the mould'
  • Re-evaluate what is really needed
  • More projects engaging communities in delivery
  • Opportunity to really work 'bottom up'
  • Involving and focusing on the end user
  • Stronger accountability
  • Investment in students
  • More involvement by 3rd Sector
  • Collaboration or partnership
  • Bring community closer together on projects that are important

 

Dec. 3, 2010

24 people attended the first workshop entitled 'Delivering Value in a time of Budget cuts', held at the University of Manchester and facilitated by Joanne Tippett and Fraser How of Ketso,  from the following organisations: 

  • Environment Agency
  • Manchester City Council
  • Mersey Forest
  • Mind in Manchester
  • Participatory Budgeting Unit
  • Salford's Local Strategic Partnership
  • Universities of Manchester and Salford
  • Vision TwentyOne
  • Winning Pitch

A lively discussion around creative ways forward during a time of budget cuts ensued. The plethora of ideas developed can be dowloaded here, and will be added to the synthesis report from the series of workshops that we are running across the country.

Dec. 1, 2010

We have had to move to a larger venue for our upcoming events at the University of Manchester, due to having more people sign up than could fit in the room we had booked. See this press release. The multi-stakeholder dialogue on Dec. 3 and the cross-University dialogue on Dec. 10 will now be held in University Place -  Room 3.204 - building 37 http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=6507.

We have an interesting range of people attending, in Manchester for example, we will be joined by Vision21, the Environment Agency, a Policy Officer for Sustainable Neighbourhoods and a Regeneration Officer from the City Council. In London, people are coming from organisations including local charities, such as the London Wildlife Trust and Jigsaw4U (who work with bereaved children), to Changing the Face of Africa and LEAD International, to companies such as the Garton Gresham Learning Company Ltd and the public sector, including the NHS and Natural England.

Due to the larger venue, there are still a few places, so do please let us know if you would like to come, by emailing elaine [at] ketso. com

Nov. 29 - Dec. 1, 2010

Joanne, Bill and Fraser attended the Ellen Macarthur Foundation Bradford Ten +One conference and were excited by the calls for redesign, creative thinking, new ways of learning and working together.

Nov. 17, 2010

Joanne ran a workshop at Leeds Metropolitan University for the West Yorkshire Dyslexia Tutor Forum. Tutors were able to experience being 18 again, through playing roles as first year undergraduate students exploring their careers options - luckily some of them decided at the end that their favourite careers were indeed the ones they ended up with! In the process they were able to explore alternative career paths and discuss the relative merits and disadvantages of different career options, as well as what they would need to do to achieve their chosen careers. Several agreed that they wished they had had an exercise like this when they were 18! Ideas were developed in the subsequent discussion about how to best support students with dyslexia. These will be posted soon - there were some great ideas developed and some interesting resources shared.

 

Nov. 11, 2010

The University of Bristol’s Centre for Public Engagement and the UK Systems Society South West and Wales (UKSS SW2) hosted a training session with the Ketso team, in which participants from across the South West and Wales explored the topic 'planning for sustainability in a time of budget cuts'. The results of this discussion can be downloaded from this page. Future possiblities highlighted by particpants included:

  • Courageous political action
  • Tax incentives
  • Tax environmental cost of activities
  • Reward sustainable behaviours
  • More part time work opportunities
  • Stories of the possible
  • Re-skill in practical wor
  • Culture shift
  • Understand our impact
  • Reaching out to those marginalised by the 'greens'
  • Inclusive education and participatory opportunities
  • Education (social issues, knowledge)
  • Transportation networks discourage travelling by road
  • Better urban green space for food production

Nov. 8 - 10, 2010

Bill Tippett gave a workshop on engaging with communities at the International Enterprise Promotion Convention in Harrogate. He discussed Ketso in enterprise promotion with delegates from the UK, Bulgaria, Ghana, Nigeria and the Middle East. 

Nov. 4, 2010

Ketso was used to facilitate discussion in a break-out workshop amongst researchers and support staff at a Vitae conference in London, 'Vitae research staff conference 2010: empowering researchers through staff associations'. The topic of the workshop was 'engaging researchers'. Following presentations from Dr. Blanka Sengerova, Dr. Deborah Holliday, Ms. Lilian Menu and Dr. Joanne Tippett, the 30 participants developed over 150 ideas in a short 20 minute discussion using Ketso. Themes that were discussed included: Linking to research; Bottom up approaches; Blogging & social media; Website & Digital Resources; Hands on tools; Face to face community; Skills Training; Institutional & External support and Away from it all / Social.

The idea that was seen as the most important in terms of 'what works' was: 'for researchers to know they can affect change'.  There was a much higher proportion of creative new ideas (77) developed than barriers (33). The themes that generated the most discussion were: Face to face community (with the highest proportion of ideas around 'what works well', some of which included free food and social events!) and Linking to research (with the highest proportion of both barriers and creative new ideas). Creative ideas for improving researcher engagement that were highlighted as important by participants included:

  • Get Principal Investigators & researchers together in one room
  • Listen to what researcher want
  • Organise a retreat
  • Encourage discussion of training / development events
  • International representation & collaboration
  • Senior management support
  • Discussions as part of annual appraisals
  • More specific career development skills tailored for research staff
  • Get out to events not related to your research
  • Providing incentives via Principal Investigators

Key barriers that were highlighted were:

  • Apathy of researcher (and apathy in general)
  • Researchers themselves
  • Finding time
  • Not seen as important, relative to publications

You can dowload the full set of results here.

November 2010

Ketso training videos uploaded to YouTube - see the Ketso YouTube channel.
Six new training videos were uploaded to YouTube in November 2010. These videos lead the viewer through the process of running and planning a Ketso workshop, as well as capturing the results. This forms part of the open resources we are making available to help people plan and deliver effective group work and workshops.

October 27, 2010

65 people from a wide range of organisations involved in environmental issues across the North West attended a conference hosted by North West Environment Link entitled: “Big Society” and the environment. The afternoon was designed to allow ample time for participants to learn from each other, and explore areas of common interest. Ketso was used for part of the afternoon to allow participants to explore opportunities and barriers posed by the new Big Society agenda, followed by some creative brainstorming of solutions to these barriers.

October 12, 2010

Joanne ran a workshop for 15 members of the University of Manchester Widening Participation team, with guests from the School of Education and University of Salford Careers in effective group work in careers planning.

This workshop helped refine the workshop plan for careers planning, available from our downloads and workshop plan section of the website.

You can download ideas about how to 'attract students to University' developed by these participants, as well as later ideas from a similar workshop with HELOA NW here.

September 21, 2010

Joanne gave a 3 hour workshop at the University of Edinburgh on creative engagement with stakeholders in research and knowledge exchange, supported by the Edinburgh Beltane Beacon for Public Engagement.

The 24 participants came from a range of Universities and organisation across Scotland, including the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Strathclyde and Herriot-Watt, and Genecom and Renewnet.

Ketso has since been used in a range of Beltane workshops, from the Highlands of Scotland to a workshop in a high tech innovation space.

September 14, 2010

Joanne presented innovative ways to teach community engagement skills at Innovation in the Built Environment Education 2010 Conference at Sheffield Hallam University.

August, 2010 University of Pretoria

Joanne gave three research seminars at the University of Pretoria. A half day workshop looked at the sustainability framework she developed in research with the Sustainable Consumption Institute. This was attended by participants from across the University, as well as Toyota, Mass Mart and Johannesburg Municipality. 

A second seminar covered the research innovations developed in the action research she has been doing with Tesco and the Sustainable Consumption Institute.

A third introduced Ketso as an enterprise to a range of business students.

Ketso was used to explore issues ranging from a future sustainable South Africa, how to make a cola drink more sustainable,  (shown to the right) and how to encourage an entrepreneurial approach to local economic development in South Africa.

August, 2010 Tlholego Development Project, South Africa

She also gave workshops facilitated with Ketso for the Royal Bafokeng Institute and Tlholego Development Project in the Rustenburg area of South Africa.  This picture shows Ketso being demonstrated to the villagers at Tlholego, back where Ketso was originally developed in the mid 90s.

Note

If you have a news-worthy event to do with Ketso please do let us know - email 'elaine at ketso dot com'.