Umbrella 2011: Using everyday research skills to become a changemaker

Umbrella 2011

That’s a good IDEA: using everyday research skills to become a changemaker

Workshops and intellectual effort early in the morning

Right, change of theme, change of pace. This was a Workshop strand session rather than a standard presentation format so involved much postcards, small table work, post-it notes, lots of enthusiastic individuals, and diving around tables gently interrogating each other against various questions. We even had a whistle, which first thing on the Wednesday morning was definitely penetrating! And there were a range of semi-daft prizes and many exchanges of email addresses. There was also The Dread Postcard completed by the end by each individual which encapsulated (to some extent!) the research they wanted to undertake and what was involved to take away and either try to gently ignore or get on with.

Research utilises everyday skills we already have

The key point being made in the first half was that a lot of everyday stuff that we all do and don’t actually think about very much is actually research or aspects thereof. We started by interrogating each other to find out who had done various things (e.g. has run a focus group, has written or presented report to their organisation) and what their example of that was. We then looked at what skills were involved in a range of examples from the information gathered, from listening through to analysis. And they’re all research skills that most people had used, but not often in such a way that the results of their research had been promoted or made available outside their organisation or published for others to use.

Project definition

Then out came the blank postcards and being asked to write down something on it we each wanted to research whether as part of our job organisationally or a distinct personal interest. We then gradually filled in the postcard by applying the IDEAS framework going through each part of it and adding a bit to our postcards, often with a bit of discussion with our neighbour or wider group.

The IDEA framework

The IDEAS framework broke down into five component parts –

• I – Interest, issue, idea
• D – Develop, discuss, define
• E – Engage, elaborate, enact
• A – Advocate, advertise, apply

• S - Skills

The Process

So we discussed defining precisely what it was we wanted to achieve, and the scope and limitations of it and what was required to do it and the types of other people we might need to engage with and how in order to do it (everything from authorising funding to management permission) and what completion would look like and how be communicated and shared to inform our own practice and beyond.  

Conclusion

Research was about using everyday skills we have but in a purposeful focused way and the results if promoted could influence beyond our own immediate communities by being used by other people to feed into their own work and practice and changes to. There was a bit of discussion of the echo chamber and looking to see if there were wider audiences for research outputs beyond our own obvious sector or community and how best to reach them.

Thoughts

Again, I really enjoyed this one. I wasn’t quite sure what it was going to be, but it looked interesting and as though it might relate to something that’s been at the back of my head for a couple of years now to do.  So, do I have a postcard Yes, have I done one single thing with it since last week, No, is it really fairly likely this will stay the case… well on current commitments yes. My main limitation is always time and I’m well aware it’s something that would require proper focused time and concentration and I’m not someone who likes to do things slowly. On the other hand I could argue with my more exacting self that simply writing up this session is making me sift through options and slightly question the assumption. I’m wondering if I’m dismissing ‘slow’ out of hand. All in it’d do no harm to experiment and see if anything did get done that way.