Idea Generation Workshop
Trip Start
May 27, 2005
1
13
14
Trip End
Aug 19, 2005
Nairobi, Kenya
Sunday, July 31, 2005
So we went into the two-days not expecting a major win for SCJ but expecting we could develop some great ideas and business opportunities for the community and our other partners. On that front, I think we succeeded doubly. Erik came up to assist Catherine and me and was instrumental. He facilitated masterfully (despite my trying to "help" and co-facilitate, probably slowing him down!) and we concluded with two implementable ideas and a lot of energy around them from community members and NGO partners.
During our stays and work in the area, we identified a half-dozen community members who we felt had the entrepreneurial spirit, innovative capability, empathy, drive, language capabilities (Kiswahili is a second language to most, after their tribe's tongue, and we considered decent English a bonus) and connections to other groups that would make them good participants in the idea generation workshop as well as capable of implementation. We also pulled together NGO partners with operations in the area or specific capabilities that might be helpful or required by the community. We brought some of the first bank and MFI reps to the area and it was great to see everyone connecting and realizing opportunities even before the workshop actually began. In attendance we had:
ˇ Patrick (local young entrepreneurial farmer and youth leader)
ˇ Martha (local young female farmer and "café" owner/operator)
ˇ Isaya (an older "mze" farmer who is very experimental and well respected for his farming skill) [Pamoja Pioneer member]
ˇ Hannah (an older female farmer who runs her own farm) [Pamoja Pioneer member]
ˇ Kimani (Ministry of Ag rep, local church leader, respected farmer, head of dairy coop, our main local contact)
ˇ Ken (local carpenter and McGyver-esque handy-guy, youth educator)
ˇ Njeri (PRA expert, Egerton Univ. Economist)
ˇ Dennis (ApproTEC Impact Monitoring Manager)
ˇ Vincent (ApproTEC driver, former PA in Thika area)
ˇ Janet (ITDG office manager, masters student w/ dissertation on Micro-Enterprise Creation for Poverty Alleviation)
ˇ Joseph (SCJ Kenya second-in-command and distribution manager)
ˇ Justin (Kibera Youth Self Help Group and local Molo farm owner)
ˇ Beatrice & Benson (K-Rep bank Nakuru District business development manager) [Beatrice first day, Benson second day]
ˇ David (Faulu MFI organization local rep) [second day only]
ˇ Erik, Catherine and Justin
The workshop was held at the same school as our PRA but some recent rain made getting there very interesting (we thought we might be walking the last 1+km instead of losing the van in some daunting mud but Vinny got us through). We started by just letting everyone mingle (while we set things up) and then kicked things off with introductions making sure to keep everyone standing instead of sitting formally in the desk/benches of the classroom. It was clear that the ice had not completely broken but we had to get into the meat of our work. We started with a break out discussion (three groups of 5) around the question "what would a successful business opportunity from this workshop do/look like?" The idea here was to garner some sense of success criteria, evaluation metrics, and different expectations in the room while simultaneously getting everyone into working in their teams and familiar with the break-out/present/feedback/Q&A work we'd be doing for the next two days. Catherine is holding the original notes hostage in Nakuru but the key takeaways from this first exercise included "a successful business should..."
ˇ Use local resources (labor, natural resources, knowledge/skills)
ˇ Create employment
ˇ Be sustainable (generate income, be self-funding, positive effect on environment and community)
ˇ Opportunities for learning (create passion in its employees)
ˇ Leverage new technology
ˇ Generate additional business(es)
We then broke for lunch at Martha's "café" which barely fit the entire group but made sense being within walking distance of the site. I was really pleased to hear everyone seemingly enjoying each others' company, discussing each others' work and connecting more deeply. Erik and I spoke on the walk back to the school and realized that even if nothing else came from the workshop simply bringing this group together had created value and acted as a catalyst for various opportunities.
Fighting the post-lunch lull by forcing our energy up another notch, we embarked on a resource listing exercise. Everyone was given pink and green cards and asked to list their personal skills, resources, capabilities, etc. on the green cards and, likewise, those of their organization or community on the pink cards. From there, we then asked them to create a team profile that outlined the skills, resources, knowledge of their team. We explained to them that they would be using these cards as building blocks for business ideas tomorrow and that detail was crucial. This exercise went well but required a couple iterations after some group feedback to focus them on the type of information that would be useful and the level of detail necessary. It was remarkable how difficult it was to get detail but we pushed them and gave them examples which got the detail flowing. For example, we had to take a card that said "good farmer" and drill down to get cards that had the more granular skills like "soil analysis," "knowledge of crops" and "experience with agrochemicals." This exercise and its iterations concluded the day's work and we had tea and biscuits as everyone relaxed and seemed happy with their work. We BoP folks, however, were a bit nervous about the distance we had to cover in the next day from the resource cards to detailed, implementable, mutual-value creating business ideas.
We spent the night making large summary flip-charts of the day's results, tweaking the output just a little to better lead the groups towards the desired outcome, and copying hundreds of resource cards so that each group would have a full set from everyone else.
Day two got off to a horrible start as our van hit a school-child on our way out of Nakuru at dawn. [See previous log for the story there.] The child was fine but the image of a seven year old skidding a couple meters across the tarmac completely limp is forever scarred onto my mind. There was nothing Vinny could have done to avoid the child-he just bolted across the street without looking right in front of us. We brought the child to the hospital and soon got the team ferried to the site. We were about an hour behind schedule and did some quick agenda manipulations to make sure we would still conclude in time to get those driving the 3-4 hours to Nairobi that night on the road by 4:00. We were short both Vinny and Dennis who were stuck in Nakuru dealing with parents and police and decided to work in two groups rather than three very small groups.
We started with a review of the success criteria we had developed as a team the day before to frame the day's work correctly and to get everyone thinking and working together again. We also gave them time to look over all the resource cards to re-familiarize themselves with the "building blocks" available to them. With the day's first exercise we threw them into the deep end and asked them to develop 2-3 business ideas using the resource cards and with our success criteria in mind. We framed their presentation of their ideas with three questions to answer:
1. What needs are being met by the business?
2. What value is created and for whom?
3. What challenges or obstacles are there in starting this business?
Both groups were off and running with wide participation and great energy. In fact, it was tough to stop them and get them thinking about their presentations! I was relieved and proud as the groups outlined three ideas that were deemed worthy of presentation. There were no immediate opportunities there for SCJ but most of the partners in the room had a role to play that would bring them value. [If SCJ were to leverage its insect control knowledge to create an organic pesticide or to work out a Ziploc-branded fruit preserve container of retail quality, we might some opportunities for them.] They presented their ideas to the group before lunch and, as they filed out of the room to walk to the café, we asked them to choose one business to work on during the afternoon, thus self-selecting into new groups. The timing was perfect as everyone left for lunch knowing what they would be working on and with whom. The business ideas presented were (the first two were selected for further work in the afternoon):
ˇ Organic Fertilizer Company
ˇ Community Organic Farm
ˇ Fruit Farming and Processing
As we came back into the room after lunch, there was very little need for encouragement as the teams were clearly excited about developing their ideas and got to work. As the teams worked on integrating the feedback and working through implementation plans, rain started to fall in earnest against the steel roof and thunder rolled across the hills. Erik and I looked at each other with concern, knowing that enough rain would make it hard or impossible to drive out of the area. Mother Nature responded with a solid sheet of rain rapping loudly across the roof.
As the groups finished up and presented their work the value of having experienced business people (Joseph from SCJ and the MFI bankers) was clear in the organization and level of detail. The presentations included more detail on the business, its start-up and operations as well as some great thinking regarding key obstacles and strategies to overcome them. One group had even assigned responsibilities to each member and worked out a timetable for implementation. The group pushed each team with feedback and great questions and it was clear that most members of each team were committed to seeing the ideas to fruition.
The organic fertilizer business will employ local youth (who lack employment and activity) to collect organic matter and manure from the area and collect it in a location to be determined. ITDG and Ken will work to build the latest in composting technology that can make organic fertilizer from good organic matter in a matter of 3-4 months. Kimani from the Min. of Ag. and Egerton University are to be involved in testing and certifying the product. Local labor and jute bags (some of which are no longer useable for potatoes) will be used in packaging. Initially, the fertilizer will be sold locally with a demonstration farm(s) to show the benefits of the organic fertilizer. Moving to scale and exporting the idea to other areas were part of the discussion as well. This initiative was partly being led by Justin from Kibera and may struggle without him pushing it along. However, Ken and Janet seemed committed to it and both are working in the area and could drive start-up. A key challenge identified by the group will be the lag time between collection of organic matter and income generation from selling the resulting organic fertilizer. No solid solution emerged from our discussion other than making sure everyone involved understood and expected the initial delay in the business' cash flows.
The community organic farm business would bring together farmers who would each select a portion of their land to dedicate to organic, cash-crop, export (?) farming. Crops like snow peas, stinging nettles and fresh peas were identified as having potential in terms of ag viability, stable price, demand, etc. The organization would be owned by its farmer/shareholders based on the land and effort they put into the business. ITDG would be involved in sourcing quality seeds, technology transfer and marketing in Europe. [I also met a woman last night from CARE who may be able to help identify foreign markets.] ApproTEC's technologies would be used for irrigation and, perhaps, some on-farm processing. One crucial challenge identified for this idea will be organizational cohesion. Farmer coops have a bad history in this area and keeping groups together is a leadership challenge. My hope is that Kimani, as a church leader and trusted ag advisor to farmers in the area, will be able to manage the feat.
We learned a lot during the workshop and the value of the urban approach, with multiple lead-in and "training" meetings before the actual workshop, was clear. These meetings give the participants time and experience with the type of work we are asking of them-something very foreign to most. The lead-in meetings also train everyone in how to connect with the others and get them comfortable with the diverse backgrounds in the room and how to productively combine them. However, some very interesting challenges exist in trying to implement this approach in a rural area:
ˇ Regular communications with participants is difficult or impossible
ˇ In remote areas, distance and transportation is a significant challenge and expense for all involved (and enough rain can make it impossible)
ˇ Time dedicated to meetings must be limited by the understanding that it is time NOT spent on participants' farms
I am of the opinion that had we focused on community identification during our homestay and extended the time we had in the rural area, we may have been able to better define the communities we wanted to work with. The Protocol's call for a "base-camp" might have also facilitated communication, regular meetings and implementation but I can not imagine how we would have established a central base-camp given the time and resources we had. By working with communities/groups that already had natural connections through extended family, proximity, common interests or shared activities several of our challenges might have been addressed:
ˇ Reduced distance between home and meeting sites
ˇ Facilitate communications and meeting organization with word-of-mouth
ˇ Reduce the amount of introductory and team-building necessary
ˇ Implementation of ideas might have been facilitated by strong bonds within groups
That said, this approach might also raise issues like:
ˇ Limited diversity of opinions and ideas collected
ˇ Perceived exclusivity of new business ideas (could also be positive for implementation)
ˇ Putting the MNC BoP team in the uncomfortable position of choosing with whom to work
I am now in Nairobi and am looking forward to the rural workshops as another chance to be involved in truly creative group work and to see how a different approach might work. I will also focus on "creating the ecosystem" for the plans we developed in the rural area and for future BoP work. I'll be networking with various organizations and individuals who may be valuable for us and who may find value in our approach and work. It is a strange sensation to know our work here is wrapping up. I am looking forward to being home (hot showers, salads, etc) and to seeing loved ones but am simultaneously sad to leave the smiles, generosity and energy I have found here. I predict a longing for Kenya and BoP field-work will flavor my work back in Ithaca this fall but I would not trade this experience and am so thankful for having had this opportunity.
