Engagement

Engagement is about evaluation.

I read a lot of blogs.

One blog said: “Development programs have to prove that they have had a strong and positive impact.”

Sounds like engagement to me.

(And you can’t have engagement without outreach.)

And outreach and engagement often takes place beyond the walls of the academy. In community.

What is community?

So I went looking.

Not a definition in Scriven’s book.

Did find a book called Methods for Community-based Participatory Research for Health edited by Barbara Isreal, Eugenia Eng, Amy J. Schulz, and Edith A. Parker.

The book can be a resource for students, practitioners, researchers, and community members who use CBPR. Probably is.

You would think that CBPR would have a definition of community.

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Communication.

Connection. Communication. How important is it that you communicate; that you connect?

In reading over some of the comments I have received through this blog, I came upon this partial quote. (Partial because I didn’t report all of it; the remaining is not relevant.)

“I personally…think (blogging) as a one way channel to transfer any information you have over the web.”

Certainly, transferring information about evaluation from me to you, the reader, is this person’s view of blogging.

There has been a lot in the press (among others) over the last several years about avoiding “blue light” and connecting to real people. People with whom you are friendly; they might even be your friends. (I’m not talking about Facebook.) I’m talking about connections; communications. Talking to people face to face. Real connections. Real communications.

Bonding

Professor Peter Cohen  says (in talking about addiction) “…that human beings have a deep need to bond and form connections. It’s how we get our satisfaction. If we can’t connect with each other, we will connect with anything we can find…He says we should stop talking about ‘addiction’ altogether, and instead call it ‘bonding.’” Bonding. It relates to connections; to communication.

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Innovation, again, leads to two thoughts for today:

1. Innovation is the first one, from the first Monday video from Scott Reed : Do something. Try anything.  and
2. the other from Harold Jarche who sites the book, Only Humans Need Apply about automation and intelligent machines.

This does relate to evaluation. Just wait. Patiently.

Where would evaluation be if evaluators didn’t question? Didn’t try anything or something? Evaluators would still be thinking separately; in silos. Would any of the current approaches be available? Would evaluation as a field be where it is today? Not if evaluators didn’t do something; try anything; innovate. Fortunately, evaluators do something. Continue reading →