freshspectrum

What can I say about 2020. It’s been strange, and this Thanksgiving will continue that strangeness. But there is some promise on the horizon, optimistic results from vaccine trials that are progressing with lightning speed, so let’s hold on to that together.

And today, I am thankful for you. I continue to draw cartoons because of you. Having amazing people who read and share my work is no little thing. It means the world to me, and I am grateful.

• In the first part of this post I share a handful of cartoons inspired by Thanksgiving.
  A big thank you to Nicole Bowman for sharing this article on LinkedIn: Decolonizing Thanksgiving: A Toolkit for Combatting Racism in Schools.
• In the second part I share some cartoons inspired by my cartoon together session last week. A thank you to Conny Graft, Swanand Mokashi, and Maria Gutknecht-Gmeiner for helping to inspire the cartoons.

Thanksgiving Set

Cartooning with Chris

Stay safe everyone!

In reply to Tina Zecher.

Thanks Tina 🙂

So yesterday I had the opportunity to join the AEA graduate student and new evaluators topical interest group for a chat about evaluation cartoons. It was a fun conversation (I always like talking cartoons).

We ended the discussion with a little bit of a cartoon together exercise. Today’s cartoon set is the result. Enjoy!

Would you like to join me this Friday for some live cartooning?

The goal will be to find cartoons.

Here is what I know, cartoons exist in every one of you. So bring yourself, your ideas, your struggles, the things that you find hard to explain, confusing stuff, and concepts in desperate need of illustration. And together we will search for the cartoons buried within.

You can register at https://www.crowdcast.io/e/freshspectrum.

powered by Crowdcast

Have you ever visited a park that lacked any type of attraction? So no playground, trails, pond, shelter, picnic table, or anything else that make a visit worthwhile?

Boring right?

Unless it’s right across the street from your house with just enough room to toss a ball back and forth, you’re probably not going back to that park anytime soon. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of reasons to have open spaces, but if your community’s goal was to create something people cherish and love, it’s probably not enough.

The same is true is for the web. There are countless attraction-less websites filling up the interweb. Websites with just enough information to tell you who works at an organization and how you might be able to get in touch.

Essentially, digital brochures.

How to assess content deficiency

Usually you can tell pretty quickly if a website is just a digital brochure. But sometimes websites are structured in a way that looks simple and streamlined, but actually pack in a lot of content.

So the easiest way I’ve found to assess whether a website is content deficient is through a quick Google search. All you have to do is open up google and type “site:” before the web address. This will give you the pages Google has indexed for the particular hyperlink you put behind “site:”

Giving the numbers context.

More is not always better. But just like you wouldn’t frequent a library without books, you’ll likely not frequent a website without pages.

Understanding how much content your website should have is always an it depends kind of thing. But one thing I like to do is to look at a website in context to other websites that serve similar audiences.

For example, let’s look at EvalYouth. Their homepage is currently off of the main evalpartners page.

EvalYouth in partnership with the UNFPA Evaluation Office and Global Parliamentarians Forum for Evaluation recently spun off a new website that appears to aspire for more growth. There is an advocacy goal, and the blog and resource library show the intention for growth.

So let’s look at some more established resource sites. What would it look like to really build out a stable library of content?

What does it mean?

Page counts are not everything. But I will say this.

• Better Evaluation receives far more web traffic than the American Evaluation Association.
• The American Evaluation Association receives far more web traffic than the European Evaluation Society.
• The European Evaluation Society receives far more web traffic than the Eval4Action website.

Anything can change, and we all start from somewhere. But building out a content library takes time and energy.

Developing a Content Strategy

Content doesn’t just develop itself. As much as we would like that to happen.

A good curator and team of creators, following a well-formed content strategy can build out a significant content library. Ask yourself why you have the site in the first place, and figure out how to build the content necessary to reach that goal.

And remember, just because your website looks the part, doesn’t mean it is actually achieving your goals.

When I lead workshops, one of my favorite types of activities involves using half-finished cartoons.

Sometimes I print out the cartoons as handouts, or I put them up on a slide and ask the participants to pull out a pen and paper. Then I ask them to try their hand at finishing the cartoons.

After that, we share out the results.

It’s a super fun way to launch a discussion into all sorts of topics. I’ve been in experimental mode lately and thought I would create a few sets that might be useful for evaluators. Let me know what you think, and if you would like me to create more of these.

Who is at the table?

The easiest way to form a consensus is to not invite anyone else to the table when it’s time to discuss the issue. Especially anyone who might not agree with you.

This is also the worst way to form a consensus.

Theories of change are negotiations.

You might all agree to a set of words that you put at the end of a logic model or theory of change. But that doesn’t mean that the goal written is the goal held in everyone’s minds. This cartoon is to help you start to find some of those unwritten goals.

All the important stakeholders.

You might want to create an exhaustive list of everyone who has a stake in your program or project. Especially the people who are not a part of your team.

Keep going with it.

I’d suggest going further and further down the rabbit hole. Keep asking the question in different ways.

Gut check time.

Many evaluators view themselves as speakers for a broad range of people.

But we can’t escape our own biases and privileges. Is your evaluation team composition representative of the community you are working within? If not, why not?

What happens when the funding stops?

Projects have lifespans. Some live longer than others. Recognizing the mortality is important.

And who is left behind?

People get caught up in projects. But after the project ends, people remain. Who are those people that will remain?

Download the 7 cartoon set as a Power Point deck.

You can now download the Power Point deck via Gumroad. For a free download, just put $0 in the box.

My Independent Consulting Jumpstart course is now Pay What You Want.

I decided I wanted to make the course way more accessible. So now you can grab it from Gumroad for whatever price you want to pay. This includes $0.

And there is absolutely no judgement for you putting $0 in the box.

https://gumroad.com/l/consultingjumpstart