see below
She called because there was a mistake in Matt's interview: he said
Johns Hopkins was in charge of the clearinghouse while IUATLD
(wahtever) is. No big deal. I fixed the blog but cannot fix the glk
message. She said she woudl be Ok for a rendez-vous interview about the
clearinghouse in a few weeks...
Fine.
I think their approach is the wrong one but it coudl work in some countries. They are looking to establish local "resource centers"...if I understood well as i have some difficulties -sometimes- getting over her scottish accent. Does the same with my scottish friends...
My feeling after talking with her and looking at Matt's answers is that they would be much better off if they were asking globalink to do their communciation toward the tobacco control community: ie outsource/contract to GLK the distribution of their information and some sort of information management about their grantees: I could see making interviews about them, helping out with communication needs, etc. They (CTFK and others) manage the program but GLK manages the communication about the program.
In fact they are using GLK (most of them for free) as a specialized communication channel but they are not envisoning it could be more than what it is now. But it means improving the content and using new tools to provide content.
For instance I suggested they made the proposals accessible (if the applicants agree to make it public) within their protected site or within Globalink. That would have been a much better way to involve the TC community, allow people to join projects, etc. but they took the traditional one way approach... That would have been a tremendous boost in terms of information and cooperation. They cannot manage it? No problem, because with adequate funding GLK can do that and most people that count are already there.
Nobody would be obliged to share the info but my bet is most would (maybe I am wrong). In fact it is something we could propose: if that's OK with you would you share the resume of your proposal within a GLK forum so that other members of the tc community can see what you proposed? Of course it would be important to have a possibility for feedback (like comments on a blog).
Since many projects are including several groups or several countries, more participation would not harm at all and htere would be a much bigger "ownership" of the process instead of having the "far away and faceless, nameless, english speaking white anglo saxon experts" decide what to keep and what to dump...
End of my speech for today :)
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