What we learned in 2018


FabRider marked its sixth anniversary this year. We continued our learnings integrating user-centred design and co-creation approaches, developing social learning curriculum, enabling data literacy and supporting the development of networks of practice, in service to improving social change efforts. We did this via collaborations with 360GivingAspirationCentre for Economic and Social RightsCivicusthe Democracy ClubGlobal VoicesIdea in a Forest, International Federation of the Red Cross Red Crescent SocietiesMariel Garcia MontesMozFestViderum and more. Read on for examples.

  • ‘Curate not create’ was the mandate we got from Heather Leson in developing a collection of social learning curriculum for data literacy. The result is IFRC’s Data Playbook (Beta), a prototype resource contains 66 pieces of content developed by and for humanitarians. Heather’s co-creation ethos drove greater success as a diverse set of stakeholders were engaged, invested and contributing from the start of the project.Lynne Stuart, from Idea in a Forest, developed templates and visual cues that help potential facilitators navigate content. We held an online discussion about the impact of the Playbook and took notes and a recording.
  • MozFest has long been one of our favourites and a must-attend event. For the third year in a row, we worked with Sarah Allen, Zannah March, a team of 50+ space wranglers, and the 600+ facilitators to design and deliver workshop sessions. We contributed to the Facilitators Handbook and provided consultation and coaching sessions to enable facilitators to see MozFest as a collaboration between themselves and the 2,000 people that attend.
  • Civicus engaged us to enable user-centred design methodologies for their Speak! Campaign, a global day of action bringing together individuals from different sides of an issue to dialogue. We designed an icebreaker activity that would help collect data for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The activity is designed to get participants to practice active listening skills by interviewing each other about their abilities to participate in government decision making. Look for the activity in the FabToolkit in the beginning of 2019.
  • The Centre for Economic and Social Rights asked us to facilitate a working group meeting to finalise direction and strategy prior to the release of the Egyptian Social Progress Indicators. Through interacting with user personas they realised they should stagger the release of the six topics so they would have more opportunity to learn about their potential impacts and refine accordingly.
  • 360Giving has asked us to build expertise within a network of ‘Data Champions’ based in Community Foundations across the UK.  During a series of interviews with champions, we learned how much they value learning from their peers, rather than identifying external expertise.  We started a series of online discussions towards the end of 2018 that focus on sharing their learnings and look forward to continuing those along with developing a face to face workshops in 2019.
Prototyping the Lifecycle at NPDev. Photo by Greg Bloom

Our Designing Network Centric Resources project was in full swing in 2018. We published a draft of a Network-Centric Resource lifecycle that details a process for a healthy, sustainable and resilient resource that is a knowledge asset to communities and networks.  We also ran a series of online discussions with resource developers that included:

And we can’t forget the FabBlog, with posts on:

Phew, what a year! We are so looking forward to 2019. We hope you are too! Wanna share some learning experiences? Discuss challenges? Please get in touch. FabRiders offers free one-hour counselling sessions.