Kia ora from the Ripple Collective
We are an informal collaboration of self-employed research, evaluation and design specialists. We offer practical guidance and work alongside people and initiatives seeking to make a social difference.
What we do
Research
We undertake practical social research including literature reviews and document analysis, observations, interviews, focus groups, and surveying. We expect our research to be respectful and useful. We therefore pay careful attention to what people want to know, to how we engage people as research participants, and on how best to communicate our findings to various audiences.
Design
We use research and evaluation to better understand and help problem-solve important social issues and challenges. We are particularly interested in what works for whom and why – under what circumstances. We work with diverse individuals and groups to examine social situations and projects in different ways so that new possibilities emerge. We frequently draw on lessons from similar contexts, and borrow concepts from relevant disciplines. This kind of design thinking helps create useful experiments, generates learning, concentrates effort on the most important things, avoids one-size-fits-all solutions, and creates momentum for positive social change.
Evaluation
We use evaluation methods to make sense of past efforts, to monitor progress, and/or to outline future options for any kind of social initiative. This involves clarifying what various groups or stakeholders value the most, and why. We also reveal the thinking and influences that shape the way initiatives are designed and implemented. These insights increase the confidence of various stakeholders to learn, and to stop, adapt or improve what they are doing. We specialise in participatory and mixed-method evaluation approaches.
Engagement
Our experience with community development and community-focused research compels us to value relationships, and to work relationally. We don't see this as compromising our ability to do sound social science research. We think that putting energy into developing trusting relationships with all our stakeholders increases our chances of making a genuinely useful and ethical social contribution.
COVID-19 Ripple's Response
New Zealand has entered a time of deep uncertainty and business as usual has been suspended. However, we as members of the Ripple Collective want you to know that we are ready to resume working with our partners and collaborators when you are ready. And without putting anyone at risk.
Doing business online
Luckily, Ripple is set up to do much of its business online. We tend to use a range of technologies that will keep us working even while national travel and in-person meetings are disallowed or expected to be kept to a minimum.
To remind and reassure you, we’ve outlined some strategies and technologies we use to keep research and evaluation projects going. We think these will be particularly relevant and useful at this time.
To remind and reassure you, we’ve outlined some strategies and technologies we use to keep research and evaluation projects going. We think these will be particularly relevant and useful at this time.
Maintaining a community of practice
We use Ryver for project planning, tossing around ideas, clarifying issues, discussing options and sharing resources. It operates like other platforms you may have used or heard of such as Yammer or Slack. It’s an online forum with discussion threads that can be easily searched for and that can be limited to several individuals or go team-wide.
Online document authorship and storage
Google Drive and Dropbox provide the means to develop and maintain plans, papers, reports, spreadsheets and slide presentations. We often co-produce documents with collaborators. If some people have trouble accessing Google Drive then Dropbox might be the way to go. Evernote is another tool we use for creating and sharing notes. We document every meeting using this app and it is easy to invite others to amend or add notes of their own to a shared project folder.
Virtual meetings and workspaces
Ripple uses Zoom for video conferencing and Zoho Meetings for hosting webinars. We also use web-based diagramming applications Lucidchart and Mural for developing theory of change diagrams, brainstorming, and making sense of findings (i.e., using 'sticky notes' on limitless virtual canvases).
We recommend Judy Oakden’s guidance on videoconferencing, which she bills as the new normal.
We recommend Judy Oakden’s guidance on videoconferencing, which she bills as the new normal.
Online data entry and databases
For those agencies that can’t access the Google suite of applications (Google forms and sheets), we use Jotform to input data and manage secure online databases. A recent example involved creating a referral form and shared client database for a new cross-agency initiative. Previously these organisations had no means of viewing the same up-to-date client data in real-time.
Don't worry about cost or unfamiliarity
All of the above impose no additional costs on our partners and collaborators. Ripple has long invested in these tools to ensure we can be as responsive and flexible as possible. Some of you may not be very familiar or comfortable using these technologies. If that is the case, we will do our best to help you adopt whatever is helpful so that we can work effectively together at a distance (physically isolated but socially connected). We are also happy to switch to using apps that are the most agreeable to the key people we are working with on a project by project basis.
Video production
Increasingly, we are using videography as a research and communication tool. We expect to continue using Vimeo to capture, co-produce and share videos (including via live streaming, if appropriate). Vimeo is a platform that enables us to compile video at a distance from our collaborators when they film activities and people that are the focus of research and evaluation. Good enough video can be recorded using mobile phones. Improved quality can be easily achieved through using a recent action camera model (e.g. GoPro5,6,7,8) or a relatively inexpensive semi-professional video camera with an external microphone (e.g. Sony FSR-AX53 and Rode VideoMicro or Sennheiser MKE Compact Shotgun Microphone). Depending on the circumstances, high-quality video interviews can be conducted using a decent webcam such as one of these Logitech models, although these are hard to get at the moment.
Interviewing
We can still conduct interviews over the phone, Skype or Zoom. Because we often like to transcribe interviews, we need to get a good quality audio recording that often not possible using the tools just described. For this reason, we suggest that the interviewee uses their phone or digital recorder to record what they are saying while they are being interviewed. They can then share the audio recording with us by uploading it to an online service we use for this purpose.
Surveying
We envisage continuing to use well known online surveying tools like Survey Monkey, Google Forms or Jotform to conduct small scale surveys, depending on what seems the most simple and accessible choice for intended respondents.
Our best wishes to you all
Our thoughts are with you during this strange and unsettling time. We hope you and your loved ones stay safe and are able to keep doing your most important work. And we look forward to helping as best we can when the time is right.
Nga mihi mahana, Geoff, Salena and Angelique. (Updated 25 March 2020).
Nga mihi mahana, Geoff, Salena and Angelique. (Updated 25 March 2020).