The man from the World Bank was quite insistent when we met over coffee at the Lancer's Inn in Maseru. "There is only one major way to save money on communication while travelling in Africa - DON'T ROAM". He continued "When I arrive in a new African country, I immediately remove my normal sim card and buy a pay-as-you-go sim card in town when I arrive - sim cards are generally much more expensive at the airports". "Then I do a simple recharge, buy an SMS package and a data package then send an sms to colleagues and family back home from my new number". The data and sms packages are important as if you don't buy these up-front, you are charged out-of-bundle rates that are significantly greater than in-bundle rates - the difference is as much as US7c per Mb as opposed to US$1 per Mb out-of-bundle.

The results of this Survey Questionnaire are expected to inform a Paper on the links between documenting experience and innovation. It will be presented at the coming IAALD Congress scheduled on April 26-29, 2010 in Montpellier, France. The paper will be submitted to the Scientific Committee of the aforesaid Congress by February 1st, 2010.

The Questionnaire targets experienced institutions and resource persons in terms of documenting experience. The aim is to clearly establish a link between documenting experience and innovation.

The objectives of the questionnaire are to:

• have a situation of reference in documenting experience in West and Central Africa: aim, organisational structures, process, products, resources, lessons and challenges;

• identify the arguments allowing to show the articulation between documenting experience and innovation;
  

Here is a quick overview of just some of the topics being spoken about in the Fireside Chat SIG.