Incorporating multimedia in ILRI’s research

Last week, International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) staff in Nairobi and Addis Ababa Ethiopia attended a Komms Klinic session on ‘working with multimedia’. Nairobi participants enjoyed the live presentation while Addis colleagues joined in Via WebEx.

Paul Karaimu , ILRI’s corporate writer led the session and engaged participants in a captivating presentation and discussion on:

• Multimedia: What is it? Why use it? How to use it?

• What multimedia can do for you?

• Working with multimedia: How it’s used at ILRI

• Using multimedia in your work. Practical session on how to make multimedia products.

• Challenges of working with multimedia

In the presentation, it was clear that multimedia is a powerful way of reaching many audiences as it combines text, images and sounds in ways that make research or projects very interesting to almost everybody. The most remarkable thing about multimedia is that it is dynamic and easy to adapt. It can also be used differently and creatively by anyone, not necessarily a multimedia geek.

Paul Karaimu gives a Komms Klinic on Multimedia

Paul Karaimu on multimedia (photo credit: ILRI/Susan MacMillan).

The facilitator took participants through the process of making multimedia products such as photofilms and short videos. During this session, participants expressed their challenges in using multimedia with reasons ranging from; lack of time and technical skills to produce multimedia products. Other participants stated that they were ignorant on the power of multimedia in research; some said they lacked facilities such as cameras, audio and video recorders to produce multimedia products.

Paul informed participants that they didn’t have to go through the technical process since communication personnel in their units could help them produce multimedia products. He also advised them that with multimedia, one does not necessarily need professional cameras, audio and visual recording facilities. “You can use your mobile phone to record captivating images and sounds which can be converted into multimedia products such as interviews and photo films”, said Paul. He urged participants to work with communication personnel whenever they needed to incorporate multimedia in their projects.

Most participants felt that the presentation was an eye-opener which motivated them to start using multimedia in their work and suggested that such sessions be conducted on a regular basis to enhance their capacities on different ways of communicating.

View his presentation

The next komms klinic will be on publishing and design.

Visit our komms klinics training wiki: http://ilri-training.wikispaces.com.