The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative

After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com. 

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

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OpenIDEO

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"What tools, campaigns or services might we design to support habit changes that stick?"

This is one question posed on OpenIDEO, an online platform launched in July 2010 in an effort to gather and connect thinkers around the world who want to share and implement creative ideas for social good. IDEO, a design and innovation organisation, developed OpenIDEO as a way to include a broader range of people in the design process through inspiration, concept generation, and evaluation.

Communication Strategies

IDEO posts a design problem for social change, which includes 5-7 phases, depending on the challenge. "Users participate and provide feedback every step of the way, receiving points (known as their Design Quotient, or 'DQ') for their contributions).... At the end of the process, which takes about 10-16 weeks, a final design is chosen." Any ideas from the challenge may be produced by whoever chooses to do so - all concepts are generated under a Creative Commons license and are thus shareable, remix-able, and reusable.

 

More specifically, every challenge starts with a big question - a call to action around a social issue to tackle. During the Research phase, community members are invited to share stories, experiences, tools, case studies and examples to lay the groundwork for future ideation. During the Ideas phase, community members develop solutions, collaborating with each other to drive ideas forward. A Refinement phase and Feedback phase offer people the opportunity to strengthen, iterate, and prototype ideas. (OpenIDEO invites the community to share their feedback and insights during the Research phase on the platform here). Top Ideas are selected based on their potential for impact, receiving various types of support from OpenIDEO and challenge sponsors.

 

IDEO states: "No matter what field you work in, what level of experience you have, what country you're from - if you're keen to collaborate on solutions to challenges facing the world today - you're welcome to join OpenIDEO."

Development Issues

Conflict, Children, Education, Environment, Gender, Governance, Rights, Youth

Key Points

According to IDEO: "Thinking like a designer can transform the way organizations develop products, services, processes, and strategy. This approach, which IDEO calls design thinking, brings together what is desirable from a human point of view with what is technologically feasible and economically viable. It also allows people who aren't trained as designers to use creative tools to address a vast range of challenges" - including development challenges as outlined above.

Sources

OpenIDEO website and IDEO website - both accessed on July 3 2014; and email from OpenIDEO to The Communication Initiative on October 16 2014.