 Hello, and welcome to NEMO's webinar, The Art of Networking. My name is Elizabeth, and I work for NEMO. As a network for museums in Europe, our main activities are advocating for museums on an EU level, providing training opportunities, providing a platform for museums to engage and learn from one another, and helping museums to cooperate across borders. NEMO has increased its online activity with webinars, such as this one, with the hope that participants can continue their professional development even during these uncertain times. We are looking forward to today's webinar, facilitated by Anashtine Kemp, an independent consultant in international cultural cooperation and project management. She specializes on strategies for cultural networks and offers strategic consultancy to actors in the field of international cooperation. This webinar will explore why museums gather in networks and what their impact is. At the end of the webinar, you will have an opportunity to ask questions during a Q&A round using the chat function. So without further ado, I will hand this over to Anna to get started. Thank you, Liz, and hello everyone, and welcome to the webinar, The Art of Networking, also from my side. So as Liz already pointed out, my name is Anashtine Kemp, and I'm going to share some of my insights and experiences when it comes to networks in the cultural field. And thanks for the invitation to NEMO, and thanks for having me. So just a short notice also why I am talking to you about networking. I'm working as a consultant for cultural cooperation, networks, and strategic processes. And furthermore, I have over 10 years of experience in UNESCO context. I worked for the German Commission for UNESCO, where I co-founded a global network of young experts in the field of cultural diversity. And as a consultant, I'm used to setting up, facilitating, advising diverse cultural networks. And last but not least, I also did some research on network governance of international networks. And just to be clear, I am not a museum expert. So as time is precious, so let me tell you what you can expect in the next 45 minutes, no, 55 minutes, actually. I will introduce some insights into the phenomenon of networking, including what I mean when I say network. We will then see how this phenomenon develops also in the museum sector, and I will also give some examples here. And this will then lead me to cluster some benefits and challenges of networking or even of working in the form of networks. And at the end, I will provide some hints in case you're interested in coordinating networks. And as Liz already said, we will have at least 15 minutes at the end of the webinar for you to ask questions, to comment. And I already invite you now to take notes of the meanwhile, when I'm talking to take notes of your question and then share them when I end in the public chat. So let's get started. So what I am talking about when I say network is the image I show here can be applied to many, many disciplines, such as the IT sector, biology or sociology. And it is about points and lines that are linked to each other. This is as simple as that. This is a network. But today we look at the organizational and sociological side of this image. We talk about people linked to each other, about people or a group of people interacting beyond institutional, geographical or other borders. People who organize to achieve a common goal can be generally speaking called a network. As such, networks are not a new phenomenon, but are the core of societal constitution. So you can also call your family or your network of friends, you can call it or your friends you can call. You can see this image I just seen in your private field also. You might also know some historic examples of networks. As for example, the Han Gertig Lied in League in Northern Germany or also the Kraft Network of Guilds and Medieval Times. And also the creation of Diderot's Encyclopedia is a joint creation of a network of writers and intellectuals. However, the notion or better said what it stands for appears more adequate nowadays than ever. I always refer to that network as also a buzzword. Through the possibilities of digital media, the high degree of mobility of people, goods and services, and those overcoming geographical time and national boundaries, social networks are considered to be one of the most appropriate organizational forms in the 21st century because they are flexible, adaptable, often non-hierarchical and have an open character compared to, for example, traditional institutions. At the same time, in a world of disorder and uncertainty as we are experiencing right now, they offer the opportunity to combine efforts, quickly connect people and knowledge and provide orientation. However, they often struggle to sustain continuity. And networks do work as long as they share the same communication codes as, for example, a common goal, a common cause or even a common value. And here we can also see and say that the currency of networks, sorry for the economic term, is information and knowledge that often translates when we look at the practice, it translates into best practice compilation, to short calls to colleagues to ask, OK, what do you think about it? Do you have an idea about whatsoever in newsletters, in conference or even in policymaking tools? Having said that we are talking about social networks, so a network of people, let me add another aspect. More specifically, I am talking today of networks as an organizational form that might take many different forms, such as informal working groups or even an informal bunch of like-minded people, a forum, associations, federations or alliances. And you might all know these kind of formal and non-formal networks. And just to be clear, when I say networking today, I do not refer to coffee breaks, networking or socializing events, even though also these form have network or as network share similarities. What all these organizational forms that I just mentioned have in common is that they are made of people, sometimes representing institutions or initiatives, sometimes just representing themselves. And perhaps this makes it clear why we also talk about sociology today. To say it with Bourdieu, networks' most valuable resource is their social capital. The people are the carrier of knowledge, the share of information, the actors and the primary beneficiaries. I think this is key to understand when it comes to benefits and challenges of networks. Thinking networks from the individual may already give many hints and answers. Further characteristics compared to other organizational forms, such as institutions or enterprises, are that networks are supposed or are often, this is just, of course, it's not a, it's a, how you say, an average of experience. So that networks are more flexible because they have heavy, they have no heavy or fixed structures for the same reasons they can adapt quicker to new situations and therefore are often more dynamic. Another reason for that is that they are often very diverse, diverse in people and institutions and perspectives and that they have a more fluid membership than other formats. These features often turn networks into an incubator for change. Also, the fact that they have no or little hierarchy is supporting the characteristics that I just mentioned. And when it comes to international networks, meaning networks of international collaboration, I would also add these five characteristics. These international networks feature, as I add on, more language diversity. They might, they might be also geodynamics when it goes beyond continents. For examples, they have geographically more dispersed members. They are culturally more diverse and often they have scars or more scars or more or scarcer resources and nationally working networks. And therefore, this leads me to my, and to sum up this first part, and this leads me to my assumptions, the basis for what I will say afterwards when it comes to networks. So first, I think that networks, life, blood, so the currency I referred to before, is made of knowledge and communication. And the network's most important resource is the social capital, so the people, the members. Because these people, the members, are key to transfer, exchange, to generate knowledge and to communicate information. But before I continue, now I would like to know a bit more about you, because I don't see you, I don't hear you, and therefore we prepared a short survey so that you and me can get a better idea of who is here today and also what kind of experience you bring to this webinar. And of course it's also because it's a little bit more fun. So you see already the four questions, so I give you some time to answer these questions. It's about what do you think, whether you think networking is an art, why are you here today, and how many networks you think you are part of, and also what you think is most valuable when it comes to networks. And of course you only have one option to answer when there are multiple choices. Actually it's not a multiple choice, so just choose that one that is most relevant, most true for you. And the last minute is running. Okay, thank you for your answers and let's see what is the result. Okay, let's see how it looks like. Perhaps you can scroll a bit down. So 70% of you answered the questions and 75% I think, 48% think that networking is an art, which is interesting. I will also share my insights afterwards. And most of you are here because you want to improve your networking skills. Okay, I hope I will be helpful for that. And also because you want to learn, this is always nice. And then the question, how many networks do you think you are part of? It's less than five. Okay, the question then also would be what kind, did you apply the network definition that I just mentioned, and this is already a lot. And the last question, why you value networks, that most of you think it's because of the changing experience. And rather than receiving edited information, this could also be a hint for all those coordinating networks. And yeah, so this is nice because it also hints me towards my next part. Thank you for taking part in the survey. And thank you for sharing the results. And as I said, I would also like to share my insights. So I think, at least for the first question, I also think that networking is an art, and often underestimated one. I think the artistic aspect lies in dealing, handling, coping with the diversity inherent to networks. While I think diversity makes networks richer, networks, of course, because you have a diversity of individuals and or organizations, and therefore you have a diversity of approaches and perspectives of cultures, of course. But at the same time, you also, I think diversity can also be a challenge because you have a diversity of interests that might be hidden agendas or even diverging interests. You have a diversity of personalities and in the sense, in a negative sense, in the sense of egos, for example. And of course, you have also diversity of closed systems, especially when it's a network of organization. So systems that are self-enclosed and that may speak different languages. So it's always hard also, or it can be hard to bring these different systems into dialogue. Coming to my second part, and probably this is the most interesting for you, let's look at networks in the museum sector and let's see how the phenomenon of networking looks like in the museum sector. Is there something specific or different when it comes to museum networks? From an external point of view, as I said, I'm not a museum expert. I think that the museum sector is a very traditional and well-organized one. I think the best example for it is ICOM, founded in 1946 already. Also, semantic-wise, it is interesting to see that we call networks today, or what we call networks today, were then, at the time, founded at committees or councils, like 70 years ago, for example. And another specific aspect, in my opinion, is that museum networks are in most cases networks of institutions with fixed structures. So with buildings, for example, following all similar goals. Of course, by taking very different steps to do so. And my hypothesis is that they might be more homogeneous than other networks. Further, I think museums, and it has to be taken into account when talking about museum networks, is that museum itself has a strong network function within their own community. So they bring people together, they share experience, they share information, they share knowledge. But coming back to some examples, and the following examples should underline what I just said, also making what I just said a little bit more tangible, a little bit more visible, and it should also pave the way to what will follow afterwards. So as I already mentioned, the most famous example of networks in the museum sector is ICOM, the International Council of Museums. And I found it very nice when I prepared my presentation for today to see their current slogan on their website. So museums have no borders, they have a network. So ICOM is a network of networks made up of national museum networks and of course also of professionals. And I think that this example shows very well the long history of networks in the museum sector and the longing for joining forces for a coming cause to be heard as a museum. At the same time the history of ICOM, if you look at the history of ICOM and how it was founded and how it developed over the years, also shows how hard it is to maintain and sustain international networks over the years and that constant reinvention is key to survive. It also shows how vulnerable they are. Networks are often add-ons, nice to have and strongly depend on personal engagement. ICOM also nicely illustrates the intangible resource of networks. So knowledge, information and how this can translate over time also into global activities. And here I would like to mention the International Museum Day which I found a very striking example. And further if you look at further activities of ICOM you see also the typical function of networks for example as standard setting. For example the recent adopted definition or new definition of museums or also the typical activity of raising awareness for the coming cause. For example the red lists and also the agenda setting role that networks may take for example to highlight the social role of museums in case of ICOM and of course the exchange activities to organize meetings and to share or to compile publications. And here I am already talking about impact but I will add on that later on. At regional level there are also several continental or even bi-continental networks and besides NEMO which you know all well and are probably all a member of it there is ASIMOS the Asia-Europe Museum Network. This example is rather compared to ICOM for example it's rather a new one, it was found in 2000 and again here you can see a connection with ICOM because also ICOM went to Asia and enlarged the membership to Asia in the early, how you call it at the beginning of the 21st century it might also be the other way around but both ways show the impact of networking. So ASIMOS is a specialized network and their specialty is the Asian collections in European and Asian museums and ASIMOS supports knowledge and staff exchange between Asia and Europe and it also supports the development of collaborative project among member museums. However I think also this example shows the challenges of international networks and how difficult it can be to sustain networks over so many years. The website for example of ASIMOS is shut down and the secretariat is secured until 2020 so what's ahead? Another example of inter-regional collaboration of extensive knowledge and experience exchange is Ibermuseus which exists since 2007 and the name suggests already it's an Iber-American network sharing knowledge and best practice it also acts as an observatory as a guard watch for example on what's going on with museums in Iber or American and it also offers many trainings to their members and you might have recently joined one of their webinars also they have a current theory about museums in the pandemic crisis and further to these activities Ibermuseus also aims at the formulation of public museum policies so this is another as we saw with ICOM it also goes into the direction of standard setting and what is specific about Ibermuseus is that it is rather a program an intergovernmental one however it gathers and coordinates over 9000 museums and it's facing similar let's say challenges like for example linguistic diversity working in two three languages to somehow coordinate diverse institutions with different political, economical or even social and cultural contexts and coming to the national level the example par excellence of adjoining forces for a common cause are the nationwide associations of museums and I do not want to give a specific example and pick out one but I name what most of them have in common they represent the interests of museums they offer policy making process within their country they offer benefits for their members such as special entry fees for example they provide substantial information platforms on their websites or organized trainings and meetings for their members or also like technical assistance for example and they also represent their country in regional or even international networks and they are all made up obviously of museum organizations and some also accept individuals or museum professionals to their membership we could also go now to the local level where you often find very vivid networks of small local museums which are perhaps less or not that well equipped with finances or infrastructure and these museums also do team up at a very local level to share their resources and work in synergy but I won't do that for now for time reasons and I leave this up to you to discover so I would like to highlight the impact of museum networks using again the example of ICOM because I think ICOM somehow gathers all other networks as it is a network of networks and would not exist without its national and regional branches without neglecting also all other non institutional professional networks in the museum field I think the most striking impacts are that ICOM enables museum sectors to speak with one voice and I can imagine that not all museums all over the world would subscribe to this however it is considered to be the global voice or let's say the most global voice of museums also for example it by UNESCO when it talks to UNESCO further examples of the impact of ICOM's work is that the code of ethics in museums for example is now a global standard and what I already mentioned the International Museum Day which started as an idea is now results in worldwide activities so it really gets tangible and the 2000 established red lists helps nowadays different national and international agencies to enforce the law so this tool has contributed to the identification recovery and restitution of thousands of cultural objects e.g. in Iraq, Afghanistan or Mali and networks do also have an impact at personal level which I would sum up as personal growth through the work in and via networks people develop personally and professionally by exchanging experience, receiving targeted trainings and yes also by traveling even though this is not an option today or nowadays or right now this often results in broad horizons, professional horizons in new and more opportunities because the access to information is wider it's bigger so the network is larger and also people have access to a community of practice to a community of peers which they can consult on a regular basis and I think this helps also strengthen the identity as a professional for example and brief often people find a professional family in networks and it is most interesting in case you are a coordinator of network or even if you're only a member of network to listen to your members or to your co-members for their personal network journeys you will receive many unexpected insights and I think as a coordinator even if not it can be very rewarding and I think the benefits of networking become specifically visible in times of crisis at the one we are currently experiencing and I would briefly like to share my personal experience with an nowadays rather informal network the one that I founded over 10 years ago and it is very visible so even though this network is not as active as it has been before we are still in touch and do collaborate on different occasions on an irregular basis so when the pandemic went global this was like a wake-up call and we started checking on each other and at the end of this resulted in weekly video calls where we first talked about the specific COVID-19 situation about our countries and about our personal situation about our professional situations and then we started designing a joint project which is still in line with our common cause that we all share that brings us together and just a week ago we just submitted a project proposal for funding to UNESCO and crossing fingers that went through so this shows to me this very small example how we rely on such communities you have once shared strong values or experience this crisis for us was a boost for action and reconnection and you might have your personal story and I also have seen many European networks that reacted and adapted super quickly to the new situation took care of its members and launched campaigns to raise voices and design activities to support each other in this difficult situation or in this new situation where known paradigms are shifted towards the unknown and the uncertain however there is no light without shadow so every benefit comes also with this challenge and I think the most common one or what I also observe that networks often struggle when there is a lack of commitment among the members and or a lack of leadership so the challenge here is to keep the dynamic high even though often the networking work is not part of your daily job portfolio or of your daily work of the members but often an add-on so this makes this particularly difficult for coordinators or even for yourself if you're part of a network to engage on a regular basis into the network further networks and those mentioned before have small coordinating office in ideal cases it's one or two person working for the network on a daily basis in my opinion this is due these little offices is due to the logic of our funding systems I mean that our funding schemes request tangible results but networks often do have no tangible results at first hand because as I shared they first translate into exchange and collaboration for example later on these experience often result intangible results but this is hard to explain to funders to make a very complex story short and with limited resources often comes the challenge of continuity the real work starts when the first passion is over or people return home for example after a meeting so this leads me to my question and this leads me to my last part so how to make networks efficient, resilient and sustainable and in a nutshell this is my answer start with the magic moment so sharing a special moment, a specialist achievement be it personally or professionally strengthens the cohesion of the network also beyond geographical distances a moment that connects people beyond that moment beyond also institutional borders for example this also means that face to face meetings are key invest in trust among network members among members and the coordinating instance through hard work, commitment, transparency and coherence and a network will work sustainably and is resilient in the sense that this is not overwhelmed by a first wave of unforeseen happenings when the taking and receiving is balanced so which means that members give as much as they receive to and from the network permanently I think network will only thrive if it is not a one-way road and be relevant also to the cause that connects you and holds the network together be relevant to the community to your target group let's say that helps to survive because you are needed and you will be missed if you don't if you do not exist anymore for example and to reach relevance of course means also to be innovative and diverse to listen to the inside of the network but also to the outside world it implies many further things and can also mean that once you have reached a common goal that networks dissolve and people move on and I think also that's okay and of course at the end of the day you need time that people dedicate to it financial resources etc but however I like to believe that these four aspects will result in a positive and efficient result in unsustainable networks if they are in balance in equilibrium and how to get there this is probably your biggest question if I would be you so I like to give you some hints to check whether you are on the right track or where you could adjust your network or even your membership and I suggest these six parameters so the vision or the goal communication, resources social capital, performance and coordination and it is a perspective that you can choose when looking at your network and it can also serve as an evaluation grid for example so the first one is vision which can also be called goals or the change you want to reach with the work you do I think it is helpful to check with your members or with your coordinating instance why you are together and if there is more than one answer then I think it's helpful to clarify the vision and ask what is the common goal, the cause you all follow how do you reach this goal and perhaps also translate this answer into a mission statement also is there a time limit to your course or what I just mentioned for example perhaps it might be a time limited goal you have for example to reach a law by the end of the year so then it's okay to have an exit strategy as a network too and I think also that strong networks have a clear answer to the last question what differentiates you from others so the second parameter is social capital and you might recall the image I showed at the beginning with the many little persons as social capital is a currency you might want to check how it looks like in your network how to be a member or how to become a member and perhaps also how to exit the network as a member and also to see what do members get what do members give also what they need to give so that the network can work and can survive so what do members are members so what is their particular interest in being a member and this also implies seeing the individual which can result in more human centered approaches which again can result in a smoother run of projects because the human factor is taking into account the third parameter is communication and I differentiate here from internal to and external communication it is essential to have a common understanding of how you want to communicate within the networks and how often but also how do you want to be seen from outside and then ask okay what do you need for that what kind of channels tools, what kind of information what kind of knowledge and expertise and I think a transparent and irregular communication lastly also helps to create trust among each other the fourth parameter is performance and which can also call be activities so what I mean is actually activities but how do you implement these how do you perform to implement these activities and to see to check whether these are in accordance with your vision with your resources, with your valence is their coherence within all that are these activities relevant to your target group, to community, to your members for example what can you do better together and perhaps also to see what is better if the members do it on their own and are these activities representing your superpower and also your unique selling point as a network for example and the performance I think impacts very strongly the visibility of course how you are seen as a network from outside and it contributes to your accountability as a network and it also creates trust again outside your network in your network for example as a reliable partner and the fifth parameter is resources and I think it is very good to it is essential actually to be aware of your resources and when I say resources here I mean financial resources of course but also your personal staff capacities so how many people are actually dedicating time to it also your creative resources in the sense of expertise, skills you need for example to communicate or to implement a specific activity and then also to see so what do you have but of course then also what do you need for example if you want to reach out to a new target group or you want to test a new activity and to see how you could get these resources be it for example via your members so that you perhaps also change your membership criteria that you request specific funding or also that you offer training for example to the to the coordination or to the members or both so there are many ways to also to enlarge the resources and the last parameter is coordination and this and you can also ask how do you want to organize and I'm also sharing here too very simple models of course there is there are more answers to that question but for example it could be a coordinating office which is very common I think in the museum sector which is centralized governance so there is one office or one person who is pushing the communication who is sharing the information who is organizing the meetings the events so you can say it's a centralized governance or it's a members who govern networks or with a decentralized governance so that for example there is one person in charge for the website person in charge for the funding etc etc it can of course also or even anything else but I think it's good to have a clear idea and to have a clarity about this issue also to see how does decision-making processes look like is who is in charge and for how long and to see whether the network is democratic participatory enough to allow members to to be committed to the network to have their share within the network and visually I condense the complexity of this question of coordinating and governing networks into this colorful ball and the message here is not that you now need to read the full ball but it's rather an invitation to look a little bit deeper to dig deeper into the issue of network governance and the message here is that each parameter and of course there are more parameter than those I just presented that they are linked to each other and they affect each other and I share here also the link on my research on network governance which you can access by the following link and now before closing we have time like 15 minutes a little bit more to interact and I invite you if not yet done to write questions you might have into the public chat and the NEMO team will cluster these questions for me and I will try to answer or comment as much as possible so please go okay I have a first question from Yvonne so she would like to know whether I would say that the decentralized governance has specific challenges or benefits and of course I think yes all of these models have their specific benefits and it depends very much on the network itself on the circumstances you are working in I think the one of the benefits of decentralized governance is that you have a stronger commitment among your members because they are actively participating and shaping the network but at the same time this might also be a challenge because this would rather be like I think often I see that they work on a voluntary basis so as soon as there is another project or that was a heavy deadline that this voluntary work will put aside so I think the decentralized governance is rather vulnerable to continuity or to sustain continuity and the next question is whether I have examples of how networks from different sectors can interact with each other for example health, civil society this is a very interesting question I am always looking for these examples I am sure that they are so spontaneously I would let me think perhaps at the end I will have an answer but I think this is most interesting to combine networks from different sectors because it is different from institutions because networks are more flexible they do not have a heavy agenda and they can collaborate perhaps a little bit in a more easy in a more smooth way than others let me think about that question because I don't have a specific example right now another question from Anastasia is examples for successful decentralized governance model again the examples are always interesting also here I would have to think I think the example I just showed from my personal experience now because this network was had a centralized governance and we now know that there is no further support let's say institutional support for centralized governance we are now moving slowly into a decentralized governance even we wouldn't call it governance but into a self-organized way and this is as I said already before it is what the network I am talking about is a U40 network for cultural diversity and so that we now have a decentralized way of course we had roles for people who took over specific responsibilities and we managed to even with five continents we wrote this project proposal and I think this was a very positive experience after having experienced centralized governance to have now a decentralized approach and see that it works and I also we can also be in contact afterwards when I have more time to think about examples so the question from Estelle whether I think a good network should use project management software I think what is really essential for a good network or a good working network is to have a good communication platform, a good communication channel so if it also includes a project management software that's good but what I think is more important than having a project management software is to have a communication software or even a platform or whatever where people can exchange quickly where they can look up information without calling the coordination office again and again to have structured information structured a knowledge database for example and of course if you then go to concrete project implementation then of course might help to also have a project management software if you're working with people from all over the world or even from different countries and of course it helps but I think it's not as essential as to have a communication platform and another question from John that I say that currency of networks are communication and knowledge but what about change you mean why you think currency is the currency of network is also change I think perhaps it's better to have the example of the lifeblood to see when I showed the example the very first image of the networks where we have the points and the lines and to see what happens in between the point and the line there I think what is transferred on the lines and in between the points is that this is often communication and knowledge and the change is what happens at what is transferred so of course this communication and knowledge contributes to have to transform to have a change in one way or the other and I think first it is in communication and knowledge and then this transfers into change and another question from Rossini if I would say that networks more than ever have become more important more needed in the pandemic time yes I think that is why I shared also the example and also that I said I mean you can observe it in the European network sector that even they become even more active than ever I mean they engaged into advocacy activities towards the parliament for example towards the political decision makers they are shared experience on how particular members are dealing with the specific situation so to not leave people alone in such a new situation I think this is very key also in this situation and I think networks are very suitable to do so because they are like over they are on a different level they are overlooking and connecting people from very different context and to combine these context there might be new answers and I think that networks are playing a crucial role in dealing with the new challenges that we are facing right now and another question from Amilkar what you would recommend to start networks from museums heritage sites okay this is a good question I think I would start looking at the websites from ICOM from NEMO also from Ibermuseos I think they are very these are the example I shared or even NEMO we are thanks to NEMO we are here so I think there might be there substantial information and knowledge there and even if you don't have the the title of the publication might not hint to your answer then I think it is helpful to read in between the lines and of course also at the end you will see I also shared my website and also publications about networks more specific but not specific in the museum field so I think it would be a combination of both to look at the specialized websites and then look at the site of networks and then draw your own conclusion from that and the last question I think not the last from E oh I don't know how to spell with name irakse regarding challenges of integrating and coordination older and younger members in a network can you give us more examples of successful networks even if they are not in the museum sector I think this question was never a striking one to me I mean I would say this is the diversity I pointed out why I think networking is an R to have the diversity also of age in a network and I think it is the art of dealing with this kind of diverse membership is in strengths and make visible the strengths of each of the groups you might have within the network for example to see what are the young members good in and what they can share what they can offer and then what can the older ones offer and share with the younger ones to not make it take it as a division within the network but as a strong point that you have such a diversity in your network because I think it makes them stronger and I think that I would say that network like traditional ones they do often have rather Buddha is also a very strong word but rather let's say there's senior professionals in there and I think it's particular interesting for networks also if they want to survive to invest in a younger membership and I think a very nice one where I like how they handle the membership and how they are speaking to their members is trans-Europe I think they are doing quite a good job also because they are they are integrating also their new members in a very active way so you might want to have a look at that one and the question from Rima what is most important networking with teams or team building itself so I think a team needs team building I think if you want to network with teams then you first need to build a team so I think it's not a question of what is more important but of doing both at the same time or even one after the other I'm not sure whether I get this question so if not please write again in the chat so from Tamara what in your experience is a key motivation for the network members to participate more actively networking so the key motivation is I think when they can when they are seen by the coordination office with their let's say with their superpower with their qualifications and when they can contribute so that they can see that when they contribute something that it will also be taken up and that they will be integrated into the work of network and I think another motivation of course is also to have for the members to have a resource to have a resource of peers of people of expertise that you can quickly access here also lies a challenge because people often only have the motivation of receiving and these are having this access but they do not see that for having it and for maintaining it that they have to also to invest because imagine if you only have the motivation of receiving and having this community of peers and nobody would give then this community wouldn't be a community of peers so I think it is important first of all to understand that there are different motivations for members to be part of let's call it the self yes the self-referential one but then often also people who want to contribute who want to contribute to change or to shape let's put it in a very big picture to shape the future or the future of the sector they are working in question and yes I can still take it from Victoria how do you give continuity to the network without losing the interest of the members and how do you handle the differences of these members to achieve common goals so I will start with the last question how to achieve a common goal I think the common goal should be the reason why are you together so you shouldn't be together if you don't have a common goal so and if it's only just to be heard and to be heard as a sector for example so the last question is then of course there might be the importance is that there is one common goal and of course there might be different other goals that members are pursuing when they are participating in the network and this is also okay because of the diversity people can take out differences from a network and contribute to the network but the most important is that somehow it goes into the same direction and how to give continuity to the network without losing the interest of the members I think to always provide interesting through relevance what I said to provide relevant information to provide relevant offers for example trainings that are needed by the members so that you carefully listen to what is needed and also what is on work for example now if you provide now in the pandemic crisis I don't know a seminar or email publication on how to travel for example this wouldn't be completely out of sight so I think the relevance is an important key also I think to regular dialogue this is regularity and relevance and I think this will be the last question before I close from Anais what specific project management tools or communication tools would you recommend this is also a good question I have it depends also if you are one language network or a bilingual or even a multi-language network because there are many tools like Slack or even the project management tool like Trello that do work very well also for networks if you are talking the same language but once you are having more than one language then these tools have a very limited access and I meaning because this led in my own experience that twice of these experiences led me to setting up my own communication tool because perhaps you know already in the community here you know already tools that are able to multi-language exchange but they are to set up to program my own intranet for example on the website where to have a members forum, a members list etc and of course what was the most simple things I think work better for example like a Facebook group works very good because people are there already so also see where the people are already when you set up your channels or tools and not to avoid if possible just to have another whatsoever communication tool even I said I set up my own tools but because it was really there was no other options or to have it as an add-on to also have a mix of tools and I think there is a good solution and also because people are communicating differently not everybody is on Facebook for example and what also worked quite well is the typical traditional mailing list because also people are still very much into their mailing into their into their mails and it goes it comes to them directly and they don't have to go somewhere on a platform to get the information I think this is what I meant when I said you have to see that networks are made of people and so what is human what is the human behavior what how does the human being actually functions and and I think the most easiest way is the most successful so and I think I thank you for these challenging questions so please for those I didn't had an answer to please get in touch and I share my contact details so yeah if you should have further specific question comments or even feedback so please get in touch also with my website for further information about my work also for further publication and further reading and I thank you for participating both in the survey both listening to me and also providing these very substantial questions and it was my pleasure to be here with you and I thank Nemo also to the team for the invitation and the opportunity to share my experience and yeah take care stay healthy and happy networking thank you and goodbye