Skip to main content
Feed the Future
This project is part of the U.S. Government's global hunger and food security initiative.
  • About
subscribe

Agrilinks

Search Log In

Main Menu

  • Topics
  • Events
  • Activities
  • Tools & Training
  • Members
  • About
subscribe

A Journey Through Time With Agrilinks

Zachary Baquet

Aug 08, 2017

Agrilinks has turned six years old! I forget the conversion to dog years, but it represents a substantial length of time in internet years.
Description
In 2011, I oversaw the launch of Agrilinks. But I have a confession to make: back in 2010, I didn’t want a website like Agrilinks. I had seen multiple examples of websites (or knowledge repositories or collaborative spaces, pick your favorite description) filled with good intentions that sank beneath the waves of the World Wide Web. It was sad to see. Development and content curation takes time, and it is precious cargo to the creators. However, content alone cannot draw folks to a site and make it thrive. A site needs content AND community.

In early 2009, I managed a seminar series for USAID that covered agriculture and food security topics and had oversight of an intranet site (more inherited than created or sought). I wanted more staff within USAID, especially those in the field, to have access to this seminar series. I started with voice-over PowerPoints of the seminars and put them on the intranet site. But, that didn’t satisfy me. The cool kids at Microlinks had webinars, and I wanted those for my audience. So, in March 2010, my seminars became webinars. I put the webinar recordings on the intranet and shared the links with USAID staff.

We occasionally had external partners join us for the seminars. I started having the seminars in publicly accessible locations to give our partners more opportunities to join the conversation. What about outside folks who missed the seminar or wanted to access the presentation afterwards? That was a bit of a challenge since the links to the presentations were on the USAID intranet site. Everyone should have access to information, right? Luckily, the USAID managers of Microlinks kindly let me use some space on their site to house my webinars links so folks external to USAID could have access.

It became obvious that this would not work long-term — a page buried on Microlinks did not serve the growing food security community. Around this time, USAID started the Knowledge-Driven International Development (KDID) site, a knowledge management pilot platform. With the seminars series and audience at its core, Agrilinks began to take form on KDAD. I thought (perhaps hoped) our KDID landing page would serve as our permanent platform. However, our community and content continued to evolve and grow. To better serve this community — to better serve you — we created Agrilinks.org and launched it in April 2011.

Over the years, Agrilinks has gone through many changes in design and function. We have added features and we have taken them away. I would like to say that we have had a smooth and always successful delivery. Trust me, I really would like to say this, but I am sure you know that it would not ring true. We have experimented. We have asked for your feedback. We have gone back to the drawing board. We experimented some more. You continued to support us, continued to help us grow the Agrilinks community by sharing it with others. While I still have doubts about how best to deliver information and knowledge-sharing through Agrilinks (I am a worrier), I take pride in what we have accomplished through Agrilinks. I’m excited to share our latest redesign and improved functionality and look forward to future changes that will improve your site experience.

Filed Under: Agricultural Productivity Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Policy and Governance Agricultural Productivity Education and Extension Food Safety Markets and Trade Nutrition Youth

Comments

You May Also Like

post

KM Rules: Consolidating CARE's Learning on How to Effectively Share Knowledge

As a huge, diverse, and global implementer, one of CARE's biggest challenges is how we scale our learning to get more people engaged. Our project teams are doing wonderful work...

Emily Janoch

Jan 03, 2019
post

Agrilinks: A Food Security Project 10 Years in the Making

Taking a look at the journey of Agrilinks.

Zachary Baquet

Apr 01, 2021
post

2017 Year in Review: Must-See Agrilinks TV!

We’d like to thank everyone who made 2017 so fruitful for Agrilinks and share some of the year’s most popular webinars — aka, Must-See Agrilinks TV! If you didn’t have...

April Thompson

Dec 19, 2017
post

Digital Agriculture Month In Review: Connecting the Digital Picture to Real Stories

Throughout this Digital Month, we’ve had the privilege of engaging with and hearing from so many of you on the exciting work you’re doing. From tracking the game-changing trends in...

Katie Hauser

Dec 30, 2019
Follow Agrilinks:
  • Youtube
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • RSS
Agrilinks
Achieving agriculture-led food security through knowledge sharing
MarketLinks
Market-based solutions for development
LearningLab
A collaborative learning community of development professionals
Landlinks
USAID's knowledge sharing platform focused on land tenure and property rights
Climatelinks
A global knowledge portal for climate change & development practitioners
Urbanlinks
USAID’s sharing platform for resources on sustainable urban development
Resiliencelinks
A global knowledge platform for resilience practitioners
Globalwaters
Sharing knowledge and ideas to solve global water and sanitation challenges
U.S. Agency for International Development
  • Accessibility
  • Contact
  • Help
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
The information provided on this website is not official U.S. government information and does not represent the views or positions of the U.S. Agency for International Development or the U.S. Government.

Search Agrilinks

My Account

  • My drafts and published content
  • My profile
Sign out

Contribute To Agrilinks

  • Add a post
  • Add an event
Need help?

Subscribe

Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter featuring the latest and greatest Agrilinks content.

You'll also receive invitations to upcoming Agrilinks webinars and other special announcements. We won't share your email address and you can unsubscribe at any time.