You might (we hope!) have noticed some changes around here. Our new-and-improved blog platform is part of an ongoing series of enhancements to K4Health’s web products portfolio. These changes are based on feedback from the people who collaborate on and use our products—website visitors, blog readers, Toolkit builders, Photoshare devotees, POPLINE researchers, and eLearning students.

I’m Simone Parrish, K4Health’s Web Products Manager (I joined the project at the end of August). I’ll be your guide to what’s coming next on K4Health.org.

K4Health is fundamentally a knowledge management project. We are focusing some of our expertise inward, and finding new ways to apply knowledge management practices to our web-based products. This means making structures simpler to navigate, content easier to find, and the overall experience smoother and more productive.

Already in Place: Photoshare | Happening Now: Blog | What’s Next

The first of K4Health’s web products to be polished up was Photoshare (www.photoshare.org). The enhancements were unveiled on September 15 at an Society for International Development-Washington meeting hosted by the Bread for the World Institute. The meeting focused on “Cool Tools for Sharing, Communicating, and Coordinating in International Development.” K4Health’s David Alexander presented the new Photoshare to the group.

It wasn’t Photoshare’s content that needed enhancing—there are nearly 20,000 images available in this amazing collection, with more on the way. Rather, the enhancements were to the visual design of the Photoshare site, and to the submission, search, and request systems. The changes make it easier for photographers to share their photos, for people in the field to request photos, and for K4Health staff to manage requests. Details are available on Photoshare’s blog.

Since September, we have been gathering feedback on the new site. We have just begun prioritizing fixes and features for the next phase of Photoshare’s development. Feel free to visit Photoshare and let us know what you think.

Already in Place: Photoshare | Happening Now: Blog | What’s Next

The new look for K4Health’s blog isn’t just a pretty face—it has been revised to better meet the needs of readers, contributors, and K4Health staff.

• Readers now have options for sorting and viewing K4Health’s blog posts—by date, topic, series, etc. —so you can quickly get to the content you care about most.
• We have shifted the tone of the blog slightly over the past few months, to better highlight the personal voices and insights of staff and guest contributors. This reflects K4Health’s commitment to providing reliable information from a breadth of perspectives, and in formats that a variety of people will find useful.
• Speaking of guest contributors: K4Health doesn’t want the last word. We want to facilitate conversation. We’ll be bringing you posts from partner organizations (like FHI 360 and MSH) and other experts who have insight into K4Health’s core topics, such as Dr. Jay Liebowitz on knowledge management. (Email blog [at] k4health [dot] org if you are interested in contributing.)
• Finally, we’re excited about how much easier it is for us to upload new blog posts and manage our content.

We are still tweaking some items (like uploading contributors' photos, marking old posts with new topic areas, finding a few images that got lost, etc.), but we would love to hear what you think of the new platform, or if you run into any problems.

Already in Place: Photoshare | Happening Now: Blog | What’s Next

Between now and the summer of 2012, we plan to roll out enhancements to the main K4Health.org website, Toolkits, POPLINE, and our Affiliate Sites platform. I will be posting here about each set of improvements as the release date for each one becomes more solid.

Do let me know if you have questions, concerns, or feedback as this process unfolds—you can contact me directly, sparrish [at] jhuccp [dot] org, or contact the blog team, blog [at] k4health [dot] org.

We hope you like what you see.