Anyone who has played Pokemon knows that Eevee can turn into just about any type of Pokemon ever and therefore is one of the most versatile. Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Relief is at the point that it needs to adapt and evolve and be the jack of all trades that it used to be but it needs to do it within the confines of the technological realm. The cluster model for Emergency Management is really good in theory but in actuality it is a slow process. Particularly when it comes to the person part of the funnel and trying to convince your partners to share. There are money concerns and secret concerns that must be hurdled. At times it feels like your partners may only be sharing the tip of the iceberg and only the least relevant of the information and who knows they might be. That is not what I am here to talk about tonight as I have already handled this topic in a few of my other posts. Tonight is about the IM Continuum and the parts of this continuum that Mr. Alspach said and I believe need the most work. Which in his eyes was the Collection of info and Analysis of it I believe the whole process needs work which will include the Processing and Dissemination of the info.
Two years to decide on a twitter I would say the process needs a lot more open-mindedness when it comes to technology. It does not, will not, cannot always work but neither does standing pat. What made me the most happy about out talk was that Mr. Alspach seemed to know this and was open to change provided it was done in the right way. While collecting information a lot of the info is out-dated unless it is a first world country they are kind of flying by the seat of their pants. Also it is hard to collect info on an area in crisis and to gauge how widespread the trouble is. The processing is hard and so is the analysis portion because of the sheer amount of information but to compact that problem they are running on out-dated clunky models and systems. This needs to be stream lined, simplified while still doing the same amount of work. Which I guess will be our job if we choose to undertake that task for out final project. We need these emerging technologies to sort out the information into manageable chunks and so that the responders are not responding to twelve of the same e-mail or map. Then once the info is analyzed it needs to quickly be disseminated so it can be placed into the right hands.
This can be facilitated by everyone using the same types of file or eveyone being able to use a file converter so everyone can see the files much more quickly. Also by allowing and working with the new upstarts in the tech relief world and providing them with guidelines for how to best verify and integrate their information into an already established system will make their information more useful and more likely to be given a hard look instead of being used on the periphery of the problems. I know I don't have a lot of the answers and I am sort of re-hashing what we already know. This is basically me thinking aloud. How do we get the Humanitarian community to be tech savvy and how do we get them to willingly disseminate and share info? Only when we answer those can we evolve and be as great as we know we can be.
Today I will try and be a little deeper to get us thinking on how to fix these problems I leave you with some wise words by Confucius
Tom, first may I say that the Pokémon and evolving reference was solid with the picture you put up it made me laugh man. But in all seriousness, you couldn’t have been more right with this reference. As the guest speaker made this very clear to the class, the United Nations is not very fond of change and they do this with a very slow process. I believe this is a terrible thing because as the world evolves the UN needs to as well instead of falling behind the rest of the planet. I agree that they need to step up their game or they are going to be left behind in this new age of technology.
ReplyDeleteYou also made a good point that you can have all the data in the world, but if you don’t have a way to organize and categorize it into classes and chunks of information then you cannot analyze it. Raw data is not useful unless you can classify it into information. The United Nations needs to do a better job of this and find better ways of grouping their information to be more organized and up to date. I completely agree with you as well that the humanitarian community needs to become more tech savvy because the more technologies and people you have available, the better chances you have of saving more lives.
Tom, I enjoy reading your posts every week they are always interesting and usually make me laugh. You brought up some very good ideas in this week’s blog post. I also thought the speaker this week had some interesting information to share and I look forward to hearing the next speaker this Monday night. Tom I look forward to reading your blog post next week I can always use a good laugh and hear some interesting stories.
I'm going to agree with Jesse and say I loved the Pokemon analogy. It really took me back to... well, second grade, which is how simple the basic principle of how technology develops over time and humanitarian organizations need to be versatile in their adaption of it.
ReplyDeleteThe United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs needs to lead this evolution - they have the most available resources and should be able to pool the best and brightest to make them the most technologically advanced and quickest to adapt out of all humanitarian organizations. Unfortunately, they are neither of these. I agree that the cluster model certainly does not facilitate cooperation on a noteworthy level and can actually be a bulwark against potentially useful information passing between seemingly unrelated clusters. Furthermore, I second your statement on the need for more synchronization of file types or convertibles to promote easy and efficient information sharing.
For the first time, I think I've finally hit your level of frustration, Tom. While you may focus your anger at the lack of communication between organizations, I'm focusing mine on the "slow moving large organization" front. If the US Military can live on the cutting edge of technology despite its size and diversity, the UN should be able to do the same with its subordinate entities.