Date: 2025-05-02 Page is: DBtxt003.php L0913-TVM-MMW-000032
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TrueValueMetrics ... Peter Burgess Manuscript
Making Management Work for Relief and Development |
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Chapter 32
Technology, Information and Networks |
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Technology ... the Enabler
Enabled by new technology The development and deployment of social network software has changed a lot about what is possible in developing networks, and what might be possible as they morph into other uses. The very rapid growth in the community engaged in these social networks is quite amazing ... and a challenge to society that understands how things used to be done. There are some parallels with the 1960s. I consider the 1960s to be unique in part because it was the time when more student age people were educated than the parent group. The balance of power ... in knowledge ... shifted from the 40 plus group to the 20 something group, and society, in the “north” has never been the same. Now, 40 years later, there is an energetic population of young people who are very technically savvy and comfortable with electronic social interaction that the older population has difficulty relating to. The social networking community is a young community ... and older people have not yet grasped what it is all about. Maybe they will ... maybe not. What an opportunity I am not sure how big the opportunity ... it depends an awful lot on the way older people and younger people figure out how to cooperate. Maybe it will be a very positive collaboration, and create something remarkable ... or perhaps it will turn into nothing much of substance. At the moment social networking is mostly social. It is not much more than an easy way to connect with people, and call them friends. Looked at from the perspective of a young person, this is great ... from my older perspective it is not that big a deal. But the idea that this level of connection can be built in a matter of months, and some might argue days is absolutely phenomenal. This sort of network building used to take years, and now it can be done at the speed of light. The challenge is not the connection any more, it is now a question of what to do with the connection. For this writer the answer is simple. We should use this ability to connect to empower the management information dimension of the relief and development sector. MySpace and FaceBook have information about many millions of individual people ... similar software would facilitate information about millions of places, about little communities where social progress ought to be happening and is not. The technology lets us do something like this ... except that the underlying Internet infrastructure does not reach half the world, and that world is therefore not going to get included ... unless something is done about it. Moore's Law and missing productivity The idea that the power of technology would double and the cost would halve every 18 months ought to be an amazing driver of productivity ... especially the sort of productivity that appeals to an accountant. While the productivity of technology itself has improved in a very impressive way, its application within the totality of the economy has been slow, and not very impressive. My impression is that the improvement in economic productivity is tiny relative to the improvement in the underlying science and technology. This is explained to a large extent by the lack of productivity in the financial sector and in “markets”. Markets can be run very efficiently using computer technology, but this is not passed on to users of the markets when the markets are controlled by brokers who charge commission fees that are the same percent today as they were when steam trains were invented. The financial community of Wall Street and the other financial and commodity markets earn enormous salaries and bonuses ... a huge cost to the global economy, though profit to the financial services sector. It is conceivable that in due time the technology that has increased profits for the financial services industry may eventually serve to enable many valuable services to be delivered without the intermediation of the financial service companies ... making them more or less redundant. In the manufacturing sector, digital control of manufacturing processes in a fully integrated manner has produced major cost reductions and improved quality and performance ... the potential for this is only just started. In the health sector ... the science is amazing ... but the administration and the application of science is a dismal mess. It is a mess in the United States where some of the best medical science is available and where some of most obscene cost:price relationships exist. It is a mess in the “south” where the science to solve problems of disease exist, but financial resources are missing. Infrastructure Infrastructure is a constraint on the performance of technology. In parts of the “north” the infrastructure is old, deteriorated and obsolete ... which serves to constrain innovation and rapid progress. In the “south” essential infrastructure has never been deployed, with a huge constraining effect on the use of technology in society. The science and technology has been successfully developed so that amazing things can be done ... but the infrastructure needs to be deployed. This has to be done in a way that does not favor only the investors, but leaves a share of value for the service providers and the users. A policy framework that is dominated by a political model suited to the old fixed wire technology is not going to be the best way forward. Distributed technology that works at the community level, and links seamlessly to an international network seems to have a lot of potential. Information ... the Value The nature of information There are many stages related to information: (1) data; (2) information; (3) “intel”; (4) knowledge; and (5) wisdom.
At this time in history a large part of thinking about information is related to digital information and electronic data processing. But there are still valuable roles for paper, and personal communication. Visual aids have their place, and this may well be puppet shows as well as Power-Point slide presentations. Maps printed on paper may well be more efficient than maps stored in some electronic archive and not at all easy to access, view or print. Information flows The conventional wisdom is that information should be flowing from the “north” to the “south”. After all, the “north” is more advanced in its knowledge of science and in the wealth of the society. But the big need is for information to be flowing much more efficiently from the “south” to the “north”, and for this information to be efficient and structured so that it can be used in the management of relief and development resources. Bottom line ... the relief and development sector knows very little about the impact of any of its efforts on the communities where people live. This information is critical, and without it, relief and development will never succeed. The value of information The value of information that is never used approximates to zero. The vast bulk of the information compiled by the organizations in the relief and development sector falls into the “never used” category, even though the costs associated with getting the information has been quite substantial. Information that makes good decision making possible is very valuable. How valuable, is difficult to quantify, but in my own experience using information to make decisions has helped to create opportunities for enormous business profits to be made, and in the relief and development sector, costs to be saved, and lives to be saved. The key is not to have a lot of information, but to have all the reliable and accurate information that is needed so that good decisions can be made. Networks ... the Connections The network effect Information that is good, being used by one person is a lot better than by nobody. Good information being used by 2 people is better, and again better when it is being used by 4 people, 8 people, or 16 people. When good information is being used by 256 people or 512 people ... it is even more efficient. Networks make it possible for all this to happen. But it is better! Technology is increasingly allowing people to interact and to have an ability to have feedback, and to share experience. When good information is shared and used in a distributed network manner, there is one level of value. But when the users of information are able to update and improve the information, and push into back into the network as feedback, the information gains a whole new dynamic. If information shows something works well ... there is a case for doing more of it. Where information shows that something does not work very well, then there is a case for doing something else. A modern technology based network, can put this sort of information into play. And combining modern technology with some of the basics of organizing data enables the performance measurement for the relief and development sector to be dragged into the 21st century ... hopefully with favorable results. |
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