One part of his lecture that I liked was when he talked about the Eight Information Challenges in need of dire solutions. He talked about how the following topics that needed solutions:
Relevance- is it actionable?
Verification and Authentication- is it true or is it a hoax?
Duplication- Has this already been dealth with?
Access- Do the most vulnerable have the tools?
Privacy- is confidentiality respected? Security risks?
Expectations- are we creating unrealistic expectations?
Impact- converting data into aid delivery?
Proximity- understanding new proximity dynamics
I find that some of these are repeat issues from earlier classes and speakers but I feel that this has more direction as to where the solutions need to be made and what needs changed.
I believe that Verification and Authentication is very important to responding to disasters because you don’t want to send man power to help someone and that person is not there. This can be solved by having a lot of man power on the ground but that is difficult to organize sometimes well it seems to be a trend with disaster response.
Duplication is another really big issue because you don’t want to try to redo something that has already been done. Like my dad and grand father always told me and still tell me, Do it right the first time so you don’t have to do it again. Something like that so you don’t have to redo anything because it is a waste of time and resources.
Impact is critical because you have to be able to translate data you are receiving into aid. How you do that well I believe that is a good project idea I think I will claim this idea as mine, so if you read this don’t take my idea. I believe that if you want to give aid, you have to be very quick in the turn around from the time you receive the message or information until the time you translate it (if applicable) until the time you dispatch aid workers.
Evan, I agree with how you started your blog post this week. I think that adding guest speakers to the class line up was a brilliant idea. However I disagree with one of the things you brought up. A few of the previous guest speakers that we had did in fact cover previous information that we had covered in class during previous night sessions. I do agree with the fact that you brought up explaining that we should have a class devoting to learning something the speaker is talking about before that speaker comes in. This way, we would be a lot more prepared for what the speaker has to say to the class during the guest lecture nights.
ReplyDeleteI thought that Edward Happ was the best speaker thus far, however I only knew a little bit about him and his business from the reading before class. One of the things that really hit me during his presentation was his ability to tell stories to keep the audience’s attention and relate them to us as a class. Also, I found that Happ’s eight information challenges were very insightful and they need to be fixed in the near future. I think you chose solid three challenges that were possibly the most important out of the list.
Evan, I thought that your blog post this week was very good. You always seem to be able to pick out the key information from the presentations and give a well-planned out analysis on the speaker. Also, I liked you used the listing method in your blog this week because it gets very boring reading paragraph after paragraph every week. Overall, I didn’t agree with everything that you had to say this week, but I fell you did a wonderful job critiquing Edward Happ and his presentation this week. Keep up the good work buddy.
I also thought that Mr. Happ was the most interesting in our series so far.I also agree that while the speakers are interesting most of it has some overlap with a) what we have been learning in class or b) what the other speakers have been saying. I believe this might be a good thing in the long run because instead of getting an information overload the important points are being drilled int our heads over and over again. The stories were also a very nice touch to try and help us remember what he believed were the important points in his talk.
ReplyDeleteThe eight information challenges again I will agree was a key part of his talk and while we have already identified some of these I think the way Mr. Happ broke them down was very interesting. He compartmentalized every little part of the problem. I think though this list is not completely necessary. I mean everyone understands the problems in the community as it pertains to information. We can try and implement things until we are blue in the face but if every organization is not on board with a solution then there isn't too much of a point.
We can fix all of these problems and I am sure we will... it's just a matter of not getting bogged down in red tape or tradition long enough to present and idea and see if it will work. I believe this can easily be done with an organization like NetHope but all over the Humanitarian community might be a little harder.
Overall very good post, it gave us a lot of food for thought.