Message-ID: <9603118292.AA829230729@hudsmtphq.hud.gov> Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 06:52:09 EST From: Michael Patterson <mailto:Michael_O._Patterson@HUD.GOV> Subject: Re[3]: Appropriate Software Proposal To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Ironically I find myself trying to deliver a "quite modern"
information infrastructure to our "grass roots entities". I have held
forth in our internal forums saying that the model of development this
organisation is proposing is not viable without frequent - unspecified
- electronic communications to and from the project sites. The key
reason for this - and for that matter the rest of the info
infrastructure I refer to - is that we live with certain conditions
imposed by our donors and fund raising strategies.
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"It is better to inspire than to instruct". There is no better
sales tool than success stories, stories of how people just like
you took a repeatable route and got what they wanted. Books like
"The Next Whole Earth Catalog" and "The Essential Whole Earth
Catalog", which list the best books in over a hundred different
fields, are far more useful than pie in the sky models. University
library bookshelves are full of academic performance art which is
useless to average people who want to improve their own lives.
What do people want? To have the ideas/technology to take control
of their own destinies. How does academic theorizing help?
"What you concentrate on grows". We've had 50 years of social
services, models, &c. targeted at need. Oddly enough, the needs
have grown. John Kretzmann's "Building Communities from the
Inside Out" suggests that playing to community strengths, rather
than weaknesses, gets much more positive results, and has numerous
case studies to back that up. Healthy communities operate from
strengths, not from weaknesses.
Where is the academic model for developing leaders of leaders?
That is the only real need. Real leaders ask good questions,
instead of "Why doesn't anybody care about our problems?" or "Why
isn't anything working?", they ask "How can we have fun fixing our
problems ourselves?" I wish we could get a writeup on the
Sarvodaya Shramadana movement in Sri Lanka here.
Academics and government need to package good, solid ideas, in a
form that can be easily read and put into practice, and "feed
interest". I've seen so many development concepts whose
originators never bothered talking with the people allegedly to be
benefitted. One of my favorite was a dam built w/US aid in
Cambodia in the early 60's. It was built with great fanfare, and
hoopla about benefit to the peasants, who could now grow 2-3 crops
of rice a year, instead of 1, and be part of the Rostow "take-off"
that would keep communists out. AFTER it was built, it was noticed
that the peasants were still growing one crop a year. THEN the
specialists went in to talk to the peasants, who said, "Why grow
extra crops? The government would just take it away." Remember
"The Ugly American"? He was the hero; he went into a village, and
just lived with people, offering very small, incremental
improvements. Gee whiz toys can be a lot of fun, but defining a
mission, and working towards it, is far more important.
Transmitting useful ideas seems to me to be the core mission.
"If people don't understand it, it doesn't exist." I had to learn
technical writing for my present job. It went against everything I
ever learned in school. I learned to keep sentences to 15 words
or less, to use only active verbs, to have prepositional phrases at
the end of sentences, to minimize modifiers and choose the simplest
words & expressions, to never use semi-colons, to lead first with
my strongest thought, and to write motivationally, rather than
rationally. This may seem simple, but the result is readable
writing. Further, vague concepts can't be hidden behind verbiage;
they have to be fleshed out.
"Define a mission, then take action." At times, neither is done.
But let's tell this point with a story. The Mullah Nasrudin was a
minister at the Sultan's court. One day, the Sultan decided all
his ministers were incompetent, and ordered their execution. The
Mulla said, "Very well, your excellency, but I was working on a
program to teach your camel to sing like a nightingale." The
Sultan, intrigued, ordered the Mulla spared. On his way home that
night, the Mulla was asked by his apprentice, "Why did you say
that? There's no way you can teach a camel to sing like a
nightingale." The Mulla said, "Well, my son, let's think. I am an
old man. The Sultan is an old man. Who can say how long God will
let us live? Besides, the Sultan has a bad memory, and who knows?
given enough time, I may yet be able to teach his camel to sing."
How many development efforts are like that? Results are the only
report card. Harsh, perhaps, but realistic.