Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19990105120924.01413e00@mail.monmouth.com> Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 12:09:24 -0500 From: Wilbur Streett <mailto:WStreett@MAIL.MONMOUTH.COM> Subject: A better challenge... To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Rather than pretend to be on a Desert Island, why not talk about the real world? Why not talk about the Desert Island that we are really on?The originator of this thread's second post was about how ceramic technology has a different set of developmental requirements. The example given was that the pumps used to supply water to the areas had failed because spare parts weren't available, the argument being that the parts were metal, and that was why the parts couldn't be reproduced/secured.
An all ceramic design would have problems as well, and with more frequency. Now that might actually produce a more viable system, since it would be be known that the ceramic pump would fail, rather than assuming that the metal pump would not. But the actual problem is not one of parts, but of "Technology Transfer" in the area's development.
The local population took advantage of the water supply provided by the metal parts based pump, but they never took ownership for the system that produced the water, including a basic understanding of the technology, and insuring access to resources to guarentee the continuation of the process.
I don't know the particular history of this particular water supply system, but this sort of problem is rampant in all sorts of technology. The application of a "Fix it" rather than "process" solution to a problem. In computer systms "Fix it" or "Kludge" a solution is something of a badge of honor. When I make problems go away I get paid a lot of money. But they most often aren't interested in having me fix the process problems that got them there in the first place. I've gotten really tired of doing, "Fix it" work. If they don't want to fix the real problem, then I'm not interested. But often the problem is intrinsic to the organization and the culture. Implementing a technology properly requires communicating all of the technology and components, all of the requirements to the recipient. Only when they have understood the entire system and are capable of acquiring ownership of the entire system has the technology been properly implemented.
So then on to the real challenge. How to establish this communication in the culture that we live in. We are on a Desert Island of sorts, in that we are interested in helping people from outside our cultural base establish a better lifestyle. Yet we are cut off from them. The differences in language, and literacy are enough of an ocean that we are indeed on a Desert Island.
I believe that a great number of the problems that we have are based on the default medium of communication. That's one of the justifications for the work that I'm doing in putting a human face on the computer.
Let's talk about literacy for a moment. What is literacy? It is commonly defined as the ability to read and write. Based on the statistics that I've seen. Only 35% of the world is considered literate. In the USA, where supposedly 5 out of 6 people are literate, only 2 out of 100 people are capable of reading a textbook sufficiently to pass a college course. I didn't say "excel", I said "pass." Now this is supposedly after about 12 years of being taught how to read? Yet we assume the written word is the basis for society? How is that possible? How could it be that something with such limited access to the general population could be considered the basis for society? The only answer that I can come up with is that it was the best option that we had at the time for the technology that was available. The days of papyrus and quill are long gone, yet we still use this technology, the written language, and assume that it's the solution to our problems of communication. Yes, there is Television, and Radio, but they aren't individually oriented. But this same argument can be used to show just why TV and Radio are so popular.
I believe that the only way to treat people like people is to see them for what they really are. I haven't verified these calculations or the basis for these calculations, but my gut tells me that they are very conservative. If you take the numbers that I put out above regarding literacy, then less than 1 person out of 100 in the entire world can read a college textbook sufficiently to pass a college course. If I'm on a Desert Island, and I want to communicate something to people that I have not tested their literacy, then I'm not going to depend on a textbook. Throw in politics, and other issues that serve to distract these people, and how many people are actually reading the written material that is supposedly the basis of our society? How many people comprehend the written material that comprises the rules that we supposedly live by?
I believe that the problem is one of boundaries. People have a hard time cross ing the boundary between being human and the written word. Our default communication medium is face to face, which is why I think that the face that I'm creating for the computer will increase the level of communication, and therefore increase the level of "Technology Transfer in International Development".
Of course, one of the killer applications of the face will probably be teaching people to read!
But, to the challenge, let's find a way to further Technology Transfer in International Development. I know that a few people from this list have checked out what I'm doing with the face. What can we do to further the goals of TTIID with the face? Do we need to have language translation as a basic part of the technology? The language to script the face is as close to HTML as I could make it. The technology is available for the price of a download.
What else do I have to do to get off this Desert Island?
Wilbur
-------------------------------------------- Putting A Human Face On Technology ;-) --------------------------------------------