Numbers are all well and good. But we’re not perfect robot machines. That’d be weird.
People take decisions. Beautiful, irrational people. So transparency in organisations can’t only be about publishing vast amounts of data and hoping for the best.
We have to know who is taking the decisions. And who influenced the people that took the decisions. And whether they took the decision before or after lunch.
So open data is great. It’s lovely stuff. But if we’re to make institutions transparent, it’s going to be about people.
Very few people actually engage with numbers. People engage with people. So if we’re looking for public involvement, participation in or scrutiny of global governance institutions, then the people who work for global institutions are going to have to publish who they meet with, what they’re thinking, what they’re reading. What gets them fired up at work; what they worry about. What they’re doing, right now.
Twitter is providing, I would argue, an incredibly important, revolutionising, digital public square (more on that in my MA thesis, to be published here um soonish). But it’s a privately run platform. It has to make a profit from its sponsors, such as NBC.
In May 1961, JFK announced the US’s plan to put a man on the moon. A year later, he gave a speech at Rice University:
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
Grand goal-setting is back on the world’s agenda. With the Millennium Development Goals due to be met or missed in three years time, the post-2015 debate is kicking off in the UN, in civil society and in the media. Sustainable Development Goals will be high on the agenda at the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development. But are they useful? Or just an excuse for not making concrete plans?
The paper below provides some of the arguments for and against the use of goal-setting at the global level, particularly in regard to sustainable development.
My twitter timeline today was full of people talking about #post2015.
This is another label for discussing what should follow the Millennium Development Goals -whether that’s sustainable development goals or whatever – essentially it’s about setting the global agenda for the next 30 years.
Today’s stuff was sparked by UNDP’s seminar in New York with Amartya Sen (admittedly, great), and post2015 has been on the agenda this week after the UN Sec-Gen announced a High Level Panel on the matter (and civil society pipes up withsuggestions) of which UK Prime Minister Cameron is apparently the chair, etc.
But all of this ignores the importance of public participation. The post-MDGs planning offers a great opportunity for creating a legitimate set of goals – i.e. involving the people who the goals will affect – hopefully everyone.
My term paper for my global health governance course looks at the power of the Gates Foundation. ‘King Bill’ because Gates is the most powerful man in global health and is accountable to nobody but himself. ‘Magic’ because it focuses on breakthrough ‘magic bullet’ technical solutions.
As global philanthropic funds rise, see, e.g. the Billionaire’s Giving Club, understanding the power of organisations like Gates’ becomes increasingly important for maintaining an accurate picture of global governance.
So the Royal Ontario Museum is nice. Also how many websites still have Flash intros?! Amazing.
Here are some photos of Daniel Libeskind’s incredible Crystal building. Gives life and vibrancy to an otherwise very dull exterior. Although apparently he didn’t entirely account for the snow.
After 66 years of public information campaigns, the UK’s Central Office of Information closes today. I rather hoped that it’s defunct twitter account would start tweeting away classic works, but alas, no.
Often the media will report on COI’s work by showing some of the older TV ads. But there was a lot more to it than this.
I worked there from 2009-2011 and saw the tail end of a leader in complex behaviour change campaigns – quitting smoking, fighting obesity, and – through digital services – in making government more open and accessible.
Here’s a few of my favourites pieces of work from the last few years. It’s easy to market a product – it’s not easy to change behaviour for public good. These ads show some final products, which followed months, or years, of research and strategy.
NHS Stroke awareness. This is a modern classic – seems very old school, but does a great job. Simple, memorable. And saved lives.
Royal Marines – It’s a state of mind. Just one of loads of high quality ads for armed forces recruitment.
Talk to FRANK (drugs helpline). Funny, daring, perfect for the target audience.
Dept of Health – Change4Life: Two of the TV ads are below, but they weren’t the main part of the campaign, which was a long education process involving web, direct mail and live events, based on extensive behaviour change research. It spawned a hundred other obesity prevention campaigns like Dance4life, swim4life, and so on. Could have been a valuable brand for the UK Govt.
Met Police – It doesn’t have to happen. Really smart – a choose your own adventure for YouTube – directed by the audience the Met wanted to reach.
Along with a couple of powerful films
And in conclusion..
Prevention was better (and cheaper) than a cure: Change4Life’s £50m campaign budget (later halved) sounded expensive, until you realised obesity will cost billions. So the campaign only had to affect part of the overall picture to save money. And people wanted to change. Hundreds of thousands responded to the campaign, ordering material and taking part in events.
And COI were getting pretty good at the complex econometric analysis that showed that this stuff worked. Comms offices around the world would come to COI to see how we did it.
But, hey, we can just get the private sector to deliver it at better value, right? Like erm, trains..and utilities…and now hospitals and universities…sob.
(And here’s one random oldie that I like – no idea why it was made, especially in the Thatcher era, but it’s hilarious, and has a Michael Nyman soundtrack)
Joe blogs. 