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The intersection of the web and the World Bank.

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Inside the Web is a blog exploring the intersection of the web, international development, and the World Bank, written by Bank staff that work on online strategy, editorial, content, governance, and technology.

June 2009

Will the iPhone change development reporting?

Submitted by Sameer Vasta on Wed, 06/24/2009 - 08:31

 Video recording on mobile phones has existed for quite some time, and small portable video cameras (like the Flip Camera) have been around for a while too, but the arrival of the new iPhone 3GS may be the turning point in mobile video.

The new iPhone allows you to record, edit, and then share your videos from wherever you are, as long as you've got a mobile data connection. This new move by Apple got me thinking about how video is currently used in international development, and specifically, reporting on development projects.

iPhone photo by slowburn on Flickr

In my experience, a lot of the project reporting I've come across has consisted of long reports that are created at regular intervals throughout the life of a project. While these reports are absolutely integral to ensuring the success of a project, they generally don't tell a compelling story about the work that is being done or the people involved in the projects, whether they be development practitioners or beneficiaries.

Easy-to-record-and-share video capabilities can change all of that. By embedding video recording and simple editing software into a device that is already used by development practitioners — the mobile phone — it's possible to allow for more regular project updates and reports with a human angle: interviews from the locations, visual representations of work being done, and context around the work and the people it affects.

This is also increasingly relevant in areas of the world where broadband access may be limited, but mobile penetration is high.

Of course, these videos would not replace the longer status reports, but would supplement the reporting process — and, at the same time, make the work that is being done by international development organizations more accessible and understandable to people that are not directly involved by may have interest.

A good example of someone that is using video effectively to report on his development work is Tony Whitten, who submits video updates to the East Asia & Pacific on the Rise blog. Here's an example of some of the videos he creates:

The question I ask then is simple:

How can we make this kind of video (and photo/audio) narrative production easier for development practitioners? In essence, how do we help the Tony Whitten's of the world do more of what they are doing in an easier and more efficient way?

(iPhone photo by slowburn on flickr.)

The Reading List: June 19

Submitted by Sameer Vasta on Fri, 06/19/2009 - 13:28

Every Friday, I'm going to try and post a selection of the links from our delicious.com account so you can get a quick snapshot of what we're reading this week. Here goes:
 

  • R&D 2.0: Fewer Engineers, More Anthropologists
    "By having anthropologists study and interact with end-customers in their natural settings, Western firms can learn to tailor their business models and offerings to match users' socio-economic and cultural context."
  • Why journalists write so much rubbish about Twitter
    "Trying to understand social media by looking at the behaviour of celebrity users makes about as much sense as trying to understand society by looking at the behaviour of celebrities."
  • Social math: Yes…data can tell stories too
    "We need to create meaning by relating the unfamiliar to the familiar. Piling on raw numbers may prove a point to statisticians, but others need more context to understand the meaning of data."
  • The Little Manual of API Design
    Important stuff for API designers. (link to pdf)
  • Why comments suck (& ideas on un-sucking them)
    "If you don't have policies that encourage your editors and writers to read and participate in comments, and user agreements that speak about positive values of civil behavior, then your comments ghetto is really just a self-fulfilling prophecy."
  • Twitter Blog: Down Time Rescheduled
    Twitter reschedules its down time in face of the need for effective communication around the Iran elections.
  • Using Web Analysis to Improve Government
    "The Social Security Administration (SSA) has created the Retirement Estimator, AN online service that instantly determines how much Uncle Sam will pay you after you retire."
  • Facebook's Fatal Error
    At 12:01 a.m. Saturday, 200 million Facebook users began a mad scramble to claim a user name. This was also the moment, says Douglas Rushkoff, when Facebook could become obsolete.
  • With Iran crisis, Twitter's youth is over
    "In the aftermath of the contested Iranian elections, however, it's been Twitter's potential as a communications medium, rather than simply a source of up-to-the-minute news, that has been front and center. It's usurped Facebook as the social-media tool in the spotlight."

 

Have any links you want to share with us? Add them to your delicious.com account and tag them for:extweb.

Crowdsourcing translation?

Submitted by Sameer Vasta on Wed, 06/17/2009 - 11:36

As a global institution, it's no surprise that the World Bank has to create content that can be accessed by a diverse public around the world. Part of those efforts to be truly accessible is to create and translate content into different languages.

The multilingual team here at the Web Program Office does an amazing job of coordinating the Bank's language efforts — the Bank website is fully accessible in French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese, as well as other pockets of content available in various other languages — but a recent podcast got me thinking:

Is there value in crowdsourcing the Bank's translation?

flaggenmeer by pinke_olive

Of course, there would have to be coordination and oversight, but perhaps we could learn from the Open Translation Project launched by TED recently:

A year in the making, the TED Open Translation Project brings TEDTalks beyond the English-speaking world by offering subtitles, time-coded transcripts and the ability for any talk to be translated by volunteers worldwide. The project launched with 300 translations in 40 languages, and 200 volunteer translators.

A noble and perhaps groundbreaking effort: letting users themselves decide what content they want to have translated, and have other users do the translating for them, in a peer-reviewed, crowdsourced model.

Could this model work at the Bank? Is there opportunity for us to pilot a similar effort around our content on international development?

(For another example of crowdsourced translation, check out Global Voices. Photo of flags by pinke_olive.)

The Reading List: June 5

Submitted by Sameer Vasta on Fri, 06/05/2009 - 07:49

Every Friday, I'm going to try and post a selection of the links from our delicious.com account so you can get a quick snapshot of what we're reading this week. Here goes:
 

  • GOOD Transparencies Archive
    An archive of infographics that have run in past issues of GOOD and on their blog. Stunning work and a great display of how to present information.
  • Twitter - New Research: Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets
    Interesting data: Although men and women follow a similar number of Twitter users, men have 15% more followers than women. Men also have more reciprocated relationships, in which two users follow each other. (via)
  • What to listen for in social media
    Listen to the good. Respond quickly to the bad, and respond even faster to the ugly. Enable the conversation, rather than attempting to put it in a chokehold. People are talking about your brand anyway, so you may as well get down in the weeds and know what’s going on. (via)
  • Smithsonian crowdsources its social media strategy
    Interesting concept, but the Smithsonian has a lot of social goodwill, public recognition, and cultural significance that many not-for-profits don't have. Would this work for other types of institutions? (via)
  • When employees become the brand
    Employees that eat, sleep, and breathe the brand are becoming the indispensable moutpieces of big and small companies alike. That's why we're working on a strategy here to empower our employees. (via)
  • The Smart Way to Tap Social Media
    Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn activity means nothing if it doesn't move the needle on your strategic business goals. Amen. (via)
  • News Flash From the Future: What Will Journalism Look Like?
    Everyone is saying newspapers are dead. If so, what will journalism look like in the future? The folks from IDEO take a crack at it, and the vision of the future is remarkable.
  • Popular Twitter App Is Slowing NYT Computers
    Apparently Tweetdeck is slowing down the computers of employees at the New York Times. I'm guessing this might be an easy way to once again blame Twitter for something that is not Twitter's problem: Adobe AIr is just resource-intensive.
  • Audience or Community
    Chris Brogan is completely right: the only difference between audience and community is the direction in which their chairs are facing.

 

Have any links you want to share with us? Add them to your delicious.com account and tag them for:extweb.

A case for contextual data filters?

Submitted by Sameer Vasta on Tue, 06/02/2009 - 17:49

This afternoon, I had the pleasure of sitting in a session on information visualization by Ben Shneiderman of the University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab. In his presentation, Shneiderman shared one of his mantras when it comes to visualizing information:

Overview, zoom & filter, details on demand.

Essentially, Shneiderman was saying that when visualizing information, we should provide a large overview with the entire dataset visualized, and then let the user zoom and filter to explore the data.

On surface, this sounds like a smart approach, and I'm sure there's a lot of research to prove that this is actually the most intuitive way to visualize information, but as we put the final touches on one of our new data visualization tools here at the Bank, I'm curious if there aren't some cases where it's best to present a subset of information first instead of exposing the whole dataset.

Pie Chart by net_efekt

An example: let's say I've got a data visualization application on my site — hypothetically, a tool that allows people to explore various environmental indicators across geography and time — that is pervasive across various parts of the site. On the homepage of that site, which deals with environmental issues on the whole, presenting an overview of all the data makes sense.

But what about when a user clicks in to the "fossil fuel" section of the site? Does it not make sense that the tool automatically shows fossil fuel-related indicators instead of the whole data set? Does a contextual filter — of course, with the ability for the user to cancel the filter and go back to the larger overview — not make sense in this case?

I'm just thinking out loud and could be off base. Let me know if you've got some additional insight on this.

(Photo of Pie Chart by net_efekt.)