Reading a Master’s thesis isn’t a typical hobby of mine, but when one of my work’s interns said that his was on crowdsourcing for disaster preparedness, I had to get a copy. I finally had a chance to read it coming back from France on a 3-hour train – plenty of time to focus on it. Why the interest? Well, for one, crowdsourcing has become an increasingly interesting area of work both technically and socially, where people have the ability and tools now to volunteer, share, and coordinate themselves (online) for collecting, analyzing and distributing information. And, two, I’ve spent the better part of my career finding innovative ways for Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), like GIS, mobile phones, websites and applications, social media, to solve a problem.
The 62-page dissertation and research tries to answer the question: “How does crowdsourcing play a role in disaster preparedness and what are the issues it has to address?” While the end of the dissertation does address the issue and suggests that ICTs and crowdsourcing can have a role in preparing for disasters, I thought the journey through the paper was a lot more interesting and raises many questions that I’ve faced when looking at how communication and information management can be applied in a way to solve a problem, whether its reducing the risk of disasters, preparing for one, or more broadly how to change behaviors.
- How can information and data be collected systematically to provide a overall picture of the situation on the ground?
- Is this information and data reliable? Where is it coming from? Who checks it to make sure it is trustworthy and useful?
- Can and should information collected be shared? And to whom?
- Are people who end up making decisions using this information, or is it based on a “gut” feeling? Should decisions be made primarily from data or from “feelings”?
- There’s lots of talk around “evidence-based” planning and decisions, but shouldn’t we be basing our decisions on “evidence” through observation and data collection?
- How should this “evidence” and information be communicated so that it makes sense, easily accessible and understandable?
We can probably have long discussions for each one of these questions (feel free to leave a comment!), but the fact is that there still tends to be a disconnect between the “quantitative” and “qualitative” communities, or “techies” versus “non-techies”.
Maybe it’s a power thing – in my experience the “non-techies” don’t have a high appreciation of the people who collect, analyze, and develop information management systems, yet it’s these “techies” who are creating the platforms and systems that we all need to use to do our work – think email, Facebook, contact directories, websites, databases, etc.
At the same time, “techies” also need to realize that people with “soft skills” and who can communicate and negotiate with clients have a key part to play in answering the questions listed above.
Maybe that’s why infographics are so popular these days and are important in bridging this gap – they help address 3 things: information overload, decreasing attention spans, and making information more appealing and easy to share. They take the complexity of data and turn it into something interesting for the “non-techies” and public to understand. At the same time, it takes a bit of skill from both “techie” and “non-techie” worlds to make it happen.
Check out this video from Column Five which gives a pretty good summary of why we need infographics!
The Value of Visualization from Column Five on Vimeo.