www.jaclyncarlsen.com

by i-marco via Flickr

A significant component of my undergrad program in Learning and Organizational Change was built around the concepts of systems thinking – how interdependent elements affect and are affected by other elements in the system. This was typically applied in an organizational setting but could be applied to anything from car mechanics to climate science. My current graduate program, Development Practice, was developed out of a need to bring more of a systems thinking approach to development. You can see this systems approach in practice in the Millennium Villages.

Design thinking is tangential to systems thinking, and recently I’ve been wondering how a design approach would work within development. The basics of d-thinking depend on who you ask, but to me the essential component is the focus on creating an experience built around the end-user’s needs and desires (whereas systems thinking takes more of a problem solving approach and extends the boundaries of analysis). I know there are examples of development orgs out there that have this type of approach, Architecture for Humanity to name a big one, but I’m having trouble thinking of any beyond the architecture, engineering, mental health, and urban planning fields. I always hear the word “innovative” when I hear of development organizations that promote a design-mentality. This worries me. I feel that user-centric design concepts should be integrated into all development initiatives; that beneficiaries should be viewed more as clients and participants than as recipients. I’d like to hear of more development orgs, especially any large INGOs, that incorporate this type of approach into their programs.

Today was my the end of first week back at Columbia’s Masters in Development Practice program.  Every Friday we have a cross-disciplinary seminar with our class of 24, which serves as a chance to regroup and communicate any administrative issues. More importantly, these informal seminars are designed to give us exposure to a wide-array of experts within the development community. Last semester we met with a range of professionals including employees of Dalberg, Millennium Village project, and Rockefeller Foundation. We’re exposed to an absurd amount of accomplished practitioners and scientists in other Columbia courses, but the strength of this particular session is that it allows us to personally interact with top-notch professionals while surrounded by the familiar MDP crew. One of the most important rules of the seminar is that we’re able to (and encouraged) to access the speakers after they’ve left the classroom.

Today, however, was different in a number of ways. Our summer Millennium Village field sites are getting closer to being finalized, but more urgently, Professor Sachs joined our Program Dean, Glenn Denning, to challenge us to devise a way we can support Haiti’s reconstruction and perhaps institutionalize it into our program for future generations of MDPers to continue. The challenges are extreme. As many are aware, Haiti had a weak institutional and economic structure previous to the disaster, and international assistance tends to fade once the cameras are shut off. Many questions demand adequate answers before long-term recovery can be attempted: What industries still exist in Haiti? What structures exist for reconstruction? What is the soil composition in agricultural areas? It’s a complex scenario and we’ll see if our team is able to draw upon SIPA and Earth Institute resources to contribute something meaningful to medium and long-term redevelopment efforts.

For some interesting information on short term recovery in Haiti, see a recent NYTimes article and Saundra Schimmelpfennig’s blog, “Good Intentions Are Not Enough“. Thanks to Barbara Wiczek of Rotary International’s World Community Service Program for forwarding them along.

Video of a Slow Loris (you probably want to mute out the screaming child)

Speaking of themeparks, on Saturday night I went on the Night Safari. It was no Kruger Park, but it sure was cool. I had heard from others that it was overrated. Maybe it’s overrated if you hate animals. The park is incredible and again, like the airport, like Singapore, everything is designed with the participants’ holistic experience in mind, down to the smallest details of the zebra-shaped chairs.

The adventure begins on a tram, with a guide who weaves together facts about the animals specially picked for nocturnal viewing. In the manufactured moonlight (which they mimic with the precision of a broadway crew), you have the rare opportunity to see these animals at their most active, in a setting that feels more like you’ve stumbled upon a wide-open set for Jurassic Park than a traditional barbed-wire zoo. Off of the tram, you have the opportunity to walk along small, winding pathways past a munching rhinosaurus or a moonlit herd of Indian swamp deer.

Those animals you once had to peer through nose-printed glass in the dark recesses of a dank, musty zoo room to see? They come alive at night; and they are incredible to behold. I always used to rush past these slow moving creepers. But suddenly in the dark, without the throngs of loud (why are they always so loud?) tourists, and stiffling noon heat, you can start to relax into the motions of nocturnal animals, like that of the aptly named Slow Loris, and imagine what it would be like to patiently observe these guys in the wild.

If you do get a chance to go, check out the bat mangrove walk. In this small room you can experience being up close and personal with some harmless (but admittedly creepy) Malayan bats and surprisingly large flying foxes. No glass between you and the bats means you can get as close as your nerves will dare.

I’m in the Singapore airport right now and just ate way too much chilicrab. This airport is remarkable. With a free movie theater, massage chairs, a butterfly garden, attentive service and high-end shopping, you just can’t complain. I realize I’m sounding like a government-sponsored ad, but everything here really is designed for your comfort and credit card. In a way, Singapore as a whole feels designed for convenience and consumerism. You hear this in traveler critiques: criticisms of Singapore’s perceived lack of realism, its overtly manufactured spaces, and Disney-esque feel. Indeed, Orchard Road’s giant gold and sparkly “Glitzy Chrismas” banners and “go enjoy Christmas with VISA” street signs don’t exactly refute this stereotype.

The trend in travel today seems to be the less-developed, the more “authentic” the experience. I despise this attitude. Certainly, traveling in Singapore doesn’t result in sensory overload like traveling in some developing countries does, but the highly manicured walkways, giant malls, food courts, and clean streets are an experience in their own right, and are the result of Singapore’s journey from swampland to Asian leader. Dismissing Singapore as bland ignores the fascinating multicultural system that underlies the development. Additionally, Singapore’s rapid industrialization and water management stories are unparalleled.

Both Frommer’s Jennifer Eveland and Lonely Planet’s able staff give their own perspective on the travel offerings of Singapore beyond the skyscrapers. Sure, sometimes it does feel like Disneyland, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

Jennifer Fong and John Dulac

Day two topics at the 2009 GPPN Conference included “Economic and Environmental Sustainability” and “Economic Crisis and Asia” featuring speakers from the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, Asian Development Bank, and Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. The morning panel highlighted Singapore’s water and natural resource management.

SIPA’s own Jennifer Fong and John Dulac presented at the GPPN Student Conference in the afternoon breakout session on sustainable cities. Fong presented an overview of principles for sustainable city governance, and highlighted US policy examples such as the No Child Left Inside Act and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s stringent guidelines for new building. Dulac presented disturbing data on projected growth of emissions from the transport sector and recommended policy shifts that increase shared modal spaces and access to public transportation.

Other participants from Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy presented research on the effect of economic capacity on population growth in Singapore and energy efficiency in Asia.

Dr. Eduardo Araral closed the conference sharing the words “change is not driven by old folks, but is driven by young people…I have made the conclusion that only the young people can change the course of history.”

Professor Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy opened today’s Global Public Policy Network Conference in Singapore by emphasizing the borderless challenges that our world faces today. He equated our current global situation to a boat with no captain, where each country lives in a separate cabin and creates policies that take care of their cabin, not the boat. However, these shared challenges: climate change, disease, economic instability, poverty require institutions, leadership, policies that promote collaboration and shared solutions.

Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, Secretary General of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) asked how to build and sustain institutions to deal with these emerging challenges and called for the young generation to start thinking and start adopting a “global awareness” that recognizes our shared responsibility for our world.

An overriding theme of the opening speakers was the need for both institutions and leaders to move beyond antiquated closed systems to recognize the shift in power from western leadership to world leadership. One of Dr. Pitsuwan’s key points was that 6 billion people are beginning to realize that they have a voice, but the institutions that represent these people are not empowering these citizens because of their own desire to keep institutions closed and limited.

After emphasizing the need for collaboration and people-centered policy, Dean Mahbubani asked if any of the GPPN participants believed that the leaders of world were going to say “we’re all in the same boat, let us come together, let us make major sacrifices to save this world because it’s the only world we have” in the upcoming Copenhagen conference. Frighteningly, no one raised their hand.

I’m currently in my 2nd month of the inaugural Masters in Development program at Columbia (SIPA), and would love to blog about all the really cool things that I’m discovering. Unfortunately, until I get a hold of that slippery friend Time, posts about Philly Cheesesteaks and large trucks will have to suffice.

Go here to learn more about this program: http://mdp.ei.columbia.edu/

Go here to learn more about Millennium Village Project: http://www.millenniumvillages.org/

Net Change Week – Ric Young from MaRS Discovery District on Vimeo.

I’m finally in the process of clicking on all those links I’ve been saving under the subheading of “Iiinteresting” and came across Ric Young’s talk from MaRS “Net Change Week”. Ric is known for his ideas about social innovation and social change.

What struck me was his explanation of how some organizations flatten out innovative ideas (at about minute 20). What I took out of this concept was that many organizations have a tendency to develop programs and products such that they will get passed to the next level, which are then modified so that they get passed at the next level, which are then further modified for the purpose of passing the next level, and so on. This process waters down the final result and confounds the client’s needs with the organization’s path of least resistance. Anyone familiar with politics can recognize this as the path that congressional bills follow.

Unfortunately, many of our development organizations promote this method as well; what gets produced isn’t necessarily the long-term sustainable solutions that true development requires, but rather quick-fixes that will achieve funds, and hopefully keep crises at bay. This is particularly true in projects that address undernutrition, where it is often easier and more cost effective (in the short-term) to introduce supplements rather than address the agricultural needs of a community.

Although these “flattened” solutions may best utilize the current funds available, one can clearly see that this way of developing interventions isn’t advantageous for creating long-term development improvements that the sector – make that the extreme poor – really need.

Photo by Marek52

Dear Google,

It was in the late-nineties when you shocked me by showing me your lovely search engine, immediately leading me to break up with AOL and whatever the name of that other SE was (Steve? Altavista?).

Then the awkward growing years. After our first dalliance you became shy and withdrawn, then emerged like a flower bringing me image search. Your growing intellectual charm captivated me when you came out with google scholar and google earth. Always one to value counter-culture, I was attracted to your f-the-paradigm attitude by refusing to charge me for your services. I didn’t mind that you made me read porn ads or asked me to click on links to enlarge body parts I didn’t even own, I just appreciated your attention.

In the mid 00’s I flirted with another, Goodsearch. I couldn’t help it, his results were more tailored to my needs at the time. But I could never let go entirely, and quickly went back to your side as you released more and more integrated tools, bringing me chat, igoogle, reader, groups, chrome and more. Sure, I’ve always been a bit skeptical of your hippie attitude, spreading your services around like a 60s love child, but our inside jokes that you publicize on April Fools Day (Google powered by pigeons! You’re so funny!!!) remind me that you’re mine.

Today you showed me Google docs for the first time. I love you Google. I Love You.

Kisses,

Jaclyn

ps – for open letters written by people much more clever than I, see McSweeney’s

Cheesesteak by Wallyg via Flickr

**WARNING** For those of you who have yet to try a real Philly cheese steak, I implore you to not make the same mistakes as I have! Here is what you do:

• Order it with cheesewhiz, NOT the fancy white cheese alternative. If you, like I, find that wrong and indecent, too bad…the fancy white cheese is just too fancy for the steak
• Don’t go all crazy on the toppings. It’s not a pizza here…stick with fried or raw onions if you feel the need.
• Go to one of the best. Although the delicacy is sold all around Philly, try a Philadelphian recommended spot, or there’s always the famous Pat’s or Geno’s

This website can give you more details on how to not get beat up while ordering a cheesesteak. You should probably study up before coming to Philly…or risk looking like John Kerry in the Great Cheesesteak Debacle of 2003.