MRSA, Typhoon, USAID

Typhoon Haiyan from space Books – I have a review copy of Ben Ramalingan’s new book, Aid on the Edge of Chaos. I am very, very excited to read it. Earlier this summer, I read Reinventing Philanthropy: A Framework for More Effective Giving and was really impressed. It’s a drab looking book, but it’s a highly… Read More »

Training that Sticks

  This probably falls into the category of stuff everyone already knows, but it’s so important I wanted to mention it anyway. Training is one of the most common interventions in international aid. It’s where we all start, when we think about problem solving. If the doctors/farmers/parliamentarians/journalists knew how to do their work better, everything… Read More »

Drinking Our Own ORS

(This is a reprint of a post I wrote for my Global Health Basics blog, which it turns out I have neither the time nor the technical prowess to maintain.) In social media, they talk about eating your own dog food. In global health, I think the equivalent would be drinking our own Oral Rehydration… Read More »

on research and donor funding

This nice summary of BDI logic models does two things. It 1) gives you an overview of a model for behavior change that actually takes into account the complexity of human decision-making and 2) tells you how to market it to potential donors. It’s very savvy, and it makes me kind of sad. I see… Read More »

Links worth looking at

I am traveling, and I’m not sure what kind of internet access I will have to update. I’m offering up a bunch of interesting links to keep everyone busy in my (possible) absence. 1) The Children of War Rescue Project actually has a dayblog listing day-to-day activities. It is an amazing exercise in transparency, and… Read More »

Is the tipping point dead?

Is the idea of the tipping point dead? In this article, Fast Company explores the research of Duncan Watts. Watts, using social modeling, looked at the tipping point theory, and came to the conclusion that it just doesn’t work. The tipping point has been marketing gospel for years now; expounded in a book by Malcolm… Read More »

Creating community – Kimkins.com

I’ve been keeping tabs on a lot of interesting efforts to create community, both in real life and online. I think that creating community is key to behavior change, and behavior change, as I have said before, is key to just about everything. One thing which has interested me is the Kimkins scandal. Kimkins is… Read More »