I adore #14 from this list: “Don’t even look at your own industry for ideas – look everywhere else. If you take it from your own industry, you’re a copycat. If you go to a different industry, they’ll tell you how they did it – and you’re the innovator in your industry.” I try to do that all the time – look from place to place for ideas that can be applied in a new way. It’s what this blog is about.
blogs
Just to help this blog earn the title of eclectic, an incredibly depressing story about polar bears in zoos.Aside from being really depressing, I think this article points to a larger issue of the way that the emotional impact of a compelling narrative can overwhelm good programming. For example, in Community Therapeutic Feeding Programs — they found that inpatient care will inevitably draw resources away from more effective outpatient care, because malnourished children are so compelling that human beings will always commit their energy to the child in front of them.
That’s as it should be. None of us wants to be someone who could ignore a starving child (or starving polar bear cub). But we also need to go beyond gut instinct if we want to get the best result for our efforts.
Link I like
A truly amazing blog on global health: http://blogs.cgdev.org/globalhealth. It’s a group blog, with many contributors, and they are able to really get into the details on global health topics without being so obscure that only a health professional can understand. I learn something every time I read. At present they’ve got a nice post leading on using checklists to improve the quality of health care.