Post by notdan on Dec 23, 2009 4:39:22 GMT -5
When I spoke to Tim Brookes about Become A Coat (and he's now a member, so be careful, he could be watching!) he sent me a message about something he's working on. To spare myself the work of summarizing it, I'll post it here. If after reading it you are interested or curious, I suggest you get in contact with him.
I think it's a pretty interesting idea myself, but I don't think I have the skill set needed to be of any help.
Here it is:
I think it's a pretty interesting idea myself, but I don't think I have the skill set needed to be of any help.
Here it is:
Dear Julie,
I'm writing to you in this unusually formal fashion because I hope you'll forward this to some of the masters, mistresses and assorted wizards of contemporary social networking, because I'm about to undertake a project that may interest you and them, and may even lead to new ground being broken in the field of communications.
It all began a couple of weeks ago when the American Academy of Pediatrics invited me to be a keynote speaker at their annual convention in October 2010. The theme is "The State of the World's Children."
I may have been invited because of my book on the polio eradication campaign, and I suppose I might have given a talk along those lines, but it struck me that this forum, and this organization, might present the opportunity for something more ambitious. What I proposed, in fact, was to create a website that would act as a communications center for people working in pediatric healthcare all over the world to post stories of the state of the world's children--in other words, stories of the challenges they face, individual encounters or struggles, and perhaps specific success stories.
The communications background to all this is that these kinds of information are usually passed around through the professional and scientific journals, but anyone out of the scientific mainstream (especially anyone working in the developing world) hasn't a prayer of publishing in that format: they may not know the very strict structure and language they need to follow, they may not be able to carry out the required scientific protocols (hard to do a randomized, double-blind study when you're the only person trying to stem an HIV/AIDS epidemic in 200 square miles of rural Zimbabwe, for example), their English may not be very good, they may have very poor equipment and worse Internet access.
So what I'm proposing is an alternative means of telling the story: a site to post text, images, data and video. The site would also carry downloadable teaching materials that show the healthcare worker how to change a lifetime's writing habits and write simply, clearly, directly and factually from personal experience. (To see my background in this area, go to www.timbrookesinc.com and click on Writers Without Borders.)
But here comes the twist, the part where I really need the expert help. In much of the developing world, even in a pretty modern and sophisticated country such as Egypt, computers and internet service are patchy at best. The principal medium of communication is the cell phone and text messaging. And this is where things get interesting, and challenging.
What I'd like to do is to explore ways in which people in rural or undeveloped areas can take part in this global story-gathering by developing a text/web interface. (I don't really know what I'm talking about, but if there were to be such a thing, that's what it would be called!) In other words, a means by which people could text a message to a dedicated phone number that would relay that message to a web site, or to our central web clearing-house.
Interestingly enough, this seems to be a subject of great interest right now. As you may know, the Champlain College Emergent Media Center is designing an electronic game for the UN Population Center, to be played in the developing world on cell phones. The first explorations are taking place in the medical field using cell phones and text messaging as a means of reaching underserved populations in the developing world. It's a logical progression as soon as one wants to communicate beyond the internet-rich sites of the industrialized world.
So this is what I'm asking for.
First, I'd like to have this message forwarded, and forwarded again to anyone who is interested in the field of social networking and interactive electronic global communication. Getting it out to people in the field of public health would also be a bonus. Blogging about it would also probably help.
Second, I'd like to hear about anyone who is developing ways to create social movements or social change using text messaging. They're probably addressing some of the same questions as I plan to.
Third, I'd like to hear from anyone who is sufficiently tech-savvy to give me advice on what we'd need to do to make such an interface work.
Fourth, I'd like to hear from anyone who is just plain interested in this whole idea and would like to help.
As a final note, I'm going to be drafting some of our students to help at this end, and as such this will become an activity of the Champlain College Publishing Initiative. (See http://www.champlaincollegepublishing.com.)
Thanks so much for your help in this. At the very least this should be interesting; with luck it may change the way international healthcare collaboration takes place.
Tim Brookes
I'm writing to you in this unusually formal fashion because I hope you'll forward this to some of the masters, mistresses and assorted wizards of contemporary social networking, because I'm about to undertake a project that may interest you and them, and may even lead to new ground being broken in the field of communications.
It all began a couple of weeks ago when the American Academy of Pediatrics invited me to be a keynote speaker at their annual convention in October 2010. The theme is "The State of the World's Children."
I may have been invited because of my book on the polio eradication campaign, and I suppose I might have given a talk along those lines, but it struck me that this forum, and this organization, might present the opportunity for something more ambitious. What I proposed, in fact, was to create a website that would act as a communications center for people working in pediatric healthcare all over the world to post stories of the state of the world's children--in other words, stories of the challenges they face, individual encounters or struggles, and perhaps specific success stories.
The communications background to all this is that these kinds of information are usually passed around through the professional and scientific journals, but anyone out of the scientific mainstream (especially anyone working in the developing world) hasn't a prayer of publishing in that format: they may not know the very strict structure and language they need to follow, they may not be able to carry out the required scientific protocols (hard to do a randomized, double-blind study when you're the only person trying to stem an HIV/AIDS epidemic in 200 square miles of rural Zimbabwe, for example), their English may not be very good, they may have very poor equipment and worse Internet access.
So what I'm proposing is an alternative means of telling the story: a site to post text, images, data and video. The site would also carry downloadable teaching materials that show the healthcare worker how to change a lifetime's writing habits and write simply, clearly, directly and factually from personal experience. (To see my background in this area, go to www.timbrookesinc.com and click on Writers Without Borders.)
But here comes the twist, the part where I really need the expert help. In much of the developing world, even in a pretty modern and sophisticated country such as Egypt, computers and internet service are patchy at best. The principal medium of communication is the cell phone and text messaging. And this is where things get interesting, and challenging.
What I'd like to do is to explore ways in which people in rural or undeveloped areas can take part in this global story-gathering by developing a text/web interface. (I don't really know what I'm talking about, but if there were to be such a thing, that's what it would be called!) In other words, a means by which people could text a message to a dedicated phone number that would relay that message to a web site, or to our central web clearing-house.
Interestingly enough, this seems to be a subject of great interest right now. As you may know, the Champlain College Emergent Media Center is designing an electronic game for the UN Population Center, to be played in the developing world on cell phones. The first explorations are taking place in the medical field using cell phones and text messaging as a means of reaching underserved populations in the developing world. It's a logical progression as soon as one wants to communicate beyond the internet-rich sites of the industrialized world.
So this is what I'm asking for.
First, I'd like to have this message forwarded, and forwarded again to anyone who is interested in the field of social networking and interactive electronic global communication. Getting it out to people in the field of public health would also be a bonus. Blogging about it would also probably help.
Second, I'd like to hear about anyone who is developing ways to create social movements or social change using text messaging. They're probably addressing some of the same questions as I plan to.
Third, I'd like to hear from anyone who is sufficiently tech-savvy to give me advice on what we'd need to do to make such an interface work.
Fourth, I'd like to hear from anyone who is just plain interested in this whole idea and would like to help.
As a final note, I'm going to be drafting some of our students to help at this end, and as such this will become an activity of the Champlain College Publishing Initiative. (See http://www.champlaincollegepublishing.com.)
Thanks so much for your help in this. At the very least this should be interesting; with luck it may change the way international healthcare collaboration takes place.
Tim Brookes