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- Nov 7, 2012
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- 5,173
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- South of Southern California, but not Mexico
On a lighter note, but still capturing the heaviness of the topic.
http://www.pbs.org/pov/chancesoftheworld/
This is a not so short PBS show regarding Richard Ogust and one or two iterations of his turtle collection and how he was looking at changing the world in regards to turtles. I built one of four phases of his giant facilities. He actually spent several hundred thousand $$ on his collection and was an early supporter of the conservation program that I ran for 10 years. He lead with his heart and that did not get him a result he wanted, he was somewhat depressed after several years of battles with different ways of going about conservation and what role he played in it.
@yillt a new thing to do may be very difficult to come up with, even if it feels like you have. A new way or method to implement an idea already out there is every bit as good and may lead to results that can be compared to past methods and their relative success.
Figuring out if you made a difference is an important part of a program/project. There are many ways to do this, and they are project dependent. Usually there is a pre-implementation of the project phase where the people who will get the benefit of your project are surveyed for their awareness of the types of things that you intend to change. Then a post project survey that is essentially the same survey. The success of the project/program can sometimes be measured by the change in responses to the two surveys. The surveys can be very informal with a the help of a local that may be a un-realized central figure in a community, like a postal worker, or vendor where everyone passes through in one day.
If you did a turtle conservation project, the pre test might be a group of images of turtles from the area on the wall. One would be a species not from the area. The postal worker or cafe server would never prompt conversation, just record people comments. Then the group of pictures is removed. You do your awareness project. Then some time later the groups of images are returned and the change in awareness/attitude is recorded. This is a cryptic thing done all the time all over the place.
A formal question directed before and after can be done too.
Then your result will be based on a quantitative change in awareness (education), as well as some actual thing that is done.
The man who invented segways, now co-opted as hover boards. He invented a device to deliver clean water to anywhere in the world, as clean water is the number one health issue in the world. After much work and finding a funder the field tests were not inspiring. People would bring dirty water to the device, run it through and collect the clean water into the container that the dirty water had been collected in, re-soiling the clean water. This is an example of a halfway technology. An educational component was required, and clean water containers. Many simple ways for really good things to fail. An on the ground collaborator is often needed so you can see the nature of the problem in the eyes of someone experiencing the problem. Your new fresh look also has to understand the problem from the eyes of someone in the issue.
There is a good chance you will have success where more experienced people have failed, as you are not mired in past solutions, good ones or bad.
http://www.pbs.org/pov/chancesoftheworld/
This is a not so short PBS show regarding Richard Ogust and one or two iterations of his turtle collection and how he was looking at changing the world in regards to turtles. I built one of four phases of his giant facilities. He actually spent several hundred thousand $$ on his collection and was an early supporter of the conservation program that I ran for 10 years. He lead with his heart and that did not get him a result he wanted, he was somewhat depressed after several years of battles with different ways of going about conservation and what role he played in it.
@yillt a new thing to do may be very difficult to come up with, even if it feels like you have. A new way or method to implement an idea already out there is every bit as good and may lead to results that can be compared to past methods and their relative success.
Figuring out if you made a difference is an important part of a program/project. There are many ways to do this, and they are project dependent. Usually there is a pre-implementation of the project phase where the people who will get the benefit of your project are surveyed for their awareness of the types of things that you intend to change. Then a post project survey that is essentially the same survey. The success of the project/program can sometimes be measured by the change in responses to the two surveys. The surveys can be very informal with a the help of a local that may be a un-realized central figure in a community, like a postal worker, or vendor where everyone passes through in one day.
If you did a turtle conservation project, the pre test might be a group of images of turtles from the area on the wall. One would be a species not from the area. The postal worker or cafe server would never prompt conversation, just record people comments. Then the group of pictures is removed. You do your awareness project. Then some time later the groups of images are returned and the change in awareness/attitude is recorded. This is a cryptic thing done all the time all over the place.
A formal question directed before and after can be done too.
Then your result will be based on a quantitative change in awareness (education), as well as some actual thing that is done.
The man who invented segways, now co-opted as hover boards. He invented a device to deliver clean water to anywhere in the world, as clean water is the number one health issue in the world. After much work and finding a funder the field tests were not inspiring. People would bring dirty water to the device, run it through and collect the clean water into the container that the dirty water had been collected in, re-soiling the clean water. This is an example of a halfway technology. An educational component was required, and clean water containers. Many simple ways for really good things to fail. An on the ground collaborator is often needed so you can see the nature of the problem in the eyes of someone experiencing the problem. Your new fresh look also has to understand the problem from the eyes of someone in the issue.
There is a good chance you will have success where more experienced people have failed, as you are not mired in past solutions, good ones or bad.
