43 Minutes vs. 991 Days (and counting)
How long does it take for someone to hear your feedback and “close the loop”? Look at how our Feedback Labs member compares Uber to other service providers…
What are the limitations of Big Data as evidence? And where can feedback help?
In a world that is extremely complicated, small data– surveys and human judgment– can find the holes in the Big Data and provide meaningful insight.
Nepal Update: Citizen Feedback in Times of Emergency
What if citizens could get more information and provide feedback to those responsible for emergency service delivery? Members of Feedback Labs have set up mobile helpdesks to allow people in Nepal do exactly this.
LabStorm: Do you have an opinion on something you know nothing about?
A thoughtful opinion is more important than automatic one. How can we use deliberative polling to understand what people really want?
Closing the Loop: Reflections on the CECP 2015 Summit
Feedback Labs’ Dennis Whittle spoke at the CECP’s annual meeting in New York
City. Together with Douglas Sabo (VISA), Kim Symon (New Profit) and James Powell (UNICEF), he asked what is the role of technology, data, and citizen feedback for
informing social innovation?
LabStorm: What makes community driven development work?
At last week’s LabStorm, Feedback Labs hosted Damien de Walque, co-author of the research paper Information is Power. Can providing citizens with information be catalytic? The authors find that by providing information along with CDD projects, there are significant improvements in both health care delivery and health outcomes.
Why Are We Leaving Older Women Out?
Stories about women raped by soldiers, or old into sexual slavery and trafficked have been documented and used to develop a global conscience about this issue. Global campaigns have produced innovative solutions that include everything from crowdsourcing to programs that help communities understand the dangers and signs of gender based violence.
While we can applaud this progress, we must also recognize that there is still a long way to go if we are going to prevent and eliminate all violence against all women. Despite hundreds of studies that have been collected over the years, there is a huge gap in data about older women’s experiences. In fact, the voices of women over 49 are absent from the conversation about violence against women.
The New World Order: Smart Democracy in the Age of Multi-Level Governance
Intermediation is not going away but it is changing and we should all agree that’s for the better. It’s changing in two fundamental ways:
1. Who is intermediating?
2. How are they intermediating?
In the old paradigm, large organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations, CARE, Save the Children, and the Red Cross hired the experts to i) analyze problems and ii) design solutions. They then iii) mobilized the money to fund those solutions, iv) hired the staff or consultants to deliver the solutions; and then finally v) organized any monitoring and evaluation.
A Housing System Built for Zero: Data Collection and Coordination
By utilizing data, communities are creating systems that are built for learning in order to change and improve as they go, helping them prioritize resources, identify gaps and match people to the best housing opportunities to fit their needs. This post is the final in a series about the elements of a coordinated assessment and housing placement system (CAHP). This post offers an overview of data collection and communication, which plays a vital role in the housing referral process. We’ll also take another look at Take Down Targets, which are helping to drive results as we push on toward an end to veteran and chronic homelessness.
Impact: So What? Measuring and Learning around Accountability
The Accountability Lab and Feedback Labs recently co-hosted an event at the OpenGov Hub in Washington, DC entitled “Impact: So What?” The idea was to generate an honest conversation around how we are measuring impact in the accountability and transparency space and what we can collectively learn from this process to help us improve. Preceded by a Twitter chat (#impactchat) and a twin event at the OpenGov Hub Kathmandu, the discussion brought together a diverse crowd of activists, non-profits, policymakers and donors.