Hooray for Jayne's insightful comments. What we need to also do is consider that the same "marketing" sales efforts are very prevalent in the development field, particularly today. The idea of the "Digital Divide" is a paradigmatic example which has gained a lot of mileage for NGO's who are marketing services to funding agencies.
thoughts? tom abeles Original Message: ----------------- From: J Cravens [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 08:43:52 +0200 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [DDN] Educating the philanthropic community Taran Rampersad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>the point is that a lot of the technology we're discussing >should be encouraged by critical things - not by things that >artificially creating a need and building unrealistic explanations - I wanted to say "hurrah" for this excellent point. I know that we could probably debate until the end of time what technology is the "right" technology for any given situation, but I do think that it's a much better-informed debate that can lead to more sustainable, more-audience-appropriate tech, than leaving the "discussion" to those with better advertising. About half a dozen times, I've been approached by a senior manager who got bedazzled by a sales pitch and he's now decided that the organization, or those it serves, really need WhamBam software, or BlingBling Inc. hardware. And I've had to put together powerpoint presentations and cost benefit tables and narratives and interpretive dances to counter the argument of the salesmen, whose undone months of methodical, critically-thought-out strategic planning. Sometimes I'm successful, but often, I'm stuck, or the people we were serving get stuck, with WhamBam software and BlingBling Inc. hardware. All because a non-tech person got bedazzled by advertising. One of the digital divides that needs to be bridged is helping people -- anywhere -- make informed choices about hardware and software, and being able to articulate and identify their own needs. but that's a rather huge goal in and of itself... -- <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Jayne Cravens Bonn, Germany Services for Mission-Based Orgs www.coyotecommunications.com Open University Development Studies www.coyotecommunications.com/development Contact me www.coyotecommunications.com/contact.html <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
