I’m not really sure how I missed “How NGOs can harness new technology” by Grey Frandsen, which was published by the Humanitarian Review in their Autumn 2004 issue (currently listed as their current issue, which means that their publication rate is even worse than this blog).

Some of the descriptions of the technology in the article are - how can I put this kindly - inaccurate. Skip to the end, however, and Grey hits a very solid target, namely that “these technology systems are all developed on different platforms and are not yet standard throughout the humanitarian community… Accordingly, it is not clear whether these products will have an impact on the entire humanitarian community and how effective they will be at changing the way the community handles complex operations in total.”

Sounds familiar. The findings are consistent across the board - the need for a common platform is pretty overwhelming and, in the humanitarian context, can’t be argued against on the basis of corporate interests. The other note of interest in the article comes even later, and applies equally to this blog: “Don?t let articles like this one entice you to employ a new, expensive system without making sure it fits into your technology plan.”

Not that I’m cheerleading for a “new, expensive system,” since I can’t even afford the hosting costs for this site….