Bravo, is all I can say to ReliefWeb! It is the single most dedicated website to creating a bridge between the supply for humanitarians and the demand for humanitarians. I am not exactly new to this entity, and it’s an enterprise I am proud of.

I would like to encourage even more innovations in your operations, suiting the customized needs of the recruiters and the personnel they seek to recruit.

Maybe, this is one of the greatest humanitarianism of its nature!!

So, Bravo ReliefWeb!!

Dennis Martins OKWIR
Programme Coordinator
Empowering Hands – Uganda
+256 (0) 777 488 377

I’m not in a position to talk about working within the system, because I always work as a consultant and I always work on a project basis – it’s frustrating, but it’s the only way I can work. I don’t think, however, that the big bureaucracies = “the system” – they just think that they do…

Having been part of two giant bureaucracies – the UN (1996-2001) and since 2002, the US Government State Department, I have become convinced that bureaucracies like these are counter-productive to innovation.

I appreciate your comments about ReliefWeb – both “it’s the single most important website for the humanitarian community” and “it’s not exactly noted for cutting edge web 2.0 efforts” I agree with both. Of course, it was a one of the first applications of Web 1.0 technology when we developed it back in 1996 and believe me, we were able to do it the way we wanted with very little interference. oversight, red tape, resistance, when it was considered new and innovative and most of our superiors didn’t know what the Web was in the mid-1990s.

I agree, if ReliefWeb is going to remain important it is going to have to become more innovative. Lorant’s efforts were a excellent start at a mash-up interface.

Having tried to introduce some new concepts (VISTA, Conflicts/Emergencies Without Borders, Collaboration Tools) since I joined the State Department, I realize that innovation is not easily supported in large bureaucracies, which is why I have become more interested in collaborating with others outside the government that are more innovative. That said, I did get an award this year from State Department – the Civil Service State-of-the-Art Information technology Award for some of the things I have tried to promote.

Anyway, thought I would weigh in, as one of the sell-out public bureaucrats, I appreciate the chiding and new ideas advocated by people like you and Patrick Meier…you remember being in the UN bureaucracy and know how difficult and risk-averse it became. I know some very inovative people who have worked for these bureauracies, but they tend to get disillusioned and burn out and leave before their ideas can come to fruition.

Keep the faith…change we can believe in.

Dennis

PS. Is it better to try to implement change within the system or give up on the system and work from outside? Or, do we need both?