"Damned Nations" by Samantha Nutt

I just finished “Damned Nations” by Samantha Nutt, a book I’d highly recommend to anyone working in the aid sector, anyone interested in aid or development as well as any aid worker who wants his friends and relatives to understand what he is doing all day.

Samantha Nutt is a medical doctor specialising in public health and has been working in the aid sector since 1995. She has worked for both the UN and NGOs and is the founder of the “War Child Canada“.

What I like about the book is that it is critical but never defeatist – contrary to what the title suggests. It is an excellent counter part to the largely negative world view of books like Linda Polman’s “Crisis Caravan”.  Where Polman is criticising everything and doesn’t offer solutions, Nutt is just as critical but also shows a way to address some of the problems. That two of her central recommendations are involving communities and empowering women is hardly surprising.

In 240 well written pages, “Damned Nations” covers an amazing array of topics. From voluntourism, to small arms control, from “gifts in kind” to overseas development aid.

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Social media guidelines for IFRC staff

The International Red Cross Red Crescent Movement in general and the IFRC in particular are very complicated organism. So please let me explain a few things:

1. This is not your National Red Cross or Red Crescent Society

These are NOT the staff guidelines of the American Red Cross, the British Red Cross, the Turkish Red Crescent etc …

These are the social media guidelines of the “International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies”. The IFRC is an organization where all 186 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are members. It is not a headquarters  but a service provider to the National Societies who can take or leave what the IFRC produces. Some National Societies already have their own social media guidelines.

2. “Neutrality” and “Freedom of Speech”

How far you’ve gone always depends on where you are coming from.

I realize that the parts about “neutrality” and “keeping your manager in the loop” might sound very restrictive to some people, especially those from democratic countries.  But you have to keep two things in mind:

A, Our Code of Conduct says:

“[All staff shall] not publish any work (including writings, photographs, video footage, etc.) that has been produced in connection with, or that is related to, their assignment and functions with the Federation without prior approval of the Secretary General.”

This could easily have been used my management to shut people down who have their own blogs or use social media to talk about work. Instead we went exactly the opposite way and turned this (with the help of stakeholders who could make that decision) into “keep your boss in the loop”. This is a pretty big step.

B, The IFRC demands of its employees restraint when it comes to political controversies:

“[All staff shall] not publicly express any opinions on events connected with political affairs or engage in political activities that could reflect adversely on the impartiality, neutrality or independence of the Federation (…)”

This clause has been part of everyone’s employment contract for many years. Obviously it also has to apply online.

Coming from a country like Germany this initially felt like a pretty big violation of my rights as a citizen. But  for a lot of people in the field, being seen as coming from a neutral and impartial organization can literally be a life saver.  Many of them routinely have to work with very controversial people or even in war zones. How your organization, and the people working for your organization, are perceived might not only influence whether you have access to the vulnerable people you want help but it might also have very serious security implications.

3.Guidelines vs. policies

The role of guidelines within the IFRC is to give advice, not to set rules. Rules can only be set in policies which is why these social media staff guidelines contain no new rules. They merely look at existing policies within the organization (such as the code of conduct) and give guidance on how these should be interpreted in the context of social media. This was done in consultation with human resources, the legal department, the staff association, two directors, an undersecretary general and other stakeholders.

Changing policies on the other hand can be an extremely lengthy process. In some cases you might need approval from all 186 member National Societies and is a  process that can easily take two years. These guidelines on the other hand were completed in less than three months.

Why the social media guidelines matters

For the first time the IFRC is encouraging staff who are not professional communicators to actively and publicly talk about the organization and their work. The guidelines create clarity and reduce the risk of arbitrary repercussions – it’s definitely harder to shut someone up now than it was before.  On the other hand the guidelines also make clear what is unacceptable from an organizational point of view and that you might have to answer for what you write online.

Personally I hope that this document will start discussions within some National Societies about whether a top-down model for communication is still appropriate and I hope that this in turn will lead to the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement becoming more open. I realize that this is a big dream – but I hope that I have planted one of the seeds to make it happen.

Download the Social Media Staff Guidelines of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC); 8 pages (PDF)

Please leave a comment and tell me what you think!

Related posts:

1. New project: Social Media in Emergencies Guidelines
2. Non-profits and social media: how to leave the competition behind
3. Behind the scenes of the American Red Cross Digital Operations Centre

Scott Stratten has recently posted an excellent, short video (1:52 min) explaining why you can’t expect to open a social media account today and have a million people hanging on to every word you say tomorrow. Social media outreach means building relationships – and relationships are not built over night.

What does your organization to do build relationships online? Please tell me and leave a comment.

Related posts:

1. New project: Social Media in Emergencies Guidelines
2. Non-profits and social media: how to leave the competition behind
3. Social Media as a Tool for Humanitarian Protection

Great chance for high level exposure

The World Log

The site is still a bit buggy (sometimes the user interface switches to Swedish so you have “Läs mer” instead of “Read more”) but if you have anything to do with aid or development, then you should definitely add your RSS feed to the World Log. The site will be presented at the “European Development Days 2009” (22 – 24 October) which is hosted by the Swedish government so this is a great chance to get some high level exposure.

You might also want to schedule some specific blog posts for those days since new blog posts get immediately highlighted on the world map.

I like the World Log but here a few things that could be done better imho:

• If you offer geo-location, include an option for the city as well as the country. My blog-posts for example show up all over Switzerland, which is a bit weird. Particularly since none of them show up in Geneva where I actually live.
• Include a filter for languages. Currently, while you can browse content by topic and country, you cannot specify which language(s) you want to see.
• There is no sense of community. The site feels like it was mainly set up as something pretty to be shown at the European Development Days – a “web 2.0 backdrop”. There is no sense of community, there is nothing you can actually do on the site except add your RSS feeds. There isn’t even a feedback-form or contact information! Considering that the European Development Days are quite high-profile, that still makes it worth my time to add my RSS feed (the complete registration process only takes two minutes) but it’s a lost opportunity.
• Monitor the submissions. Currently anyone can add any RSS feed to the catalogue. And while I’m a great fan of openness, I think it would be good if the worldlog team would at least take a look at each blog before it is being admitted to the catalogue.  I’m frankly quite worried that some very hateful people will flood the site on the launch day.

Update (24 September 2009): The Worldlog is now (finally) on Twitter as well (@theworldlog) and quite responsive to comments.

Related posts:

1. Book review: “Damned Nations”
2. Completely wrong assumptions about technology in developing countries
3. Posts worth reading – 1 April 2012

I hope you like it. Please tell me what you think.

By the way: this is the first presentation I’ve done since reading Nancy Duarte’s excellent “Slide:ology“, a book I highly recommend to anyone who wants to improve his presentation skills.

Related posts:

1. Behind the scenes of the American Red Cross Digital Operations Centre
2. Non-profits and social media: how to leave the competition behind
3. Posts worth reading: from social media ROI to digital storytelling

Emergency Items Catalogue

One of the things I love about my job is that I constantly find out about incredibly useful or smart things that people have come up with. Right now I’m in awe of the the new Emergency Items Catalogue (www.ifrc.org/emergency-items) that was just released by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Metric? Imperial? Who cares?

Imagine you show up at a disaster and you’ve brought a few pumps and hoses. What are the odds of you being able to connect you stuff to that of everyone else? If you used the specifications from the Emergency Items Catalogue to purchase your equipment, then the odds are quite high. Because of the size of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement it can set standards.

2,000 items you need in an emergency

Essentially a group of dedicated people with a very high threshold for boredom got together and specified the details of 2,000 items that are commonly used in an emergency. From adhesive tape to scalpels to generators to … hoses. It’s a job I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but for which I have the uttermost respect.

Standardization is you friend

Even if you don’t need to connect your stuff with that of anyone else, standardization is your friend. For one thing you can be sure what the industry standard is. But more importantly you can tell a manufacturer what you want in a way that makes sense to the manufacturer. If for example, instead of saying “I need 500 blankets” you can say “I need 500 blankets that follow these exact technical specifications” you are far more likely to get what you expect.

Google Books and DocStoc

The Emergency Items Catalogue has been available online for years. But in my opinion not enough people know about it or are using it outside the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement. To change that, the logistics department has given it’s go-ahead to add the PDF-version to Google Books and Docstoc once they have been finalized (in about two weeks). It’ll be interesting to see what people do with these documents once they are out there.

Related posts:

1. Behind the scenes of the American Red Cross Digital Operations Centre
2. Online training: Tech Tools for Emergency Management