The third leg of the race

What does it take to succeed in this world? While no doubt there are as many answers to this question as there are people in the world (probably more) for the purposes of this post we'll use my answer because, well, I can. And because I do believe that it does an alright job encapsulating what many would say.

In short, success in this world requires three things:
1. The will or motivation to do better, to succeed
2. The ability to in fact do better for yourself
3. An appropriate way to know when you're moving closer to success

As this relates to conversations and readings regarding the solving of the world's problems, particularly the problems of people living in poverty and deprivation, it's not hard to see how the first requirement is satisfied. Although I don't have any hard evidence on me at the moment, I feel pretty comfortable saying that most people who find themselves without reliable food and water, without adequate shelter, and/or without a means of sustaining their way of life (like regular income, for example) want not to be without those things. They want to do better. They are motivated to succeed. And with improved communication technologies thanks to the last 100+ years, many in industrialized nations have learned of the details of these problems and are increasingly motivated to do better by those in need as well.

The second requirement is (if the most recent articles are anything to go by) the hurdle that many social innovators are trying to address today. In the past 15 or so years, our world has seen an astounding democratization of capital as the means of achieving stability in the areas mentioned above (and more than that, achieving a more or less Western-like life) are increasingly distributed and accessible throughout the world. From sustainable, local energy production companies and self-adjusting prescription glasses to open source manufacturing designs and $25 microcomputers, barriers to one actualizing one's own success (as opposed to surviving dependent on UN handouts) are falling left and right. Yes, issues of coordination and distribution remain, but it would seem things are moving in the right direction.

That leaves the third and final leg of the race, and something I think is still inadequately addressed much less understood: measurement. This is not to say that contemporary social innovators and do-gooders of all stripes aren't measuring what they're doing. On the contrary, there's nothing sexier right now than metrics, analytics, and data visualizations. The Raspberry Pi folks, for example, have a global map tracking where all of their microcomputers go, letting them know quite effectively if their product is reaching less-industrialized regions as they would like it to. No, measurement as a general concept is not the problem.

What still poses a problem is the dearth of "appropriate" measurement. So much of the data collected today for projects and products addressing world problems are intended to inform (largely Western) investors and the project managers on the ground. But what about meaningful feedback for the individuals and communities working to pull themselves out of poverty? At what point in the process did those distributing capital (physical or ideational) ask those they claimed to be helping "What makes sense for your life and who you are?" or more importantly "How do you define success and what would you like to do to get there?" In short, how intentionally do we involve the people we claim to be helping in determining the measurements of their own success? How often do we simply try to recreate the Western model for improvement and wellbeing with a dash of local flavoring?

There are indeed examples of how this is being done well, and something I intend to think about and discuss further in later posts. But I feel it's important that we not only question the answers we are working toward but the questions that are at the foundation of our inquiry as well.