A Homecoming and a Digital Media Holiday

I'm looking forward to my time off from work after Christmas. The best part will be having my daughter (right) back with us in Portland after a semester in Quebec where she has immersed herself in the French language, both Quebecois and native French. It's a nice feeling to see your children reaching out into worldly spheres where you yourself have not been (in this case, the language immersion) but there's no substitute for a hug and a smile and hours of good conversation with them as you see them growing up in front of your eyes. Ken and Laura have given us so much to be proud of in the last few years and we look forward to celebrating the (immediate) family reunion. Laura will be graduating in June from Portland State University while Ken has just achieved second in the district in personal banking sales at Wells Fargo.

The other part of my holiday vacation will be all about digital media. As I've said in an earlier post, I completed a digital storytelling class this fall and am actively seeking out projects to practice the craft. I'm putting a proposal together to develop a story about the Hoyt Arboretum in Portland. For the past half year, as a volunteer, I have been scanning thousands of the Arboretum's photographic slides for digital storage. It's been an incredibly tedious task but I'm one to two hours from completing the project. The digital story I'd like to tell would ideally be told, in voice-over, by the staff and maybe former staff of the Arboretum.

I'm also hoping to work with some NGOs doing good work in Cambodia, as a way to continue perfecting my craft, as a way to promote their work or cause, and as my continuing education on that developing country's history and progress.

Another part of my digital media holiday will be devoted to research into setting up a podcasting program dedicated to social causes. I'd like to interview people involved in specific issues such as the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), Cambodian development, microfinance and sustainable approaches used in developing countries. I'm hoping that I can develop an audience for such a podcast and possibly tie in an online donation process that will allow listeners to contribute to the various causes promoted by interviewees.

Clinical Economics

Jeffrey Sachs' description of the developing world in terms of an economic development ladder is vivid. Through engaging stories, he shows the difference between Africans in Malawi who have not a toehold on the development ladder and Bangladesh women and young Chinese professionals who are, with their countries, on the ladder and on their way to escaping poverty hopefully forever.

Early in The End of Poverty, Sachs then relates the key paradigm shift that he made and which he professes for understanding and eradicating poverty: clinical economics. His wife is a pediatrician and no doubt his observance of her skill and practice of solving late-night emergencies has helped him to develop his concept of clinical practice applied to developing country economics. Sachs took four lessons from clinical medicine: (1) the human body is a complex system, (2) complexity requires a differential diagnosis, (3)all medicine is family medicine and (4) monitoring and evaluation are essential. Just like the human body, a country's economy is a complex system and diagnosing it requires more than looking at a severe budget deficit and runaway inflation (the two symptoms of Bolivia's problems when Sachs first got involved in development consulting back in the mid-1980s). The diagnosis for Bolivia, for example, required an understanding of its economy in terms of geography (it is land-locked), its political and social systems and the fact that its primary exports have been high-dollar value per weight items such as tin which were necessary to overcome the high costs of transporting it to ports from the high Andes. If you're browsing a bookstore and come across this book, don't forget to look at the table on page 84 entitled "Checklist for Making a Differential Diagnosis." Pretty comprehensive. Sachs is one of the main players in the Millenium Development Goals, a UN initiative to eradicate extreme poverty and improve the health of people around the world.