







A few things to note about these data for change efforts:
  3. Data and stories - together - can make change.

1 comment:

Joel Selanikio said...

Lucy, I completely agree with your post and, as a global health doctor, would only add the caveat that for many, many issues of importance we have not yet collected the data and so cannot visualize it with even the best of visualization tools or the most dedicated technologists.

In most countries of the developing world, we don't even know basic information about births and deaths. In most African countries we don't have basic information about HIV/AIDS prevalence (despite having spent billions of dollars in the region fighting this disease in the last 5 years).

We're creating tools like EpiSurveyor mobile data collection (www.episurveyor.org) in recognition of the fact that the data needs to come from somewhere, and most often that is from some kind of survey, and most often that survey is being done on pieces of dead trees, with months or even years wasted getting the data into a computer for analysis. EpiSurveyor short-circuits that process and lets even organizations with few resources collect crucial data electronically.

What that is leading to is more data, and hopefully that data will get visualized and put to use with the very techniques and by the very organizations you mention.