Systems matter
These systems don't just happen. People conceive them, implement them, improve them and ultimately revisit them constantly. After all, we want things faster, cleaner, bigger and just plainly better from day to day. Use a system once and you're immediately looking forward to its next version.
So what does this have to do with me, the mondofragilis world we live in and the mondofragilis group that I work for? In my opinion, the systems that drive governance, funding, humanitarian relief, development aid, coordination and every other aspect of the public interest sector are stale, under-resourced, held back by lack of technical expertise at the decision maker level and lack of funding streams in the budgets.
Case in point: the systems that do exist tend to be monolithic mastodons created in one heck of a hurry upon realizing that we've neglected systems for so long that they are worse than broken, they are dangerous. But the result is an over priced beast that is so fragile and prone to bugs that at the slightest program error, the whole system crashes.
Please note that I am not just talking about computer systems. The same applies to our programmatic and operational systems. We, in the public interest community, have simply not recognized the importance of streamlined systems. Instead we cling to tools and processes of another era. Just look at your average reporting requirements. By the time you've finished reporting on something as simple as a first contact mission, Mount Rushmore will have another three Presidents
We need newer, more efficient systems. We also need to realize that these systems will require constant improvement; you do not just install and forget. Need help designing systems… we can help (that was fun, I rarely write a blog that has a sales pitch attached to it! I should scale this up into a system…)
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