52nd Time's the Charm

"One afternoon in late March, in their offices in downtown Helsinki, Jaakko Iisalo, a games designer who had been at Rovio since 2006, showed them a screenshot. He had pitched hundreds in the two months before. This one showed a cartoon flock of round birds, trudging along the ground, moving towards a pile of colourful blocks. They looked cross. "People saw this picture and it was just magical," says Niklas [Hed, co-founder of Rovio]. Eight months and thousands of changes later, after nearly abandoning the project, Niklas watched his mother burn a Christmas turkey, distracted by playing the finished game. "She doesn't play any games. I realised: this is it.""

By now, everyone (including me) has heard of Angry Birds, the hugely popular game and bestselling iPhone app of all time. Apparently 75 million people play it and waste an estimated 200 million minutes a day playing it.  The Finnish company that created the app, just raised $42 million in new capital to fuel new creations.

The nearly instant success of companies such as Amazon, eBay, Google, Facebook, and Twitter often give us the impression that successful products spring from the first idea - or first few ideas -  of an inspired genius.  Instead, those are the exceptions.

Some things I like about the Angry Birds story:

• The company had developed 51 other games before they became successful with Angry Birds, and it was on the verge of bankruptcy less than two years ago.
• No one had any idea during the development process that Angry Birds would be such a hit - they nearly abandoned it several times
• The founders did not fire Jaakko Iisalo even though he had previously pitched hundreds of dumb and/or unsuccessful ideas to them.  What if they had said "This guy is a loser; let's ignore him"?

More in Wired.

Emergency Relief for Japan

This earthquake was the worst in Japan's history.  You can help by giving through GlobalGiving.  You can also donate $10 by texting JAPAN to 50555.

Show me the Impact!

"The Millennium Villages Project (MVP) is an experimental anti-poverty interventionin villages across Africa. In October, we released evidence that the Project’s official publications were overstating its real effects, and we offered suggestions on improving its impact evaluation. On Tuesday the MVP, whose leadership and staff are aware of our work, continued to greatly overstate its impact."

That is from a post by Michael Clemens and Gabriel Demombynes over at Africa Can End Poverty, a blog edited by Shanta Devarajan, Chief Economist for Africa at the World Bank.   Michael and Gabriel note in particular the lack of evidence that MVP caused the claimed increase in "ownership of mobile phones...from 4% to 30%" in MVP villages.  It turns out that the rate of increase in ownership of cell phones was about the same in surrounding villages that did not have an MVP programs!

Michael, Gabriel and others are far more eloquent than I on the topic of evaluation, including randomized controlled trials (RCTs).  Though RCTs are the gold standard, they are neither possible nor affordable in all circumstances, which means that in practice we need a toolkit of different approaches.

In any case, even when interventions do have an impact, the question should be "compared to what, done by whom, and at whose request?"  This is asked only in rare cases.

Donors and implementing agencies tend to evaluate their own programs, and as long as there was some positive result they declare victory (albeit often with the obligatory "improvements can be made" and "challenges remain" language).

What if a donor (or group of donors) did something like the following?

1. Take a total of $20 million and divide it into units of $2 million (the approximate amount of money spent in each MVP village).
2. Give $2 million to five different implementors (e.g., MVP, Oxfam, Care, BRAC, and GlobalGiving) and assign them randomly to a village.
3. After X years, evaluate each of them according to two measures: a) measured impact based on predefined objective criteria; and b) satisfaction shown by the villagers.
4. Since learning is what drives increases in quality and productivity, repeat steps 1-3 to see which implementing organizations improved the most.  
5. Expand the program by a) opening access to more implementors; b) having villagers themselves choose the objective criteria to be used; and c) allowing villages to choose from among the top five or ten implementors.

If someone can round up the money, I am game to help design and oversee an experiment like this.  And would anyone like to suggest a name (and acronym) for it?

 

Urban Landscapes of Evaluation

"Different sorts of decisions need different sorts of evidence, just as [Jane] Jacobs said different sorts of businesses need different sorts of buildings. In particular, new ideas need cheap tests, just as new businesses need cheap rent. As an idea becomes more plausible, it makes sense to test it in more expensive ways."

That is from a nice post by Seth Roberts.  It is highly germane to many endeavors in life, including international aid.  Good progress has been made recently on the gold standard of (well-designed) randomized controlled trials (RCTs) testing aid project design.

But  RCTs can be expensive and cannot be done in all circumstances.  So we need a menu of approaches to determine whether different types of ideas at various stages idea are promising.

I recently had an interesting conversation along these lines with one of the creators of an innovation fund at a major aid agency.  I hope soon to be able to post an interview online with him here.

The Primes of High Performing Teams

If you work in a team, I recommend Chris McGoff's new book The Primes.  The associated website and blog are also excellent.

I met Chris in 1997, when he began helping the World Bank's senior management team work better together.  He was also critical to the design and implementation of the first Development Marketplace (though his role, along with that of Monika Weber-Fahr, was unfortunately omitted from this otherwise excellent HBR account.)

I can say from experience that the principles Chris describes in his book are effective; I have used them over the past fourteen years. They seem deceptively simple, but I can attest to their power if applied consistently.

Poetry and Development

A small group of us meet occasionally over dinner, ostensibly to talk about new ideas in international development.  Mostly we just have a good time; sometimes we forget to talk about development.

My friend April asked one day "Why don't we read more poetry?  What if we started off each dinner with some poetry?"  At first I thought this idea was little nutty - like a lot of April's ideas, to be honest (please don't tell her I said that).  What does poetry have to do with development, anyway?  But then I realized that good poetry makes us happy.  And that development is about enabling people to be happier.

So on this cold Friday afternoon, I am going to tip my hat to April and publish the following poem, which makes me very happy.  It is by my god-daughter, Evelina Kats, who gave me permission to print the unedited version below.  I recommend both the written and audio versions.

Bridges Made of Paper?

Michael Woolcock recently wrote a CGD working paper with Lant Pritchett and Matt Andrews arguing that aid agencies have built a lot of bridges out of paper.  What do they mean by this?  They mean that aid projects have often put in place modern institutional forms, such as court systems or school systems, without much regard for the actual functioning of those institutions.

They call this approach isomorphic mimicry.  Mimicry is easier - and more feasible in the time span of a typical aid project.  But the authors argue that mimicry can actually retard the development of the desired functionality.

I spoke with Michael about the paper and some related issues, and you can listen here:
Listen to this episode

How Marvelous Collaboration Can Be (Redux)

"Contrary to the old laws of information theory, it was common for us to find that more information was received than had been sent. I have almost never had that experience with anyone else. If you have not had it, you don't know how marvelous collaboration can be ..."

That is from a post I did sometime back.  It is a quote by Daniel Kahneman talking about his work with Amos Tversky.  I was reminded of this yesterday when talking to Michael Woolcock about his collaboration with Lant Pritchett - in preparation for an interview about a paper Michael recently wrote with Lant.  I will post the interview in the next couple of days, and I think you will like it.

"If You Must Forecast, Forecast Often"

"Gold is going to $2,800 or higher, mark my words. It is THE ONLY hedge against the coming hyperinflation."

That is what someone told me recently at a conference.  I asked him how sure he was, and he reminded me that he works for one of the very few investors who predicted the subprime crisis.  "My boss is a genius," my table mate said.   I went right home and started researching the best way to buy gold.

The only problem, according to Joe Keohane in a recent article, is that people who correctly predict an extreme event such as the subprime crisis usually have a terrible overall record.  Keohane reports on research by Oxford's Jerker Denrell and NYU's Christina Fang showing that those who correctly forecast an extreme event had "by far" the worst forecasting record among their peers.

TEDx Debut: Helping Outsiders Become Insiders

Here is a talk I gave at TEDx YSE (Young Social Entrepreneurs) in December 2010. I talk about how I accidentally discovered the pleasure and privilege of helping outsiders become insiders.