3 ms·
You say "well duh", but PG makes no effort to eliminate any "type" of large organization. He claims with no equivocation that working for all large organization
by exergy 8y ago
You say "well duh", but PG makes no effort to eliminate any "type" of large organization. He claims with no equivocation that working for all large organizations sucks. Surely you must admit that there must be smart people in many, many other large organizations, and not the exclusive domain of us super-smarties here at CERN! And those people see something of value in their circumstances and cannot be justifiably lumped along with caged lions (I know this metaphor causes uproar every time this article comes up, but he chose it not me!).
Also, as to your last point, if it is in refernce to what I was talking about Polio, it _is_ endlessly interesting. UN gets a bad rap for being bureaucratic to the point of statis, but in fact, some of the hardest working people I know are employed there.
Here's more about Polio to whet your appetite, with the MASSIVE caveat that this is second hand, non-expert knowledge vomited out off-the-cuff.
Polio has been eliminated virtually everywhere on Earth with the exception of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. There are some other places where vaccine-derived (kind of, there is more to it that I don't fully get) Polio sometimes rears its head when ineffective propagation occurs, specifically in Syria, where the war zone threw the entire operation into chaos. But mainly, it is problematic in the three countries. The trouble is, big parts of these regions are inaccessible, and therefore we don't know the details of how bad the situation may be, and how many households are unvaccinated. So one big challenge is how to make sure these countries (with Taliban controlled regions for example) get the distribution sorted.
Further, Polio was unprecedented in the sense that W.H.O. (and others) managed to set up the VERY complicated infrastructure of mobile testing labs, vaccine distributions, but most importantly, door to door canvassing through the enormous amounts of hard work of poorly-paid LOCAL volunteers (MANY women) who go door to door, month after month, conducting surveys and understanding the plight of the local populace. They are the ones who could tell us, down to the household, who had been vaccinated and who hadn't. On a global scale. Imagine the complexity.
And because this infrastructure was in place, OTHER departments could use it too, for instance to study Malaria rates etc. All on Polio money. But now with funding soon to be sunsetted, the issue is how we can maintain the good of the program: the door to door stuff, the mobile labs etc., with no Polio funding?
Other things are complicated too, such as health ministries not being fond of their for-years-guaranteed Polio funding going away. This is perhaps ok in non-corrupt countries, but in less fortunate countries, their representatives must argue for greater share of the funding for THEIR government, knowing full well that that money could maybe be better used elsewhere.
On the other side of the equation, you have to deal with the funding agencies: the Gates etc., who would love nothing more than to be able to see the fruits of their labour paid off as soon as possible, since they've been waiting for a decade. Patience is an ever-scarcer commodity, and it's hard say that I don't sympathise with them, given how many resources they've invested into the project.
And WHO is liable for everything it states, so all outreach must be carefully vetted. So you need a big PR team/lawyers etc. There are just endless complications. W.H.O. has to manage ALL of this, and that is exactly why they require a big staff.
This stuff is not limited to just the UN btw. All big companies face such challenges. By contrast, PG's article seems more to be desigend to caress his ego rather than express something truly useful for the world to consume and learn for.
- vinceguidry 8y agoPerfect! What makes Nigeria so complicated? Is it corruption? Are they not letting health workers operate? In the business space, I think there's a sense that everything people are doing is going to line some asshole's pockets and you're going to get none of those benefits. HNers in particular just often seem like they can't see the meaning in plugging away at the company they're working for, and the Silicon Valley dream is predicated on making a startup and compressing your work life down to a few short years. The dream is inspirational to some because there's rarely any glory in being a cog in a machine. Even guys that work at Google get burned out after awhile. It's just hard in many cases to stay motivated. PG's essay wants to say that it's just working in a big organization is unnatural. I think that's way way off the mark, we would never have society and people wouldn't collect into cities if that were the case, and his understanding of hunter-gatherers seems trite, even for 2008. But Silicon Valley is a thing and people do flock there from all over the country to chase a certain kind of ideal. I think it's the same kind of thing that encourages young community workers to keep gathering data in their communities year after year. The opportunity to chase a real goal and be a part of something bigger. Silly Valley wants to unify intelligence, glory, and meaning together. All things that run out of the tap at CERN. In order for that to happen though, there needs to be a healthy amount of creative destruction. Not all companies know how to manage teams. Encouraging those who are feeling burned out and squeezed to find greener pastures can only make it better. But yeah, I don't think any of the generalizations he makes are at all accurate enough to be stated. Some programmers work better in small groups. But lots of them need lots of structure.
- clebio 8y agoYour whole thread is gold. I have come back to the posted article twice so far to read your comments specifically. Thank you, and I'd just generally love to read more about these thoughts. Whether publicly-funded or military (a different thread) or whatever, it's still possible to learn from healthy, effective orgs wherever they are.
- exergy 8y agoWhat a nice thing to say! And a refreshing change from my own acerbic tone, so thanks for that. If you're interested in this sort of stuff, Maciek's blog (Idlewords) is fantastic. He is humorous but gives every topic he chooses a lot of respect. Start with his article on the space shuttle. Also, his talks are fantastic too!