ICT4D South Asia

  Visualizing Information for Advocacy:
  An Introduction to Information Design
  By John Emerson
  Tactical Technology Collective
  http://tacticaltech.org
  Printed in India, January 2008
  Creative Commons License
  Downloadable from http://www.tacticaltech.org/infodesign
 
Reviewed by Frederick Noronha
fred@bytesforall.org
 
You’ve got data. Now what do you do with it? Can you tell an   effective story with the information you have? Can you “move   your audience”?

This is a manual that “offers an introductino to information design”. And it is indended to provide non-government organisations “with a useful and powerful tool for advocacy and research.”

TacticalTech’s Marek Tuszynski, who announced this booklet, said: “Modern life is saturated with ever increasing amounts of information, advertising and media with little time to
digest what is being said. Against this background, NGOs and advocates too often find the information they want to communicate, either buried in long reports full of professional jargon and statistics, or overlooked in an endless stream of media releases.”
 
Next, we go to the link between information design and advocacy, analysis, consumer education and strategy. To make it practical, there’s a “how to begin” chapter, and another how-to on “planning your information design”.
 
Keeping in sync with the tone of the book, the short, visually-rich chapters of the book focus on assessing your data, sorting and sketching, assessing your media, designing your graphics, clarifying your graphics and more.

This publication has been sponsored by Soros’ Open Society Institute Information Program. It leads you thought an explanation of what information design is, how you could use it, and specificially where it fits into advocacy.

But this is a practical book. Using images and comparisons, for example, it explains how spectrum lobbying works.

It points to sites like justvision.org, and the time-line on it, as examples of the good presentation of data (of stories of Palestinians and Israelis working together for peace, in this case). See http://justvision.org/en/timeline

There’s more eye-candy (but of a serious kind!) too. A project of Greenpeace, Exxon Secrets charts funding by the Exxon Foundation to institutions and individual ‘climate change skeptics’ working to undermine solutions to global warming and climate change. The interface makes it easy to visualize and navigate the research. See http://exxonsecrets.org

Some fascinating use of facts, figures and images here. As we’re told: “Information design uses pictures, symbols, colours, and words to communicate ideas, illustrate information or express relationships visually.”

There are practical tips:

“There are many ways to tell a story or to present data. How do you know what kind of presentation to use? The main thing to consider is: how will your information design be used? Is it for planning? Or advocacy? Are you trying to tell a specific story? Or are you trying to create a more neutral map to guide a process of discovery?”

In its 25 pages, there are a whole lot of examples … that really make you think.

Of special interest is a section focussing on how Free Software tools can be used in these tasks. OpenOffice does your office-computing work. NeoOffice works for Mac OS. Ajax13 is a web-based office suite at [http://us.ajax13.com]

InkScape is a vector graphics editor “with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand or CorelDraw”.

PDFCreator will create PDF files from “nearly any Windows application that can print”. Scribus can create layouts for newsletters, stationery, posters, training manuals, technical documentation, business cards and more. The GIMP is an “image manipulation programme”. GIMPShop is a version of this tool modified to be more user-friendly for Photoshop users.

You could write for copies from infodesign@tacticaltech.org But why waste forests when it’s just a download away? Click to get this book for free from http://www.tacticaltech.org/infodesign

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Tags: visualdesign, information

The brain drain in Pakistan can be stemmed through incentives, not coercion

The increased need and portability of highly skilled individuals from developing countries to developed ones is perhaps one of the less noticeable consequences of globalisation and economic development. This migration or international transfer of human capital from poor countries to thriving economies is referred to as the ‘brain drain’. Persisting brain drain deprives a country of the expertise and skills of its most talented men and women, who may choose to settle or work abroad. Ironically, these educated, skilled migrants happen to be the very people that a poor nation can least afford to lose. While the remittances and foreign exchange transactions generated by these individuals may be considered a valuable resource for the national economy, the outflow of skilled manpower can stunt local economic progress in the long run. It also entails loss of investment in education and training, especially when trained and skilled people are a scarce resource for a poor country.

Like any typical developing country, Pakistan has been facing the challenge of losing its human resources to the more prosperous and developed countries. The onset of the Information Technology (IT) boom in the West in the late 1990s drew many young Pakistanis to this field. Driven by the lure of H-1B visas, many aspiring young IT professionals enrolled in computer science degrees and certificate programmes. However, post-9/11, many found their American dreams dashed, following the strict visa policies and increased security checks for people moving to the US. The economy slump following global developments in the initial years of the millennium and the layoffs after the dot-com crash in 2001, underscored the fact that IT education was no longer a ticket to the United States.

Undoubtedly these were testing times for the local as well as the global IT industry. The closure of software houses following the cancellation of outsourced IT projects and contracts led many to believe that IT was no longer a viable career option. This in turn served to prevent every Tom, Dick and Harry from hastily jumping on the IT bandwagon. There was reduced enrolment in IT education programmes as well. Hate crimes, clandestine persecutions and an overall environment of fear and awe as part of the post-9/11 syndrome have made some professionals rethink their decisions to purse employment abroad. The changed global economic situation may have served to stem the brain drain of IT professionals from the country for now, but should the imposed limitation on the mobility of these individuals be considered adequate to retain local skilled IT manpower?

Such questions call for an examination of the incentives that serve to attract these professionals abroad. Syed Raza Abbas Naqvi, software test developer at Microsoft, was selected by the software firm as part of its international recruitment programme in 2001. Naqvi cites better earning prospects, the chance to work with a prestigious organisation, flexibility to travel and interact and the overall capacity for professional growth as some of the reasons behind his decision to opt for a US based job. “I think there wasn’t an option in Pakistan that matched with the first two factors at least,” says Naqvi. Other important determinants for international migration of technology experts tend to be the availability of resources and access to developed and sophisticated types of infrastructure for carrying out research; relatively liberal environment to work and survive; anticipated long-term benefits during the phase of retired life; secure and stable surroundings; and bright prospects for family members, especially with respect to health care. On the other hand, political instability, poor law and order conditions, bureaucratic red tape in the work domain and a general social disregard towards academics also serve to force the highly educated to leave the country.

Indemnification of these shortcomings in the local IT job market calls for a drastic makeover that encompasses everything from working conditions and monetary benefits to the general outlook of the society towards technology and a knowledge-based economy. The timing for such measures could not be more appropriate. The emergence of higher-education institutions and private universities in the large and medium urban centres do offer a chance for gainful employment. Additionally, the growth of telecoms, banks and other commercial enterprises, supplemented by their need to migrate to IT based enterprise solutions, can serve as a parallel for those aspiring professionals who choose to stay. A suitable environment for optimum working conditions in various sectors needs to be created through policy options by the government. Whether it is science and technology or businesses and trade, the government must ensure its support to society. Taxation relief, facilitating the export and import of equipment and providing hassle-free administrative assistance are just a few examples. Linkages and networks between educational institutes, employers and highly skilled manpower also need to be further streamlined.

Research undertaken both in developed and developing countries reveals that for an increase in output, the quality of labour is more important than the quantity. No country with an educated and technically trained human resource is poor and no country with a predominantly illiterate, untrained human resource is rich

First published:

SPIDER Magazine

Written by Reba Shahid

March 2007

The Federal Cabinet approved the adoption of The Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill 2007 on 17 January 2007. The proposed law titled as Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill 2007 offers penalties ranging from six months imprisonment to capital punishment for 17 types of cyber crimes, including cyber terrorism, hacking of websites and criminal access to secure data.

The bill deals with the electronic crimes included, cyber terrorism, criminal access, criminal data access, data damage electronic fraud, electronic forgery, misuse of electronic system or electronic device, unauthorised access to code, misuse of encryption, misuse of code, cyber stalking and suggest stringent punishment for offences involving sensitive electronic crimes.

It proposes seven years punishment on charges of electronic fraud and electronic forgery and would not have the right of bail whereas those tried for data damage, system damage and criminal data access, misuse of electronic system or electronic device would get maximum three-year punishment with the right of bail.

The bill suggests maximum punishment of death or life imprisonment for those booked under cyber crimes or involved in sensitive electronic systems offences.

Following the passage of the mentioned bill, the Minister for Information Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari stated that the e-crime law would require the internet companies maintain their traffic data for at least six months to enable the agencies to investigate cases involving data stored by them. He said the law would enable the government to seek extradition of foreign nationals through Interpol for their involvement in criminal activities punishable under the law.

Newsrack is a great tool. You can use it to keep track of news on issues related to keywords of your interest. Written by a friend, Subramanya “Subbu” Sastry <sastry at cs.wisc.edu>