THE POWER OF KNOWLEDGE IN A TIME OF CRISIS
Dateline 30th November, New Zealand National Digital Forum, Te Papa, Wellington.
Readers of this blog will know that it is occasional rather than regular; my approach being to write something when I think it needs saying, even if I am the only one listening. I’m here as speaker and listener at NDF2011 (celebrating its tenth birthday this year…happy birthday NDF). I could reflect on the high value of a forum that brings together practitioners from a range of different disciplines and institution types to share experiences, opportunities and aspirations, but my motive in putting fingers to keyboard in the middle of a break out session is rather different; something quite special.
I kicked it off the Forum with my impressions on the strengths of New Zealand’s achievements in the digital landscape to date and also some challenges that museums, libraries and archives are likely to face in the future as digital technologies become ubiquitous. I highlighted the need for there to be increasing focus on the consumer rather than the institution, remembering Steve Jobs’ mantra, ‘give the customer what they want before they know they want it’. I also suggested that future success will depend on strategic thinking as much as management and problem solving, and that in future services must focus much more on the consumer and the value that is delivered to them than on the internal processes and priorities of the institution.
At the end of day one we heard a series of presentations by organisations and individuals working together in Christchurch to document the realities of the two recent earthquakes, in images, the recollections of those affected and other documentary evidence. It was a rapid response from the National Library (photographic documentation and longitudinal oral history), the University of Canterbury (CEISMIC project), the Ministry of Culture and Heritage (Quake Stories), Christchurch City Libraries (building an earthquake archive) and Ross Becker Photography (undertaking the photographic element of the National Library project). The intention to capture a comprehensive record of the impact of the earthquakes. The results are already compelling with unique images from some of the most dangerous areas on Picasa (30m hits so far) and so on, growing numbers of personal stories from citizens and the gathering of documentary evidence such as the changes wrought recorded on Google Maps.
Having spent the last weekend in Christchurch, a city now broken by those two catastrophic earthquakes in less than a year. It is impossible to grasp quite how much the city has changed without walking the streets that are actually open. Outside of the decimated city centre, suburban streets show how random the effects can be. Some houses untouched, some completely destroyed. Spookiest of all was walking around the urban streets at night and seeing in many places hardly a light showing: houses and apartment apparently undamaged from the outside left empty as too costly or too broken and dangerous to be worthy of repair, but still awaiting tear down. And of course, everybody has their own story, of heroism, discomfort or of loss.
The significance of all of this for me is as follows. First of all we have a number of different and separate organisations working together with a common mission to take collective action, apparently without any kind of formal agreement, discussions over divisions of labour or any of the conventional trappings of partnership. Capturing and exploiting the content is far more important than institutional identity. The message loud and clear was we need to record now and we can sort out the details of sustainability, etc. later.
Second, they have received many comments indicating that the free availability of this stuff so quickly after the events is helping those affected to deal with the trauma. People have found real value in recording and sharing their experiences and the photographers have been thanked repeatedly for providing images of the serious damage to the city centre, so that citizens felt better prepared when they were able to visit to see for themselves. (The city centre re-opened for controlled visits last weekend, but with dire warnings of the risks involved.)
Of course, none of this work will have impact on the enormous task of recreating the city. Yet the collaboration has shown that customer need can be put before traditional institutional priorities and that it is possible for public organisations sometimes to give the customer what they want before they know they want it.
Christchurch has a long journey to full recovery; some say 25 years at least. The fact that the first painful steps on that journey have been supported by the knowledge created by institutions and individuals offers a powerful message of what effective management and disclosure of knowledge can do for people. Knowledge really is power.
