James Shepherd-Barron

Disaster Management Consultant, Disaster Epidemiologist, Author, and Founder of The Aid Workers Union

The Nature of Invention

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Alexander Fleming did not realise how important his discovery was; for a decade after discovering the penicillin mould, he focused instead on the bacterium’s potential use as a topical antiseptic for wounds and surface infections and as a means of isolating certain bacteria in laboratory cultures. It was left to his fellow Nobel laureates, Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, to demonstrate in 1940 that penicillin could be used as a therapeutic agent to fight a large number of bacterial diseases.

We tend to rewrite the histories of technological innovation, making myths about someone who had a great idea that changed the world when, in reality, that person was usually not the inventor at all but the person who knew how to exploit the idea and bring it to scale. Such was the case with penicillin, where Alexander Fleming has been credited with an idea actually discovered and pioneered by a fellow chemist from the same laboratory, Howard Flory.

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The ATM’s 50th Anniversary … Again

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The US banking industry recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the world’s first Automated Teller Machine, or ATM. Don Wetzl, its putative ‘inventor’, was feted on Wall Street and the American public was once more reminded of its entrepreneurial genius and capital clout.

Unfortunately, however, those with short memories will have forgotten the slightly inconvenient truth that the ATM Industry Association, the recognised international body that represents ATM manufacturers and distributors around the world, already celebrated the ATM’s 50th birthday two years ago, on 25th June 2017.

So, why are we witnessing a repeat exercise? Why are we having another ‘Groundhog Day’ moment?

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Misperceptions About Accessing Cash in Times of Crises

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Cashless approaches to consumption — especially in societies faced with recovering from calamity — are misconceived. Yet the world of disaster management has become overly fixated on providing relief via digital approaches that they perceive to be entirely cashless. This contradicts not only what those affected by disaster think about money and how they use it, but ignores how cash works and is actually managed for society. As a result, the humanitarian community is failing to give due consideration to the full range of ‘cash management’ options available… an approach which may not always be in the best interests of those struggling to recover from disaster.

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Is Financial Inclusion a Scam?

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SUMMARY: There is growing evidence that the wholesale move to digital payments advocated for by fintech lobbyists is not the techno-utopian panacea that its proponents proclaim. In fact, far from its stated aim of fostering financial inclusion, evidence from Kenya, India and elsewhere demonstrates that it actually excludes the most vulnerable in society by fostering indebtedness and preventing them from using their preferred, and often only, means of payment … cash. The international aid community should be more critical of the costs and compulsions involved with going ‘cashless’ and realise that restriction of payment options is neither a plausible nor appropriate way of achieving the ends they seek … that is, suppressing cash will not make the poor better off.

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Presenting

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REALITY CHECK: A short while ago I had to give a presentation to over 500 people at a conference in Bangkok entitled ‘Language Kills’. With such a provocative title, the opening had to be powerful. It was. The slides showed alright on my laptop monitor but that all-too-familiar ‘no signal’ sign was all the audience could read on the vast screen behind me. Once we sorted out the technical glitches, I started again. But not only was the opening – me speaking in Russian – ruined, but somehow the slides had reset themselves to advance every fifteen seconds regardless of what I was saying.

First, a bit about Powerpoint. Senior military commanders despair at the amount of time their junior officers spend preparing briefings using this tool. They argue that the medium, with its ability to move all manner of colours, shapes and sizes around the slide often tends to obscure the message. They also argue that the simplicity with which complex intellectual constructs can be reduced to a series of two-dimensional bullet points and multiple map overlays obscures the superficiality of the purported strategic thinking.

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Managing Effective Meetings

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REALITY CHECK: Go on. Admit it. You spend most of your time in a coordination meeting texting or answering e-mails. That’s OK. Disaster managers are good at multi-tasking. But if you’re doing it during a genuine coordination meeting — i.e not one of those larger zoo-like information sharing meetings — then you’re either the wrong person or you’re in the wrong room. Or maybe you’re the right person in the right room but the meeting is so boring that it’s difficult to engage (in which case, it’s up to you to change the situation).

So, having chaired hundreds of cluster, inter-cluster and technical working groups, here are my top tips for more productive meetings:

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Creating Consensus

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REALITY CHECK: This text is from a recruitment ad for the CEO of an international NGO which appeared recently in The Economist magazine. It could just as well have been written for a disaster manager or coordinator … “To ensure effective decision-making, you will have proven strategic communications skills, including the ability to create consensus through active debate and logical argument in a challenging environment, and effectively resolve conflicts.”

The key word in this advertisement is ‘create’. Building consensus requires that Cluster participants share information, air differences, work together to analyse challenges and find mutually acceptable solutions. After a decision has been reached, all those participating should feel that their viewpoint was heard and understood, and that they heard and understood the viewpoints of others in the group. They will support it because it was arrived at in an open and fair way. Yet reaching such a consensus is difficult in “standing-room only” coordination meetings attended by representatives of 50 or more agencies. In such large unwieldy groups, it is

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The ATM is Critical to Driving Financial Inclusion

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Far from being a typewriter in a touchscreen world, the Automated Teller Machine (ATM) plays a critical role in the financial inclusion revolution. Interactive, multi-channel, deposit-taking ATMs promote financial literacy while allowing cash to recirculate reliably, quickly, cheaply and safely in local markets. This facilitates access to formal financial services by merchants, agents, and the un-banked, thereby reducing global poverty. Promoting an environment in which payments choice is constrained — as too many aid agencies do — is not only discriminatory on many levels, but counter-productive because it fosters financial exclusion, not inclusion. Aid agencies, central banks and commercial financial institutions must work together to champion diversity and choice where ATMs and other cashing-out options co-exist alongside digital payment solutions.

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What Gender Is Your Money?

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Gender equality is one of the touchstones of our time. It’s what tells us we belong to a genuinely tolerant society where diversity is not just honoured but celebrated. Despite the long sea-faring tradition, this means that boats must apparently no longer be referred to as ‘she’ as female boats are not gender neutral and so are unacceptable nowadays.

Presumably, banknotes are the same and reflect a similar gender neutrality? Somehow, I’ve always assumed they’re hermaphroditic. But it turns out they’re not. Money is, but banknotes are not. Banknotes are overwhelmingly male.

In French, the word ‘money’ translates into ‘l’argent’. No clue as to gender there. Money is gender-free. But the word for ‘small-change’ i.e coins is ‘le monnai’. Masculine. If coins were feminine, they would be ‘la monnai’. The word ‘banknote’ translates into ‘le note banquaire’, also masculine. It’s the same in Spanish. Banknotes are male.

Banknotes are also male in another sense: Based on research conducted in 2017 by the Social Media Agency on 100-denomination banknotes currently circulating in all 195 countries of the world, 609 people are represented, of which only 51 – less than 10 percent – are women. Most are dead.

The good news is that, for the first time — and not without controversy —  the new 2019 US $20 bill will feature a woman. The new £50 note due to enter circulation in the UK in 2021, however, features Alan Turing, another man. But at least he was eventually forgiven by the British establishment for being gay. In this 50th Anniversary week of the Apollo Moon Landing, ‘One small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.’