It’s Not Too Late: 2011′s Top 5 Posts

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Posted on January 19, 2012 by Astley Henry

A Collage of 2011′s Best Posts

2011 was a year of continued transitions, trials and triumphs. As a consequence of all this, I did not get to blog as much as I wanted to. WordPress’ handy end of year summary reminded me that I only posted 9 updates last year. Moreover, my older material on policy and evaluation seems to be the more popular!

Growing traffic to this space and the enquiries that it has generated demonstrates that there is a definite interest in research and how people and organisations can use evidence to enhance the impact of their work. Additionally, given the changes in technology, rapidly shifting public sentiments and consumer behaviour, I think the business of research is changing in ways that many of our research professionals, and those that consume research, have failed to adequately respond to. I am going to take a bigger chunk out of this trend in 2012.

Without further delay, the best of 2011:

1. #Jptweetup Remixed: The Tweetheart Tweetup – The Jamaica Pegasus’ social media leadership was an important event last year.

2. A Friend’s View of Egypt: From the Inside – A friend’s understanding of what is happening in is homeland.

3. Your Money eZine Business Summit 2011: Key Takeaways – Some great lessons from seasoned business people.

4. My Coffee Obsession, Act 1, #eatjamaican – What the title of the post says.

5. We Cannot Go On Like This – Worrying human capital trends for Jamaica as the youngest and brightest feel their future lies elsewhere.

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Wishing all my readers a productive year full of fun, meaningful work.

#NuitBlanche 07: A Throwback

Posted on October 1, 2011 by Astley Henry

#NuitBlanche 07, a photo by Astley Henry on Flickr.

I went to Nuit Blanche at the end of September 2007 and, along with Canadian Thanksgiving, it is one of my favourite experiences of Canada. The overall atmosphere was quite relaxed and everyone so calm. It felt very different from large crowds at large events that I have been to in the UK or US. There were no large and unruly crowds of young men getting drunk and there were many families out and about. Oh yeah, its an arts festival, not a football match.

Nuit Blanche is not a banal arts showcase with pretentious people sipping free wine. It’s an all night, outdoor art festival with a great variety of art exhibitions, music, digital displays and plays. Two events I really liked were a recital by the Greek Diaspora in Toronto and what I think was a simulation of a military engagement in Iraq. There were soldiers, crashed planes and reporters. Later I discovered that it was supposed to be an alien crash landing. I said to one of the mock soldiers that if it were an alien crash landing, the public and reporters would never be allowed to get this close to the ‘vehicle.’ She smiled.

Your Money eZine Business Summit 2011: Key Takeaways

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Astley Henry

Your Money eZine Business Summit 2011 by Astley Henry

Your Money eZine Business Summit 2011, a photo by Astley Henry on Flickr.

So earlier in the month I went to Your Money eZine Business Summit 2011. It was a a great summit – provocative ideas, an enthusiastic audience and a nice venue. I was particularly impressed by the great job done by Garrick Communications and National Outdoor Advertising. My only real qualm was that it began over an hour late. Not a good look. However, the organisers were very apologetic.

You know what I am realising? I go to a few great forums, but don’t get to post about them due to the pressures on my time. So instead of a full review, I am just going to drop a few key ideas which the panelists, Pan Caribbean’s Donovan Perkins (DP) and Sandals’ Adam Stewart (AS), shared with those in attendance. Quotes are indicated. The bold text are just messages that really struck me.
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Leadership and Management

DP: No one person is going to have all the skills to run a business. Mentors are very important. I learned different things from different mentors.

AS: ‘Leadership is a heck of thing. You have to keep your team motivated.’

DP: ‘Keep your eyes on the competition. They are keeping their eyes on you.’

AS: Sandals cooks 40 million meals a year.

Doing Business in Tough Times

AS: We tightened up backend of the businesses. This took a huge cost out of the businesses. The challenge is how to do it, without affecting quality of service. For instance, we got a broker to consolidate how fruits and vegetables are bought.

DP: ‘There are three paths you can pursue – growth, stability or retrenchment. Our entrepreneurs have become more introverted. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and hope that things will get better.’

DP: Uncertainty is not as rare as we think.

Corporate Social Responsibility

AS: ‘If you took all the NGOs and charitable organizations out of Jamaica, the country would literally collapse.’

DP: There are projects which are meaningful but do not cost a lot. Continue reading →

We Cannot Go On Like This

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Astley Henry

What kind of society are we creating when the future of the society, young people, feel that there is no future for them in that society?

That is what I was asking myself when I read the Observer’s article pointing out that most young Jamaicans want to leave to improve their quality of life. The main take away message is that when asked about their prospects in a number of traditional destinations for Jamaicans, a consistent majority of respondents felt that they would have better life chances if they left our shores.

A number of things stood out about the article. I am surprised that the numbers that think they would be better abroad are not far higher. This could be because although prospects are not great here, an increasing number of Jamaicans know that life overseas is not easy and comes with its own set of distinct challenges. Additionally, Jamaicans are some of the most robustly patriotic people in the world. I would have been far happier with the article if the writer made some attempt to seriously grapple with what such a large number of young people wanting to leave means. Surely it an indicator of deep, societal dysfunction.

Some of the sentiments of one of the officials on hand also intrigued me:

She went on to say that the survey has provided interesting and critical data about Jamaican youths and shows how best the country and government, including her agency can engage its young people and cater to their current needs.

It annoys me no end when news articles or speakers on the nightly news make claims that they do not go on to substantiate with evidence. Sorry, I’m a researcher. I have not seen the survey, so I can’t comment on the contents. But I would be surprised if a survey (especially in isolation) was used to determine how to engage our young people. And if the spates of violence in schools, constant Ananda Alerts and often troubling exam results don’t tell you that our young people need help and spur genuine change, then I am not sure a survey is going to do it. Surveys are very good at tracking long-term socioeconomic trends and less good at developing effective means for addressing pressing social problems. Participatory assessment and planning approaches exist. However, if our government cannot see that it needs to develop genuine partnerships with the successful ‘big people’ of the diaspora, how are they going to do it with disenfranchised, frustrated youth as their partners?

By now you know I like to throw numbers at you.

Figure 2 is taken from the World Bank’s Migration and Development Brief 4 and illustrates that quite a high proportion of our tertiary graduates leave. More generally, the Caribbean has the second highest proportion of tertiary graduates which emigrate. Sub-Saharan Africa takes the gold medal in this unhappy contest. What is the impact of such a tremendous loss of human capital on institutional development? Continue reading →

My Coffee Obsession, Act 1, #eatjamaican

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Astley Henry

So the government has new initiative telling people to eat Jamaican. I have no problem with this. In fact, I don’t care how red a tomato is, or how yellow a banana is, if it tastes like cardboard.

But it is coffee that is the great love of my food life. I am obsessed and it feels good. I have several different blends from all over the place and different machines to make them. Yet, none compares to our own. With the amount of money I spend on Blue Mountain Coffee, I know that I am making a huge contribution to the Eat Jamaican campaign.