I am a pretty proud papa for today we gave birth to CipCip which, I believe, is the world’s first humanitarian microblog. (Now, I may be dead wrong about the last bit but I haven’t heard anything to prove me wrong and besides you always think you kid is the cutest!) CipCip is our very own Twitter and it lives within the walls of the World Food Programme. As you can tell from the logo it’s built on Laconica and right now we’re firing away using Twhirl although I wish there was something that could pull double duty (Twitter and Laconica) but in one consolidated interface. Where’s that new Seemic Desktop?
Everything I am telling you is available on today’s post over on the DELIVER project blog which outlines WFP’s efforts to synchronize their various data systems. Some of the highlights of rolling out the system have been: 1) the ease with which a user in Maputo, Mozambique contributed information to our social stream and 2) the ability to live blog meetings elsewhere in the office so that folks could tune in and get the highlights all from the comfort of their desks. As you know I can’t tell you much more than what is on the printed page but needless to say I am pretty thrilled by the results.
Where it goes from here is anybody’s guess but there are some pretty big plans for the system. Just think of hundreds, if not thousands, of aid workers having one dialogue from 85+ countries around the world. If the World Food Programme, the world’s largest humanitarian aid organization and humanitarian logistics operation, can put something like this into to play I should think it is not out of reach for smaller, lighter aid organizations to implement. The beauty of it all is that it is basically free of charge minus the few extra hours it took to get it up and running!
Please stay tuned for more and I’ll be sure to keep you updated!
{ 1 trackback }
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }