Waggener Edstrom Worldwide

It’s Complicated…

A couple of weeks ago a man named Curtis Cooper, utilizing 360,000 computers, found the new largest prime number. It is over 17 million characters long. After the initial discovery it took an additional 39 days for a computer to prove the number was in fact prime. Whether you have an appreciation for math or not, I think the sheer volume of numbers, variables and computing power is enough to impress almost anyone.

Stories like these somehow make us think that almost any problem, no matter the variables or complexity is solvable. You just have to throw enough money at it, enough man power, enough computing power… and out comes the answer.

There are countless scenarios out there where this is true… but if there was any one thing that will mess up the wonderful world of math it would be the introduction of a human being as a variable. Most of the time a person doesn’t represent a single variable but instead a countless subset of variables. Ironically when people are in groups it is much easier to predict their behavior over time yet when it comes down to one person at any one point in time it is impossible to account for the set of variables that they are capable of setting off.

Why am I talking about this?

This year at the TED 2013 conference there is a TED Challenge to improve the global vaccine supply chain. Everyone is talking about the problem like there is a “Holy Grail” solution. If we could just figure out 2D bar codes or RFID… If we could get better thermal trackers or refrigeration… we need better data… Still others are focusing on a few human variables like in-country human resources or cultural stigmatisms. Through all the confusion and campaigning for our individual pieces of the problem it seems to be missed that we are dealing with a variable set so big not even 360,000 computers and 39 days of checking our work is going to ever be able to solve anything.

We are asking the wrong questions – anytime there is a problem afflicting the human race throughout history we can almost always look back and see we were asking the wrong questions. The answer isn’t faster horses, it’s the automobile. Don’t buy more slaves, invent a cotton gin… In fact don’t buy slaves at all, instead kick off the industrial revolution. You get the point.

In this case the question is simple: If there is no one-size-fits-all solution for these issues how do we come up with one answer that will solve them all independently.

The good news is our premise isn’t all wrong… if you throw enough money and man power at any one problem it will probably get solved… IF you are addressing the real problem. The global vaccine market is expected to hit $23B by 2015 and $32.21B by 2017 yet kids in northern Nigeria are still getting Polio… a disease eradicated in the US in 1979. My point is simple, our failure is not due to lack of funding. It is not due to lack of passion and it is not due to lack of subject matter experts. It is due to execution and lack of focus on a solution that solves for everything…contextually. We can’t afford to continue to all campaign for our individual pieces of the problem. We have to attack this problem as a whole, country by country, region by region.

There is a reason SWAT teams exist and there is a reason they don’t have 200 people in them and two to three normative organizations instructing them as well as two to three others that fund their tools and still several other foundations they have to appeal to for continual funding. Analysis paralysis exists but for the sake of wanting to accomplish something I am not going to argue that point.

My second point is simple: A properly funded small team (9 – 15 people) that represents a diverse set of subject matter experts that can assess a country based on its actual infrastructure, culture and needs and recommend and implement contextual, properly funded, sustainable solutions seems unattainable yet surprisingly relevant and necessary.

Now imagine if all the disjointed funds we spend and many times waste as the Global CCL community could go into financing several of these teams and the infrastructure improvements they identify. The difference is simple, don’t look for the “Holy Grail” it doesn’t exist, it never did. It represents an idea and the idea is possible through highly contextual, country driven solutions. Building a CCL SWAT Team and financially backing it is an answer, not because it solves all the problems at once… it is an answer because it solves the problems independently, listening to the people, listening to the context… hearing, seeing and solving for the all important human and cultural variable sets.

My 3rd and final point: The solution exists, all the pieces are currently available, we just have to accept that each time the solution is implemented it will use a different subset of the available resources. It is our job to build teams of people capable of piecing this together hand-in-hand with local governments and properly financing these solutions to get them off the ground in a sustainable fashion, properly recognizing sovereignty and culture.

Solving only part of a problem in fact does not solve the problem at all – call me idealistic or call it a reach but this doesn’t get solved till someone solves for everything in each context.