PDC-21: Awareness: Information at our Finger Tips: The Criteria’s

PDC-21: Awareness: Information at our Finger Tips: The Criteria's

In the previous article, we saw that the distance equation between the
probable helper and the probable needy. We learned that it could be as
far as the two sides of the globe. In order to ensure the true voice
of the needy are heard by the potential Good Samaritan, information
must reach long distances.

Let's consider an orphanage in a remote place. How do people in far
away places become aware of such an initiative?

The traditional method of awareness has been word-of-mouth by
thirumeni's and others from the organizations. In addition, printed
hard copies have been sources of information.

While both these approaches are good approaches, they lack in certain
aspects. Getting a thirumeni across the globe is a costly proposition.
Consider a visit from Kerala to US. The travel expenses are not cheap.
Even if people donated 20 times the amount of the airfare during a
thirumeni's visit, the overhead is considerable. While people might
argue that the cost of the travel is handled by somebody else, we must
account for all expenses.

Printed hard copies lack the mobility and easy access. Only a limited
set of books are printed and hence only a limited set of people get
access to it. Also there are delays in the availability of the
information to the common man since the printed matter has to be
physically transported to its destination. The cost of delivery can
add up if we attempt to make this book accessible to all people across
the world.

We learnt earlier that our awareness campaign should be cost
effective. With the traditional approaches, we are constrained by two
opposite factors: either spend the money and create awareness OR save
the money and limit awareness.

It is clear that the traditional approaches limit the scope of
awareness. The ideal awareness must provide everyone access to
information at the fingertips at the lowest overhead.

Now the question arises. What is the best media to achieve the dream
of 'information at our finger tips' with the constraints on overhead?

To select the ideal media, let's first consider the criteria's that we
want to use as bench marks for comparing different mediums. Few of
them are

1. The relationship between the sender (source) and the receiver
(destination) [One-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many]
2. The availability of the information at the convenience of the receiver
3. The cost of information transfer between the source and destination
4. The quickness of sharing information from the sender to the receiver
5. The easiness of forwarding information to a person that is not a
direct destination
6. The information accessibility or coverage area
7. The ability to provide follow-up updates seamlessly
8. The loss of information in the medium
9. The direction of finding information [Destination trying to find
the source (Ex. searching on the web and finding information) Vs
source trying to reach the destination]
10. The ability to link information from multiple locations

In the next article, we will use our criteria's to compare three types
of mediums for information transfer: postal, radio and the internet.

To be continued…

The next two topics:

PDC-22: Awareness: Information at our Finger Tips: The Mediums
PDC-23: Awareness: The Challenges Recap

Thanks,
Rajesh Vargheese
http://www.stgregoriosaustin.org/