A New Social Website

Introduction

First let me say that this probably won’t work perfectly, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.

All major universities (usually broken down by school or department) post their current research projects online. What if there was a website that amalgamated that information and thematically cross referenced it? The sciences already have tools like the one I’m talking about. Why can’t Sub Saharan African related research and development work?

What I’m dreaming of is a new tool. The end result of the website I would like to exist wouldn't just be a compendium of research projects, so it would be separate from google scholar et al. The aim is to connect researchers more than it is to connect people interested in current or past research.

The impetuous for this project is connecting people with similar research goals and knowledge bases to create collaborative research teams to enhance the brainstorming phases of any Africa or development related research project. There are people interested in saving the world in San Diego, Chicago, DC, London, Paris, Nairobi, Cape Town and beyond — I’m trying to make it easier for them to find each other and work together without having to buy a plane ticket.


Searching for a Brain Trust - the General Idea

Bill gates spoke about development in Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago. He was on a cross country university tour in order to inspire students to think about how to make the world a better place. He was speaking from his platform as head of the most endowed international philanthropic foundation in the world.

The center point of Bill Gate’s speech was not about convincing every person in the world to switch careers. Anecdotally he wished that people would study the capacities of development practitioners the way two people he overheard studied basketball. These men were both investment bankers in New York and they were watching a game in a bar after work. They could name name everyone on the depth chart and recite their strengths and weaknesses from their long tenure following the team. Bill gates said that they could be coaches—they voiced informed suggestions on how to move forward in real time, they had opinions on how to achieve sucess. Mr. Gates wished that people could find a way to understand the people working on the major issues of the day with the same level of dedication and education.

The stipulation was that even if these two bankers don't work on any of these issues in their day to day lives, they might be able to seize opportunities when they arise if they knew about them. Say a plumber in Alberta dreams up a new pump that could be used for Zimbabwean ground wells. If he concretely knows it might be useful, and knows who he might contact about his discovery, then he may actually effect a solution to a real problem in real time. That example is fantastical, and I know it but that was the basis of his speech. Mr. Gates wasn’t trying to stop anyone in particular from entering the private sector and forget their ambitions of being a corporate consultant for example. He wanted people to know what was going on so they could speak up if they had ideas.

I’m not interested in creating the ultimate world problems news source. There are people trying to do that already. What I am hoping to do is connect already interested parties with their peers around the globe who they haven’t met yet. I have felt very alone in a lot of my continued time working on Africa related issues. I have either been geographically disparate from other researchers or I’ve had difficulty finding other people interested in pursuing the lines of inquiry that I’ve dreamed up. Not every new line of inquiry is as profound as the next, but my friend once told me, "everyone needs a brain-trust." I believe him. Groups of people make ideas better through refinement and inclusion, they build confidence and they help one move forward.

I’ll reiterate, the research tool I’m looking to create wouldn’t intentionally be a new way of connecting people to research. The tool’s ultimate aim would be to create a new way that researchers can collaborate and engage with each other to build new projects instead.

Personal Interest — An Example of how the Service May Be Used

Say I have a new project I want to accomplish, like my new research question about how to run a business in Sub Saharan Africa. I want to combine my past work on low level security apparatuses with my new degree program in economics. Who do I talk to?

Here's an example of a common issue: there are always people who have complimentary interests. Usually the researcher, after hours of solitary work in the library, cites sources across disciplines to create a new claim and eventually write a paper. E.g. Collier is looking at civil wars, a lot of people are looking at genocide or conflict politics, some others are studying private security--especially government defense contractors--etc. I can put together my reading list, but what I want is the brain trust before I move forward. The compatriots and critics that help refine the process. What if there could be an easier way of charting researchers aptitudes and interests beyond a strict citation of their work?

Everyone has a knowledge base that exceeds that demonstrated in their published work. If you have a new research idea it could be invaluable if you could tap into that guidance and expertise. It might be possible to chart better-than-rough inferences about researchers knowledge base and interests based on their publications, through thorough cross referencing.

Demographics - Who might be Interested (to Start)

Such a site could be invaluable to incoming graduate students in their attempts to find a program that's right for them, or like in my case I am going to a city rife with colleges and institutes - how do I find the people I need there? I already have a school, but, the people I need to talk to could be spread across the city or the country. In my case, I don't know if anyone else wants to marry anthropological study of private security with policy with economics as I do in my research. Someone may be interested though. How do I find the one in a thousand researcher in the hay stack that hasn't written this article yet, but could and, of equal importance, would?

Normally it's word of mouth, stacks of paper, and hours and hours of research. The young and educated of the world, in this economy in particular, are looking around for whom they need to talk to in order to find out what they can do and what is important that they do. The established, inside and outside of academia, will need younger people to work under them too. With our girders drawn so tight, they will want to find the ‘right’ person to work with. In both directions opening up communication is key.

Functionality

Think Facebook and Linked In combined with an emphasis on Africa.

The site would use a tiered entry system rooted in social networks based on email domaines from universities and educational institutions.

Unlike Facebook however all the information on the site is visible to the public at large. Everyone can have a page, and all pages can be viewed with our without a user id and login.

The key is not controlling what is able to be viewed, but controlling communication within the site instead.

The biggest concern is that major researchers want to remain aloof in order to keep their inboxes from being inundated with BS.

Open networks would allow people with the same institutional domain to email anyone within their network, same as you and I could visit any professor’s office hours at a university to which one belongs. Networks on this site would be no different than the university directory providing contact information for all of of one’s professors or peers.

The second idea would be to borrow the professional reference tools from linked in. The power of this tool will be in its ability to connect people between research institutions and institutes. In order to do that without completely liberalizing communications pathways is to incorporate secondary networking tools (references and endorsements, etc.) into the online platform.

Example: I made connections in DC that allowed me to write to people at Oxford and Stanford. I’ve never attended either of these schools, but via introduction I’m allowed to email these people and enjoy greater credibility. The aim would be a platform through which one could make those connections, with a little work and ladder climbing, without having to buy a plane ticket or move like I did.

What I haven’t figured out is how to incorporate cold calling or it’s email equivalent. There’s no promise that the A-list professor at Harvard will return your emails, but sometimes they do. I’ve sent unsolicited emails before, and I will continue to. Do we build this into the site? I don’t think we should at this point. We might want to make contact information slightly more accessible. Maybe we give users a limited number of out-of-network messages — say three per month or per year, etc. They could be valuable resources but if users have a very limited number they might have incentives to really do their homework before they use them. That would up the caliber of communication keeping annoying messages to a minimum.

Link in people’s Africa related twitter feeds on their profile page, and I think we’d have a way of connecting people to each other’s short and long form interests in one virtual space.

Finances

I think this could be done, but like when Facebook got started we won’t know exactly what it is before it happens. Advertising could be possible eventually. Graduate programs, universities, and publishers might be interested in attracting researchers their way. They might advertise someday, but that certainly will not be at the beginning and it may not ever happen. I’m not kidding myself either; this isn’t a multibillion dollar idea like Facebook was. It won’t give people the intoxicating part of the college experience, there won’t be pictures of people getting boozy and there won’t be any way of exploring each other's relationships. That’s not what this is, and it will never be as popular because of it. Not by a long shot.

Considering the aims and promises of the site however grants will not be outside possibility. Bill and Melinda Gates and Ashoka, if not the US Department of State (possibly under their new development incubator), may be interested in helping something like this start. Private societies, like the ‘Business Fights Poverty’ Group in Chicago (and others like it) might also want to help something like this start. Creating a 501 3c in the state with the cheapest non-profit incorporation fees would allow them to count contributions to the site as donations for tax purposes. That may also help our cause.

Scalability

This will start as a blog. As far as online clearing house of Africa related university research one could probably gain a decent blog following by creating a tublr blog or something yourself and just posting new stuff as it arises. The end goal is to gain enough of a following that one could take this further and make something more robust and interact-able.

Parting Words

I'm going to start sending out feelers in earnest on this. I’ll let you know where I get to.

Hope you're really well.

Warmly,

Sam Chereskin