The INFO Project Blog

The Elements of Family Planning Success Web site is now live. Join this community today to take part in discussions, access resources - including expert interviews, network with colleagues, find up-to-date research, and share your program success stories with family planning professionals around the world.  Go to www.fpsuccess.org to become a member.

Our favorite data dramatist Hans Rosling, who we saw present at the MEASURE Evaluation Symposium last month, gave the world (with two other Swedes) the Gapminder tool, which animates potentially dry data into cartoon-like bubbles that shift over time like an effervescent beverage. Bubbles can signify (as with the map at right) country populations, correlated with Gross National Per Capita income and child mortality. China and India are the big red blobs, with most European countries at upper right in orange.

Now Google, which purchased Gapminder, has made this tool available on Google Spreadsheets.

Kurt Voelker of Forum One whipped up a nifty presentation on Web site traffic for their Influence blog.

Now, create your own snazzy statistical show. Go, go gadget.

An intriguing post on the Private Sector Development Blog (PSD) asks social Web enthusiasts to pick a “camp”:

On the one hand, there are those who see Web 2.0 tools as an enhancement of traditional collaboration and outreach capabilities. On the other hand… there are those who believe Web 2.0 is heralding a new business paradigm

The latter view is espoused by Giulio Quaggiotto, the post’s author and PSD’s knowledge and innovation program officer, as being far more intriguing. He writes,

The whole area of managing innovation–traditionally a strength of the private sector–is an obvious starting point.

Read about NGO 2.0 by Wikinomics coauthor Anthony Williams.

INFO is gearing up to launch a new kind of social networking site. The Elements of Successful Family Planning Programs is more than your new bicycle. It’s your fast-tracked guide to meeting colleagues around the world, finding new evidence-based resources, and gaining insight from FP program authorities around the world who have built successful programs. Join today, and stay tuned for the site to launch next week!

Vermont-based Population Media Center (PMC), run by Education-Entertainment pioneer Bill Ryerson, has just launched a new Web site with blogging and loads of multimedia. PMC’s programs are featured in INFO’s new report on Communication for Better Health, as well as this one on Entertainment-Education, and have been highlighted on the BBC Health Check program as well.

Below is a video of PMC’s work with UNFPA in Nigeria. Tune in to view Behavior Change Communication-oriented soap operas from some of the 15 countries PMC has worked in, including India, Ethiopia, and Jamaica.