Mile
Zero

This month, Wired includes an article on Channel Nine, Microsoft's initiative to create outreach through online video interviews of engineers and employees. Channel Nine led to the company becoming active with blogging, podcasts, and other grassroots communication initiatives. In a lot of ways, the result of Channel Nine was to humanize the company, as well as to give outsiders a better view of what it's working on.

I mention this, not only because I find the results fascinating--detailed information about the new audio framework for Vista was circulated a while back in a way that would have never happened through a press release, for example--but because I think it has personal relevance. When I first joined the World Bank's online video archive, B-SPAN, it was with the understanding that we perform a similar function for the Bank. We don't necessarily go out and interview staff, but we do let outsiders join in on some of the conferences and internal presentations that take place at headquarters. Hopefully, that isn't just a resource for learning, but it's also an opening into the current state of mind inside the institution, and that openness is very important.

Like Microsoft, the World Bank often suffers from an image problem, particularly a lack of transparency. Also like Microsoft, we have a lot of very talented and intelligent people here who don't get enough credit. I've often felt that while B-SPAN plays a role in the PR conversation, it would be a smart move for the Bank to also create a Channel 9, and to encourage its staff to start blogging. It would be good for our critics to see the institution as I see it: not a market-driven mammoth that stampedes across weak economies, but a collection of people who are sincerely trying to fight poverty. Likewise, it would be good for the Bank to open itself up to feedback and dialogue at many levels, both internal and external, so that when those sincere efforts go awry (as they sometimes do) we are more flexible and receptive to criticism.

Of course, I don't actually expect this to take place anytime soon, and certainly not while I'm still here. For one thing, the staff is not young enough to embrace that kind of technology or philosophy. There are very few people my age here, even in the Multimedia Center, and even fewer in the Bank at large. For another, it is hard to let go of control, and the Bank's nervousness at giving opponents more opportunities seems deeply ingrained to me. But I think that inevitably the World Bank will have little choice. The potential for spreading knowledge through blogs and other web resources is enormous, and other players in development are beginning to really take advantage of it. We can either be dragged, kicking and screaming, into a more open conversation with clients, partners, and civil society, or we can take this opportunity to make a new introduction for ourselves while the technology is still fresh.