hlanthorn

Thoughts from #evalcon on evidence uptake, capacity building

I attended a great panel today, hosted by the thintankinitiative.org and IDRC and featuring representatives from three of TTI’s cohort of think tanks. This is part of the broader global evaluation week (#evalcon) happening in Kathmandu and focused on building bridges: use of evaluation for decision making and policy influence. The notes on evidence-uptake largely comeContinueContinue reading “Thoughts from #evalcon on evidence uptake, capacity building”

What I lost / terror

Here’s a post that I’ve been half-meaning to write for a while. For some time, I thought I had said all I needed to say in writing some words for her memorial. . If the enormity of our – my – loss truly ever hits me, it will be through the small, shared moments thatContinueContinue reading “What I lost / terror”

Teaching qualitative analysis: an intro

Teaching qualitative analysis is not easy for several reasons. first, an awful lot of material on doing qualitative research focuses on data collection. relatedly, then, a lot of academic papers that draw on qualitative data and analytic methods focus on data collection and organization. too often the use of an analytic software stands in for anContinueContinue reading “Teaching qualitative analysis: an intro”

Revisiting maximum city amid Delhi’s air pollution

Earlier this week, a friend responded to this article on Delhi’s pollution levels by reporting to Facebook: In the last week, 2 of my friends have moved back (one permanently & the other temporarily) to the States because of peak pollution levels. Others are booking flights to leave the city for portions of the winter…ContinueContinue reading “Revisiting maximum city amid Delhi’s air pollution”

Avoiding perversions of evidence-informed decision-making

*This is a joint post with Suvojit, here. . Avoiding “we saw the evidence and we made a decision…” “…and that decision was: given that the evidence didn’t confirm our priors or show a program to be a success, to try to downplay and hide the evidence.” . Before we dig into that statement (based-on-a-true-story-involving-people-like-us),ContinueContinue reading “Avoiding perversions of evidence-informed decision-making”

Brief thoughts on tolerance from George Washington via Sarah Vowell

There’s a lot of talk recently in various quarters about “tolerance” and who is and who is not — individually, nationally, etc. not all of it makes sense or rings true. . It was nice, then, to come across this snippet from a letter from George Washington written after the war for the independence ofContinueContinue reading “Brief thoughts on tolerance from George Washington via Sarah Vowell”

Draft thoughts on showing the work over time in a theory of change (comments welcome)

In draft work with Vegard Iversen (see here), we have been developing some ideas around using (and showing) both ex ante and ex post theories of change. This is partly in line with a learning agenda for theories of change (as outlined in Valters’ recent work here and in my follow-up here, among other places). AContinueContinue reading “Draft thoughts on showing the work over time in a theory of change (comments welcome)”

John Oliver on why context/setting matters

#lastweektonight, on mandatory minimums (video here, article with embedded video). . Context is important. For instance, shouting the phrase, “I’m coming,” is fine when catching a bus but not ok when you’re already on the bus.”

Tentative thoughts on ownership: work-in-progress

I am road-testing a few ideas from the conclusion of my thesis, in which I try to bring out two themes recurring throughout the analyses on adoption and implementation of the Phase I pilot of the AMFm in Ghana, between 2010 and 2012. These themes are ownership and risk-taking. I have already written a bitContinueContinue reading “Tentative thoughts on ownership: work-in-progress”

#rebunking

I attempted to start a very small trend on twitter tonight after reading a Mcsweeny’s article on the topic of rebunking. For one, the article (here) is quite funny and deserves a read. But, for two, it also introduces the idea of rebunking, as in ‘that conspiracy theory was technically debunked but I rebunked it.’ContinueContinue reading “#rebunking”