Sorry for not updating in a while. Last week I was busy finishing up the semester and moving back to NJ, and now I’m preparing to move to DC this weekend. With my downtime at home, I’ve been finalizing this ICT for Disaster Response project and writing up my DigiActive post on InSTEDD’s Mekong Collaboration Program. Which reminds me, I have yet to blog about my experience with interviewing InSTEDD’s team members.
So close to submitting the post for review!
Two Sundays ago, I Skype-chatted with Ed Jezierski (VP of Engineering) and Shannon Oliver (Director of Communication, Mekong Region) for about an hour each. Ed had recently flown to Seattle from InSTEDD’s center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, whereas Shannon was still stationed in the region. I spoke with Ed first, whose technological expertise provided a detailed explanation of how InSTEDD uses its collaboration tools (GeoChat, Mesh4X, Evolve). The bandwidth in Cambodia wasn’t cooperating at first, so Shannon and I had to wait a few hours before reconnecting (Ed said the slow connection presents an everyday problem to communication between team members). When we were finally able to connect, Shannon presented a thorough overview of InSTEDD’s background, mission, and projects in the Mekong region; he helped me understand the recent successes of the organization and nicely complemented what I had learned from Ed. Both men were very enthusiastic about answering my questions and I felt like I came away with a lot of information (read: I recorded over two hours of conversation). They thanked me for the interview and encouraged me to Skype them if I had further questions.
I’ve spent the past couple days listening to the two interviews and jotting down important features to discuss. I just finished the draft of my DigiActive post an hour or so ago. Though it seemed pretty daunting to synthesize all the interview information into a blog post, I somehow managed to do so (not gonna lie, the post is rather long). Given all of the success InSTEDD has had with its innovative technology, I’m glad I have the opportunity to give their work more much-deserved attention (no pressure, right?). I’ll link to my post once it’s up on DigiActive’s site 
UPDATE: The post is up, you can read it here.
