Sylvia's Journal

I have a new stretch assignment that requires me to work remotely with a team in a country 7 time zones ahead of me and in French, with very little time to prepare. I have worked in this country before and with some of the people involved. I compare my current experience with that of some years ago. Then I did not need a contract, since I was employed and these were my colleagues. I would read up in the week leading up to the assignment, get my ticket, get on a plane, travel through the 7 time zones, land, get to my hotel and have a few days to connect with old and new colleagues, get the lay of the land, prepare the workshop and off we go. The project would have been billed for at least 14 days of my time, plus overhead; an expensive but common proposition. That’s why I have over 2 million miles on Delta.

Now all this has to be done by Google Meet or Zoom, Google docs and comments, a series of iterations and then trust that we can pull it off next week, it being a series of three mini workshops conducted using Zoom and Google’s Jamboard.

It’s all very new and somewhat nerve racking. I am in full experimentation mode, as many of us are now in this new world of virtual everythings.

I gave myself a crash course in Mural, Miro and Jamboards and landed on Google’s Jamboards. Not the most sophisticated but the simplest of them all requiring the least amount of band width. Band with is an issue, especially when we start to descent from the central (capital) level to the periphery (regions, districts). It is clear that the work will have to be done by the local team. For one, they are in the same time zone, and also because they know the context so much better than I do.

This is also happening in other far away countries I work in, where I am asked to connect locals to locals, local resources that can do the work I do in ways that are better and cheaper. I think the current crisis is teaching everyone that there are alternatives to the classic model of experts in the US or Europe, flying in, being put up in a hotel, workshops in hotels. The alternatives are cheaper, more cost effective and probably just as good, with a light touch from the experts far away, if at all.  This is how it should be, should have been for a long time. But there are interests at stake, the (expensive) experts who need to be paid, the organization replenishing its overhead kitty by sending these experts out. The US taxpayers footing the bill. The new order is an awakening: we can do more for less.

If we pull off next weeks’ assignments, producing intended outcomes, this will prove that I have worked myself out of a job. I am glad I am at the end, and not the beginning, of my international public health career. I see less and less use of people like me, and more value being given to local experts. 

But for now, I am a little nervous and asking myself, can I pull this off? Can I handle Zoom and Jamboards and glitches and time zones and Zoom fatigue all at the same time, and all that in French?