Putting on a human face

by Elizabeth Corley

Last week we met in person with one of the co-hosts of the Open Development camp, Sameer Vasta. He’s been hired as the social media strategist for the World Bank—a man whose job entails putting a human face on a large bureaucratic institution.

One step in his strategy was to start a blog to explore the intersection of the Web and the World Bank. I particularly like his Friday reading list posts.

http://blogs.worldbank.org/insidetheweb/

We’re trying to put a human face on Development Gateway. The task is not so daunting for an organization with fewer than 100 staff. One of our strengths is our diversity; we have an interesting mix of development practitioners and IT programmers. Headquartered in DC, we have a corporate office in Brussels and two satellite offices in Africa. Programmers are based in Argentina, Armenia, Georgia, Romania, and Ukraine. This blog is intended in part to serve as window into the organization, one which allows others to view the many facets of Development Gateway.

Like a Cubist painting, we want to show you various perspectives at the same time. This interdisciplinary approach reflects how we work together as team to provide services to our stakeholders.