Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Stop the Madness, GlobalGiving style


Yesterday Bill Easterly, one of the first economists I got to know and admired immensely at the World Bank working on Russia, gave a talk at the Center for Global Development about his new book, Reinventing Aid. Bill has since become a valued friend, and it's with both admiration and much gratitude that Dennis and I have contributed a chapter to this book. It's one of the benefits of being part of an edited volume--you can admire the book because of all the other amazing thinkers who contributed to the volume, whose reflected glory benefits your own work, "judged by the company you keep, etc." More on their chapters later.

I'm also pleased to blog about the book because it gives me an excuse to highlight a little known obsession about Robert Dubois and Alison McQuade--some of the youngest and most dynamic staff members we have here at GlobalGiving. You see, to paraphrase Bill, Reinventing Aid is a collection of some of the most interesting thinking around how to "STOP THE MADNESS"--that is, stop doing what we know doesn't work, and start trying something else. And for some reason that I can't fathom--besides the fact that this is one of the most insufferable music videos I've ever seen--"STOP THE MADNESS" is Robert and Alison's favorite video. They love to play it at the end of a long hard day of work and leave us all at a loss as to what draws them to a video that was made just about the time they were born. You can be just as puzzled too--here it is:

No comments: