Mobile Hype: Filling in the Gaps
Why SMS-based Research Is Powerful Only if Done Right
In development, the hype around a technology can sometimes mask its true value.
The sexier the technology, the more susceptible it is to this risk. And SMS, it’s pretty sexy: already in the hands of millions of people who don’t have any other far-reaching communication channel, effective (sometimes the most effective) in even the most rural of areas, affordable to acquire and affordable to use. Read a few blog posts about ICT4D (Information and Communication Technology for Development) and the use of mobile as ‘liberation technology,’ as some academic institutions are calling it, and it’s easy to get the sense that there’s little that mobile can’t do. Sometimes this perception is extended, even—there’s little that mobile shouldn’t do. As one social impact investor observed, “what’s your mobile strategy” has become 1 of 2 automatic questions when speaking with a new potential investee.
As a result of all this hype, the training team at Echo spends a lot of time managing expectations. They start every demo and every pitch with a clear outline of the limitations of SMS. With a service product like Echo Mobile’s, the provider only wins if the product works, and keeps working. And the product only works if it’s used in the right way.
Here’s what we say at the beginning of each new customer relationship:
Don’t fire your field team, SMS can’t replace in-person research. You can’t run a 30-question household survey via SMS and expect to get high quality data or avoid high rates of attrition. You can’t blast a message out to 5000 of your beneficiaries and expect a meaningful response rate. In this region, there are a lot of ways to get scammed by a message you receive via SMS, and to date, very few ways to gain. There’s a tremendously well-justified distrust of unsolicited messages, especially those originating from short codes like the ones Echo uses, and overcoming this barrier has everything to do with trust and ideally, an existing,trust-filled relationship with the sender.
You can’t “SMS-enable” your organization, and expect immediate returns. SMS is a tool—an incredibly powerful one, that when deployed correctly can indeed transform the way organizations and their beneficiaries, customers, and users communicate with each other. It can give a loud voice to a population that traditionally has very few audible channels. It can turn microfinance customers into stakeholders in an MFI. It can turn solar system users into product designers. It can give a head office a real-time feed of the situation in the field right now, not 6 months ago when a research project was initiated. And it can produce valuable insights over the course of a weekend that can be converted into better-informed business decisions on Monday.
Most of all, SMS can help organizations fill in the gaps. In the world of social impact, monitoring and evaluation is the new wicked problem. Funders who were once inspired by a great story about bed nets are now asking for evidence that rates of malaria have declined. Social investors who were once happy knowing their investee’s product was affordable now want to know that the people buying them are actually ‘poor’. If they’re lucky, and savvy, the companies and organizations being asked these questions have some data to draw from. They may have contracted a research firm and have some baseline numbers on their market and a public health study confirming that their solution can make a difference. But maybe now it’s three years down the road, and they want to see their report card. They commission the research, and they find an incremental uptick in their primary metrics. Or worse, no change at all. That’s when they wish they had filled in the gaps.
Basic, cheap tools (and of course SMS is one of them) could have turned that long flat line into a multidimensional roller coaster of a story about what actually happened. A single, 1 shilling data point every two weeks, with a sample size of 100, may well have exposed a real trend, or a host of sub-trends now invisible in their follow-up study.
It’s an exciting time to be working in technology, especially in East Africa. With our own product we’ve seen tremendous successes and clear failures. Like most everything, only a fearless, honest understanding of this technology, unbiased by hype, wishful thinking, and the allure of a great PR story, can lead to realizing its full potential.
