There is an unassuming old Pakistani woman whose wrinkled hands betray years of experience.  At 90 plus, this pint size healer travels an hour every day to visit our home.  Though she needs a handrail to climb the stairs, she requires no assistance to massage the arthritis out of hands and to banish the pain from a warped neck.   So talented is this illiterate human panacea, even British trained doctors have been astonished.

Mama G, as we affectionately call her, is the definition of practice makes perfect.  A living reminder that experience – real experience outside the classroom – matters.

Though Mama G probably couldn’t lift a hammer, it seems she might know more about building homes for those at the bottom of the pyramid than others.

I’ve worked in the low-income housing industry for a few months & though some people say that qualifies me as an ‘expert’ in the sector, I’d say that I’ve learned enough to know that I have only a loose grasp on the nuances of the issue—just.

On Tuesday, the New York Times published an Op-ed titled “Hands Off Our Houses” that resonated with me quite strongly: the thrust of the argument was that the academically-led idea of a $300 pre-fabricated home for the poor simply doesn’t jive with a practical on-the-ground understanding of a slum-dwellers needs, lifestyle & preconditions.

The concept of a $300 house (which includes a solar panel & a tablet PC) has always bothered me.  Even if it was fiscally possible to provide such a high-tech-equipped, enviro-friendly house for only $300 at an address outside of Disneyland, it simply doesn’t match the true needs of the poor.   It smacks of an apple store geek designing a home while picturing himself as the impoverished dweller (skinny jeans & all).

The reality on the ground is that people operate businesses out of their homes, store their cattle in their bedrooms and generally have their tech-lust satisfied once they’ve obtained a cell phone and a small CRT TV.

Also, homes aren’t popsicles:  you can’t upsell without considering the switching costs (and I’m not talking about moving trucks here).  People, especially in slums, are community oriented.  Those at the BoP define their lives more by the people they spend their time with than by the assets that they have.

It is not possible to simply plant a fancy-shmantzy house, hand over a title and leave.  Families need to be coaxed & urged to move and careful attention needs to be paid to providing a new community once its all done with.  If anything, housing is not an easy industry.

The NYT article walks through a myriad of important nuances to consider so I’ll try not to steal their thunder.  There is a broader lesson to be learned – a lesson that Mama G silently screams: experience matters.

Experience matters: consult the end user when designing a product or service. This spans every industry & expertise from designing shampoo in Canada to crafting IMF policies for developing nations.

Solution seekers to poverty in Pakistan need to consult Pakistanis—and not just rich ones, the poor ones too.  The same goes for social entrepreneurs trying to find a ‘fix’ in Zambia, Cambodia & Columbia too.

Tap the experts – they know much more than you can ever read in a book.

- Bryan

p.s. apologies to the apple geeks out there…I’m with you

Tags: experience, housing, Pakistan, social enterprise