Blessed are the pessimists; they shall not be disappointed

Three months ago when the server for our IVR was making its umpteenth trip from Red Cross HQ to be reinstalled at the telephone company following another round of repairs, it felt like this project was on the verge of becoming a bad joke.

Already beset by delays, just as it looked like we were finally going to go live, the most important piece of equipment in the whole system packed up.

Having already come from Canada, our server – a black slab of electronic complexity, which, when working, can answer 15 calls simultaneously, correctly play each caller their individually requested information, and carry out surveys – then went on a dishearteningly circuitous tour of Port-au-Prince.

Taking in variously the telephone company’s server section, the Red Cross IT department, the manufacturer’s in-country service centre and a friend’s front room (which had the most reliable air conditioning to keep the electronics cool), its travels only ended after a new motherboard arrived from Puerto Rico.

Even fitted out with fresh insides there were still a considerable number of visits to see the machine in its permanent new home at the telephone company to be made before it was truly ready to begin taking calls.

And then it started.

On the first day of having the 733 line publicly available the system received a solid 800 calls. ‘Not bad,’ we thought.

One benefit of the extended technical delays had been that it provided us time to work on other aspects of the project, particularly the promotional plan which included plugging the 733 number through SMS, on our own radio show, and in billboard, radio and TV advertising.

By day two, those 800 calls in the first 24 hours had jumped to 5,000. On the third day Telefon KwaWouj, as the system is known in Creole, had 7,000 calls. On the fourth day: 8,000.

Not combined figures, these are the numbers of calls the system was receiving each day.

After months of delays, disappointments and false dawns, we were absolutely stunned by the success.

By the end of the first week the system had received more than 36,000 calls. There have been days since that have peaked at nearly 10,000, and eight weeks in we’re a hair’s breadth from our 300,000th caller.

On top of the thousands of calls from people listening in to recorded information, we have the added bonus that almost one-in-ten callers are opting to complete a survey, providing a wealth of feedback and a mine of information to help shape operational work.

In a project like this with all its ups and downs, and with such a focus on just getting the thing working in the first place, it has been easy at times to forget the purpose behind it all.

Seeing the first data come in has been a real reminder of the hunger people have for information, and the gaps elsehwere which make the confidential Telefon KwaWouj line so attractive. Initial figures show that far and away the most accessed information on the system is that about sexual health.

As more data comes in, we’ll get an increasing picture of the information people want and need, as well as how we can do our own work better.

The challenge then will be to keep updating the system with new surveys and information to keep it interesting and to keep people calling.

But for now, with 30,000 survey results to collate and analyse, we are victims of our own success trying to grapple with the vast amounts of data our two-month-old is producing on a daily basis.

Too much information is a wonderful problem to have of course, but, as all good pessimists know, every silver lining has a cloud.