What incentives are there for local participants to maintain a mesh network

[m-anish]

Perhaps we need to more deeply think about incentives for people who will undergo training and will be responsible for maintaining and extending the mesh network while the rest of us from Dharamsala are gone. The success of this project could largely depend on this.

[m-anish]

Also, it might be an interesting idea to consider bringing people who will maintain/extend the mesh network to Dharamsala for some training as our time there will be stretched across many activities.

[mikkokotila]

This seems like a key question to ask. I'll call and let's discuss this.

[mikkokotila]

Why does a farmer cultivate their fields? Why does a mother nurture their child? Why does a person do a good job?

All these, and any human behavior is generally speaking affected by four aspects:

• having the required understanding
• having the required motivation
• having the required ability
• having the required reminders

For example, a person might come to understand the many negative effects of smoking. Let's say the person has children, so they are motivated by the idea of living longer and healthier to benefit their children. Then they will take some nicotine chewing gum to increase their ability. Finally, they will tell all their close people that they are quitting smoking, so they those people will remind them. That's a very basic example of how the four-aspect model of human behavior works.

There are other theories that are useful, for example related with habit forming, but at best such theories are just a compliment to the above.

Therefore, the answer to our question (as per the title) comes from identifying:

• how does it matter to the person of a given community
• what personal motivations can be meaningfully connected with the understanding
• what kind of skills are needed to do the job
• what kind of reminders can be provided

[mikkokotila]

So the very short answer is that incentives is just one part, motivation. Generally speaking behavior change interventions that focus on motivations fail. For example, a very large number of smokers want to quit smoking but still don't.

[mikkokotila]

Basically, the process could be expressed as a progression of questions:

UNDERSTANDING: What is the behavior change?

This can be simply expressed in two questions:

1. how is the world right now?
2. how will the world be after the behavior change?

But because this is not very useful, it's better to use these four questions:

1. what is wrong with things right now?
2. what are the causes that led to it?
3. how does it look like when the wrong is made right?
4. what are the causes leading to it?

ABILITY: what skills are needed?

1. what skill are needed?
2. are those skills currently present?
3. what is required for introducing those skills?

MOTIVATION: what incentives are needed?

1. what incentives are needed?
2. are those incentives currently present?
3. what is required for introducing those skills?
4. when present, does the person clearly understand the meaning of those incentives?

TRIGGERS: what reminders are needed?

1. what reminders are needed?
2. are those reminders currently present?
3. what is required for introducing those reminders?
4. what negative reminders are currently present
5. how can those reminders be removed/minimized or how can their relevance be reduced?

With triggers there is also the important consideration regarding how the triggers can be best connected with motivations. In fact, the less there is distinction between the trigger and motivation, the stronger the trigger. One of my favorite example of this is a sign-post that says "living children" as opposed to "slow down".