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The human factor
Eric Abbott's projects have taken him around the globe, but all have one thing in common.
- Just inside Eric Abbott's office door is an oversized Russian wall poster illustrated with cartoon characters. It's a souvenir from one of his many international projects during his career, but it's also symbolic of his efforts to convince Americans to understand the "human factor" of global relations.
"Of all the projects in which I have been involved in all the different countries, they all have something in common - the human factor," said Abbott, professor in the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication.
On April 1 Abbott received the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished International Service Award. The honor recognized his "extensive and far-reaching" international efforts for four decades.
The award joins two others he has garnered this year. He won the International Award from the Association for Communication Excellence, a professional organization for communicators, and also the Harry Heath/Lou Thompson Jr. advising award from the Greenlee School.
Abbott's work has taken him across the planet. He has evaluated technology transfer in Central America, assisted agricultural communicators in Russia, helped develop community-based food projects in Uganda, and surveyed farmers in Tajikistan, in addition to projects in or for Nigeria, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Thailand and other locales.
Trips to Siberia and Russia's far east resulted in the large poster that was part of a forest fire prevention campaign he helped create. The United States Agency for International Development-funded project was aimed at preserving Russia's massive forest regions.
The program came out of the 1997 Kyoto Agreement concerning climate change.
"We were to design the educational component to encourage Russians to practice safer forest fire behavior," Abbott explained. He said the direct approach was useless because years of communist control gave most Russians a deaf ear to commands.
Smokey Bear, the U.S. icon for forest fire prevention, resembled the Russian bear and its image of top-down control.
A softer message using cartoon drawings was chosen.
"The Russians weren't paying attention to the messages that said, ‘You will do this!'" Abbott said. "As a communicator I spend a long time with people to learn their points of view and what are their constraints to get them to change."
Abbott first traveled abroad as an Iowa State undergrad in 1965. He had taken Spanish in high school and at ISU. "I thought since I was studying Spanish, I ought to go somewhere to use it."
He participated in a YMCA service project in Bogota, Colombia, building a school in a poor mountainside area overlooking the city. "It was a transforming experience," he noted.
A year later he was in Peru with a group of journalism students who were being trained to be international correspondents. Abbott said, "We got State Department funding for this training, and logged about 4000 miles in-country writing stories back to U.S. newspapers."
That was followed by more time in Colombia conducting research for his master's degree. After a stint in the Army and earning a Ph.D. at Wisconsin, he returned to Iowa State. Before long the international grants and projects began, and, as Abbott said, "one thing led to another."
His teaching is permeated with knowledge gained from his overseas ventures. Last summer he and a colleague spent three weeks in Uganda collecting materials for use in three courses in three colleges: Liberal Arts and Sciences, Agriculture and Engineering.
Abbott is coordinator of the cross-disciplinary Technology and Social Change program that - to no surprise - has a strong international perspective.
He has asked his students, "What would help a developing country?" Again, he emphasizes the human factor and learning what the people really want.
"Americans have experience and desire to help, but we don't have much experience with the actual needs," Abbott said.
He has asked students whether a computer lab would be practical in certain African areas. The answer often is "no," due to irregular power, rampant viruses and outlandish network access fees. He'll ask engineering students similar questions.
"Most problems are human problems, and until you understand them, you can't apply the engineering solutions," he said.
"I try to get the students to focus on the right thing to do and determine the impacts. I hope what happens is that they understand that, hey, this is complex."
Eric Abbott
Around LAS
April 28 to May 11, 2008
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