It is a fantastic resource, if we had paid somebody with the expectation that it would have worked out so well it be hard to imagine it so.

Hats off to Dave & Bill - and for that matter to the rest of the SWC.
That is going to be a classic point. Throwing money and technology at the problem would have probably only met with fits and starts, and a contractor with money in his pockets.

Holly Higgins, the author of the poignant article in the Wash Post on her NGO work in Helmand, posed the question to me of whether the SWC matters. I've tried recruiting her to join, but it seems she is very busy between responding to the interest in the article, and other writing pursuits. I think she is definitely one of those people who is eminently worth recruiting, so she can help frame discussion from a boots on the ground perspective.

Guys like NDD fall in the same vein. They are on the front lines and know what they are talking about because they live it every day.