If the field of public policy advocacy -- planning, measurement, reporting -- occupied a place at the top of the issue food chain, like, say, defense, we would no doubt have entire banks of RAND-like brains forecasting what is coming over the horizon for the brave new world that global issues advocates will inhabit. But as things stand, we'll have to settle for Wired Magazine, TED, etc.

In fact, it's remarkable how closely Wired's cover story this month, "The End of Science: The Petabyte Age: Because More Isn't Just More -- More Is Different," which maps the trends that are changing the the scientific, public policy, legal and business worlds, also gets at the new expectations that advocates for better policies and practices on a range of global issues face as they conduct and measure their work. Funders and policymakers want a veritable mountain of supporting data, and rigorous analysis.

Cross cutting global issues require issue experts and advocates to know how their issue plays into the overall picture. What are the business implications of climate change or human trafficking? What legal structures are needed? What sort of research is needed? Global issues advocates live in a less and less segmented world--not only geographically, but in terms of sector involvement as well. Not only do businesspeople fund a lot of the philanthropy behind our work, we're also expected to rope them in as stakeholders. And as science, business and policy move toward data-driven analysis, nonprofits working on global issues will feel the pressure to produce numbers, data.

Do you do peacebuilding work? Take, for instance this piece, "Tracking the News: A Smarter Way to Predict Riots and Wars." This is news aggregation as a new way to supplement qualitative expert analysis for the purpose of predicting violence and civil strife around the world. It won't solve conflict, certainly. There is still much need for good qualitiative research, relationship-building and public mobilization, but many funders and policymakers will want you peacebuilders to show serious data gathering and analysis as part of your own work on solutions. And if you're doing that important qualitative work, be prepared for your funder to ask you to get precise about its outputs and outcomes.

Let's be clear about one thing though: stories are the lifeblood of our work. There are some ways in which advocates will have to evolve their approach to the problems they work on, just to be able to relate to their funders and partners in other sectors. But there are important differences. See last week's post on what sorts of rigorous methods constitute good measures and which put advocates on "the wrong side of science."