Mike Dickison (Whanganui Regional Museum): What I learned about massive branded projects
Channel: NDF - National Digital Forum
Date: 2016-12-07

Lightning talks
3:30 - 4.30pm Tuesday 22 November, Main Stage (Soundings)

Full title:
What I learned about massive branded projects from editing Wikipedia

We seem addicted to starting large digital information projects that bear our institutional branding: Te Ara, NZ Birds Online, NZ Organism Register, and many others. These are slow to start, slow to change direction, slow to update, require constant infusions of money and staff, but in the end seem doomed to wither away or become zombies. Some of this time and money would be better spent in open projects like Wikipedia, a useful counterexample for fans of large projects. Its lessons:
• start small
• do something imperfect now and leave room to fix it
• embrace open editing
• build on open resources
• the launch is the start, not the end

Mike is Curator of Natural History at the Whanganui Regional Museum. He taught graphic design before going back to school to study flightless birds; his talk on the biology of Big Bird is the world's-most-watched pechakucha. He taught digital literacy at the University of Canterbury, runs Whanganui Wiki Wednesday, and wrote the best-selling New Zealand guide to playing the ukulele.