Michael Edson (@mpedson)Director, Web and New Media StrategySmithsonian InstitutionFebruary 22, 2013

You can tell a lot about someone by what they choose to measure…and what they measure with

You can tell a lot about someone by what they choose to measure…and what they measure with

You can see thescale

of their dreams

Scale is a matter of perspective

Video: http://youtu.be/EbVKWCpNFhY

“These go to 11”

This is NASA’s Chandrax-ray observatory

(operated by the Smithsonian)

It takes pictures of the universe

“We won’t even consider a new project unless it

returns 10x better performance than the last one.”

A Chandra project astrophysicist told me:

10x farther back to the beginning of the universe.”

returns 10x improvement lets us see “Every

returns 10x better (simulation)

The Crab Nebula (composite) http://www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2013/w49b/

Let’s make some graphs

At this scale, each one of these represents 10 million people

Each one of these represents1 year

Annual attendanceNational Gallery of Art1978 through 2011

-1% growth over 33 years

Annual attendanceNational Gallery of Art1978 through 2011

People who don’t visit the NGA

People who do visit the NGA

How you feel about this dependsOn what you think your mission isand how you think about scale.But either way…

There’s a lot of room at the top--Business proverb

How you feel about this dependsOn what you think your mission isand how you think about scale.But either way…

“We won’t even consider a new project unless it

returns 10x better performance than the last one.”

Hypothetical Project X, starts where theNational Gallery of Art started, butgrows at 10% a year for 33 years

Let’s adjust the vertical scale(Zoom out to 500 million)

Now, each one of these represents 10 million100 million people

10% annual growth gives you 102 million more visitors/year after 33 years

Wikipedia Unique visits…

Wikipedia Unique visits…

Let’s adjust the vertical scale again(Zoom out to 6 billion)

Now, each one of these represents10 million100 million1 billion people

Oops! Wrong scale! This is actually Wikipedia Unique visits …A MONTH!

(Let’s adjust it to unique visits/year)

Wikipedia Unique visits(…extrapolated to 12 months, an approximation…)

2.4 billion Internet users(34% of world population)

2.4 billion Internet users(34% of world population)

4.6 millionNational Gallery of Art visitors

…A 2.395 billion person difference

A global “audience”of collaborators

(individuals, learners, fans, community) of this scale was not imaginable to an

organization 30 years ago…

But it is now

108.4 million viewers for 2013 Super Bowl

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbk/2241960032/ (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) 2013 super bowl: 108.4 million viewers. http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-super-bowl-ratings-20130204,0,4439351.story

108.4 million viewers for 2013 Super Bowl

1,341,882,399 views of Gangnam Style

http://www.youtube.com/user/officialpsy

108.4 million viewers for 2013 Super Bowl

1,341,882,399 views of Gangnam Style

And

growing

http://blog.ted.com/2012/11/13/ted-reaches-its-billionth-video-view/

Wikipedia 1.7 billion edits

http://toolserver.org/~emijrp/wikimediacounter/

78,879 textcorrections,

by volunteers,today

http://trove.nla.gov.au/

https://www.zooniverse.org/

792,780 people taking part worldwide

http://www.openstreetmap.org/ | http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Stats | http://www.openstreetmap.org/browse/changeset/14947636

Over 900,000 registered usershave contributed 14 million edits

and 1.6 billion locations

http://www.kickstarter.com/year/2012

http://www.kickstarter.com/year/2012

In 2012…2,241,475 people from 177 counties pledged $319,786,629 to support 18,109 projects

http://www.kickstarter.com/year/2012

We love our museums, libraries, and archivesWe want them to be successful

We love our museums, libraries, and archivesWe want them to be successful

We need them to be super successful

• Put the tools of knowledge creation into more hands• Share the joy & meaning of artistic and cultural

exploration with more citizens• Deepen engagement with the challenges that face

our species and nurture the habits of civil andsustainable society

We love our museums, libraries, and archives

• Put the tools of knowledge creation into more hands• Share the joy & meaning of artistic and cultural

exploration with more citizens• Deepen engagement with the challenges that face

our species and nurture the habits of civil andsustainable society

This is our job in society!

We love our museums, libraries, and archives

• Put the tools of knowledge creation into more hands• Share the joy & meaning of artistic and cultural

exploration with more citizens• Deepen engagement with the challenges that face

our species and nurture the habits of civil andsustainable society

But…can we do this quickly enough

and at big enough SCALE to make a substantial difference in the lives of Individuals and the fate our our species?

This is our job in society!

Not if we’re onlycounting this…

1 23

45 6

7

Not if we’re onlythinking like this…

Scale can be confusingIf scale matters, are 1 billion TED videosbetter than 2.4 million museum visits?

Not necessarily, but the vast differencein scale is evidence that something significant—worth studying—is going on

There are more powerful ways of accomplishingmuseum missions thangetting people throughthe doors.

“Anything is scalable”http://www.wired.com/business/2013/01/ff-qa-larry-page/all/

Larry Page

http://books.google.com/books?id=L5zxn5JFIeQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Open communityWeb-centricBorn global

If you want scale

start with this

http://books.google.com/books?id=L5zxn5JFIeQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

1. Start with an open community• Built-in growth potential• Network effects• Joy’s law (the smartest people)• Minimize drag from unnecessary

intellectual property controls

http://books.google.com/books?id=L5zxn5JFIeQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

2. Be web-centricFaster, cheaper, more efficient

http://books.google.com/books?id=L5zxn5JFIeQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

3. Be “born global”• Everyone can be a collaborator,

developer, customer, learner,community member…

• Global scale, by default

http://books.google.com/books?id=L5zxn5JFIeQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Open communityWeb-centricBorn global

Every meetingEvery project

if you careabout scale

http://books.google.com/books?id=L5zxn5JFIeQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

1. Start small2. Ask the users3. Adapt4. Experiment5. Seize the opportunity

at hand

http://books.google.com/books?id=mafZyckH_bAC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

1. Take cues from your lead users2. Build critical mass3. Provide infrastructure for

collaboration4. Take your time to get the

structures and governance right5. Make sure all participants

can harvest value6. Abide by community norms7. Let the process evolve8. Hone your collaborative mind

http://books.google.com/books?id=DVomiOeBg_YC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Museums can go to 11And when they do,

new opportunities present themselves…

…TO BE CONTINUED…