"Imagining a Smithsonian Commons" CIL 2009 Michael Edson PowerPoint

Imagining a Smithsonian Commons Michael Edson Director, Web and New Media Strategy Smithsonian Institution, Office of the CIO Computers in Libraries (CIL) 2009

Preamble
@mpedson, slideshare.net/edsonm, smithsonian20.typepad.com, usingdata.typepad.com
Beware…The opinions in this presentation are mine, not the official policy/strategy of the Smithsonian…
We’re a little bird
… Darwin…Write this down so it doesn’t slip away
How is this good for you as…
A technologist? (How can you help us do this?)
An enthusiast? A re-user? A citizen?
Urgency, and courage

Preamble
Urgency and courage

A Model Institution

A Model Institution
Visitors
Customers
Collaborators
Contributors
Champions
Critics
Competitors

A Model Institution
What example shall we provide?

What example shall we provide?
A Model Institution A return to the commons.

Democratize knowledge and innovation
Create a free and open commons
Act with urgency and verve
A Smithsonian Commons is good civics, good mission, and good business
A Model Institution Relevance

What is a Commons? A set of resources maintained in the public sphere for the use and benefit of everyone

What is a Commons?

What is a Commons? The Anti-Commons…

What is a Commons? An organized workshop where raw materials can be found and assembled into new things.

What is a Commons? “ The public domain is not some gummy residue left behind when all the good stuff has been covered by property law. The public domain is the place where we quarry the building blocks of our culture.” James Boyle

What is a Commons?

What is a Commons?
“ Free resources are crucial to innovation and creativity”
Lawrence Lessig

What is a Commons?
“ I’ve been giving away my books online ever since my first novel, and boy has it ever made me a bunch of money.”
Corey Doctrow

What is a Commons?
Commerce and the Commons

What is a Commons?
Crazy…?

What is a Commons?
IBM
$10M into patent commons
$500M value from $100M investment

What is a Commons?
“ IBM provides a surprising example of how a large, mature company with an engrained proprietary culture can embrace openness and self-organization as catalysts for reinvention.”
Wikinomics

What is a Commons?
Collaborative Model

What is a Commons?
Collaborative Model
“ we are living in the middle of a remarkable increase in our ability to share, to cooperate with one another, and to take collective action, all outside the framework of traditional institutions and organization …Getting the free and ready participation of a large, distributed group with a variety of skills has gone from impossible to simple.”
Clay Shirky

What is a Commons?

What is a Commons?
The ascendance of free commons models
The erosion of proprietary models
A new way of organizing

Commons Examples

Commons Examples
Washington D.C. Data Catalog

Commons Examples
The National Institutes of Health

Commons Examples
“ We were established by congress as a universal repository of human creativity and knowledge, and that includes vast amounts of items that are in the public domain. It is our mission to make those freely available, whether in the 21 reading rooms of the Library of Congress, or online.”
Library of Congress spokesman Matt Raymond

Commons Examples
Flickr Commons

Commons Examples
Flickr Commons
Smithsonian end-user survey (opt-in, non scientific)
84% likely to reuse SI images
35% for school, 16% professional/personal
41% say they’ll reference from blog/web
97% say they’re more likely to visit SI sites
100% have more positive opinion of SI – emphatically so!

Commons Examples
Flickr Commons
8 views/month vs 2,000 views/month

Commons Examples
Flickr Commons

Commons Examples
MIT Open Courseware (OCW)

Commons Examples
“ I was amazed that a university such as MIT would freely give access to its educational information.”
Triatno Yudo Harjoko University of Indonesia

Commons Examples
A more effective model than proprietary contracts

Commons Examples
Subbiah Arunachalam
Indian National Knowledge Commission
1,100 new universities

Commons Examples
“ Unlocking Knowledge, Empowering Minds…” No Registration Required.
Open Courseware Tag Line

Commons Examples
Common Characteristics
Free sharing of information
Licensing or permissions structure
Fluid institutional boundaries
Network effects

The Rise of the Commons

The Un-Common Institution

99% decentralized

A “thousand wildflowers…”

Search and findability
Usability and branding
Web 2.0 patterns
Platform development/maintenance
Duplication of effort
Nobody would design a world-class institution like this!

Vexatious Phenomena

Vexatious Phenomena
Unexpected Rivals in Google Search
Google Images Wikipedia Ocean.com Discoveryeducation.com NASA Enchantedlearning.com

Vexatious Phenomena
Unexpected Rivals in Reach
Enchantedlearning.com si.edu discoveryeducation.com ocean.com Google Images Wikipedia Ocean.com

Vexatious Phenomena
Unexpected Rivals in Reach
Enchantedlearning.com si.edu discoveryeducation.com ocean.com

Vexatious Phenomena
Traffic Trending Down

Vexatious Phenomena
Brand Identity

Vexatious Phenomena
We’re competing with… everybody!

Vexatious Phenomena
The Demographic Tsunami
November 2007 data: Pew Internet and American Life Project

Vexatious Phenomena
The Demographic Tsunami
“ Everything we hear from people we interview is that today’s consumers draw no distinctions between an organization’s Web site and their traditional bricks-and-mortar presence: both must be excellent for either to be excellent.”
Lee Rainie Pew Internet and American Life Project

Vexatious Phenomena

The Smithsonian Commons
So…How shall we advance the increase and diffusion of knowledge now …?

We’re a publicly funded institution with a civic mission

The nature of our mission

Scope of endeavors

Siloed operations

The model of the commons…

Rise of social media

Rise of distributed collaboration

Rise of crowdsourcing

Rise of “free” business models

Rise of “free” business models
Shifting attitudes about content and brands

I assert that reshaping our digital identity around the concept of a Smithsonian Commons is the way to move forward—it’s the game changer: a low risk, high reward proposition that addresses the fundamental challenges of the Institution in terms of brand, audience, operations, speed, governance, integrity, education, research, revenue generation, leadership, and legacy.

I want to be a commons…

Don’t forget about us!!!

Thanks! Michael Edson Director, Web and New Media Strategy Smithsonian Institution [email_address]

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"Imagining a Smithsonian Commons" CIL 2009 Michael Edson PowerPoint

by Michael Edson on Mar 31, 2009

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