The pattern of passionate engagement
July 13th, 2006
Map of edits to Wikipedia’s entry on evolution 12/01-10/05 (This map is produced by IBM’s Watson Research Center and was first published in the July 2006 issue of Discover Magazine.)
As a follow-up to my discussion of Wikipedia in Tuesday’s post on working for your association for free, here is a unique map showing the nearly 2,100 edits by 68 different editors to Wikipedia’s article on the topic of evolution from December 2001 through October 2005. Each vertical line represents a new version of the article, while each color indicates a new editor. The six numbered red dots show important moments in the article’s own “evolution” over almost four years. (To access the explanation for the six dots, please visit the Discover website, sign up as a “member” rather than a subscriber and then create a printer-friendly version of this article.)
Our nation’s emotionally-charged debate about evolution in recent years makes it dangerous to extrapolate too many specific lessons from this map. Mostly, I’m sharing it because I think it is important for association leaders to see tangible evidence that this kind of passionate engagement actually exists. The map definitely shows care and commitment in the social construction of knowledge, as well as the opposite of that idea. While the messiness and volatility of peer production challenges virtually all of the assumptions that association leaders hold about the meaning of volunteerism, the sooner our community is able to come to grips with the new reality that is already in full swing on the Web, the better off our organizations will be in the long run.
Hat tip to Mary Ghikas of the American Library Association, who pointed me to the Discover article. Thanks Mary!
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Entry Filed under: Principled Innovation Blog, What's New?, Social Media, Innovation, Associations, Extreme Makeover, The Association Innovator
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