Now that Wikipedia is perfect, 3 opportunities for your institution to shine

Photo by Joe Penniston on Flickr.

Not too long ago, while reading The Ascent of Money, I had to refresh my memory about the events leading to the French revolution. The Wikipedia entry on the subject made me sad. Now I had to read two books. (The article alone is over 3,300 words long.)

I believe that on their way to perfection and completeness, Wikipedia is offering us at least 3 opportunities to shine: brevity, humour and passion.

1. Brevity

Due to its desire to tell the full story, Wikipedia is quickly becoming unusable for anything other than scholarly research. The length, depth and level of detail of many entries greatly surpasses the information needs if you just want to know a bit about the topic. The article on the causes of the French revolution is not at all a very long entry, yet already some thousand words longer than the average TED talk.

There is another way, which offers an opportunity to institutions with knowledge and creativity: videos. Take the Open University’s 60-Second Adventures in Thought about Schrödinger’s cat. In 81 seconds they manage to tell basically the same story as the 2,500-word Wikipedia entry. Plus, it made me laugh.

Most people don’t want to know about Schrödinger’s cat at all. And even if they might, it’s more likely they’ll start with the movie. Can’t get enough? Wikipedia’s there to tell you everything, but by then you’ve already become a scholar of parallel universes and quantum mechanics. Read the rest of this entry »

Promoting culture (2)

Photo by Sebastian Martin on Flickr.

I just finished reading Resonate by Nancy Duarte. The book’s promise is bold. According to Dan Post in the introduction, when “applied with passion and purpose, the concepts in this book will accelerate your career trajectory or propel your social cause.” And the book delivers, thankfully.

Resonate is about composing engaging presentations that transform audiences. It provides hands-on advice and compelling case studies to change the 45-minute PowerPoint-dominated ordeals you repeatedly have to sit through into life-altering experiences.

Apart from the inevitable Jobs and Reagan examples, quite some of the case studies are about cultural icons, such as the 2008 TED talk by conductor Benjamin Zander. Watch it if you haven’t already, its message is becoming ever more relevant.

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What would Lady Gaga do if she were a museum?

Inspired by the thought-provoking presentation below and the fact Lady Gaga has almost 80 million scrobbles on last.fm, all-time second after only the Beatles, I wondered: What would Lady Gaga do if she were a museum?

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