THE AGE OF SCALE LONDON
2013

I’VE BEEN THINKING A LOT
ABOUT SCOPE, SCALE, AND SPEED

SCOPE WHAT WE CHOOSE TO
WORK ON

SCALE HOW BIG OUR WORK
IS

SPEED THE PACE AT WHICH
WE MOVE

SCOPE SCALE SPEED THE WORLD
HAS CHANGED IN EXACTLY THESE THREE WAYS

BUT MOST GLAMS* HAVEN’T NOTICED
*GALLERIES, LIBRARIES, ARCHIVES, MUSEUMS

MOST
ORGS
HAVEN’T
NOTICED

WE FORGED OUR DREAMS IN
A SIMPLER TIME

WHEN SUCCESS MEANT COLLECTIONS

BUILDINGS

AND STAFF

BUT NOW BILLIONS CAN ENGAGE
AND CONTRIBUTE

OUTCOMES THAT WERE ONCE INCONCEIVABLE
HAVE BECOME ROUTINE

AND NEW TOOLS SUGGEST A
NEW APPROACH TO THE MISSION

NEW DREAMS

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

Video: http://youtu.be/EbVKWCpNFhY MY DREAMS GO
TO 11

The Chandra X-Ray Telescope

“We won’t even consider a
new project unless it returns 10x better performance than the last one.” A Smithsonian Astrophysicist told me

10xfarther back to the beginning
of the universe.” returns 10x improvement lets us see“Every

returns 10x
(simulation)

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

Let’s make some graphs

10 million people
1 year

Annual attendance National Gallery of
Art 1978 through 2011

-1% growth over 33 years
Annual attendance National Gallery of Art 1978 through 2011

People who don’t visit the
NGA People who do visit the NGA

How you feel about this
depends On what you think your mission is and how you think about scale. But either way…

There’s a lot of room
at the top --Business proverb How you feel about this depends On what you think your mission is and 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
the National Gallery of Art started, grows at 10% a year for 33 years

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

10 million
100 million people

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

Wikipedia Unique visits…

Let’s adjust the vertical scale
(Zoom out to 6 billion) Wikipedia Unique visits…

10 million 100 million 1
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)

4.6 million National Gallery of
Art visitors 2.4 billion Internet users (34% of world population)

…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

http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20121209/07431921317/psy-makes-81-million-ignoring-copyright-infringements-gangnam-style.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20121209/07431921317/psy-makes-81-million-ignoring-copyright-infringements-gangnam-style.shtml
Lucia Gangnam Style http://youtu.be/5R1b1GaY8r4

https://plus.google.com/+TimOReilly/posts/VGhQ5kXZaom “It seems to me
that the potential of YouTube to be a game changer in the media marketplace, a powerful new channel and business model for artists is still not widely understood.”

http://www.fastcompany.com/1146469/youtube-monty-python-videos-boost-dvd-sales-23000 via Merete Sanderhoff (@msanderhoff)

23,000% increase in sales after
posting free, high quality clips on YouTube. http://www.fastcompany.com/1146469/youtube-monty-python-videos-boost-dvd-sales-23000 via Merete Sanderhoff (@msanderhoff)

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

http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html Crowd Accelerated Innovation [at
5:50] “And there are just three things you need for this thing to kick into gear. You can think of them as three dials on a giant wheel. You turn up the dials, the wheel starts to turn.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html 1) A crowd “The
bigger the crowd, the more potential innovators there are. That’s important, but actually most people in the crowd occupy these other roles. They’re creating the ecosystem from which innovation emerges.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html 2) Light “You need
clear, open visibility of what the best people in that crowd are capable of, because that is how you will learn how you will be empowered to participate.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html 2) Light “You need
clear, open visibility of what the best people in that crowd are capable of, because that is how you will learn how you will be empowered to participate.” Woah! I think this is a profoundly important concept that merits much deeper contemplation (but not here)

http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html 3) Desire “…Innovation’s hard
work. It’s based on hundreds of hours of research, of practice. Absent desire, it is not going to happen.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html
Openness [at 6:55]

http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html Openness [at 6:55] “We’ve
become a little obsessed with this idea of openness...”

http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html 1) “We opened up
our talks to the world, and suddenly there are millions of people out there helping spread our speakers’ ideas, and thereby making it easier for us to recruit and motivate the next generation of speakers.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html 2) “By opening up
our translation program, thousands of heroic volunteers — some of them watching online right now, and thank you! — have translated our talks into more than 70 languages, thereby tripling our viewership in non-English- speaking countries.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_anderson_how_web_video_powers_global_innovation.html 3) “By giving away
our TEDx brand, we suddenly have a thousand-plus live experiments in the art of spreading ideas. And these organizers, they’re seeing each other, they’re learning from each other. We are learning from them. We’re getting great talks back from them. The wheel is turning.”

http://www.ted.com/pages/tedx_in_a_box

http://www.ted.com/pages/tedx_in_a_box

Wikipedia 1.8 billion edits
http://toolserver.org/~emijrp/wikimediacounter/

SpaceShipOne: owned by the Smithsonian,
but on Wikipedia… 1,414 words, 128 hyperlinks, 15 images, 14 external references, 26 languages, ~400 editors

2006 (Attitudes have changed!

“[Somebody who reads Wikipedia is]
rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him.” Robert McHenry, a former editor-in-chief of the Encyclopaedia Britannica 2006 (Attitudes have changed!

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 users have contributed 14 million edits and 1.6 billion locations

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/technology/internet/17maps.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/technology/internet/17maps.html “’It is a huge
shift,’” said Michael F. Goodchild, a professor of geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. ‘This is putting mapping where it should be, which is the hands of local people who know an area well.’” “That is changing the dynamics of an industry…”

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.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/magazine/why-would-you-ever-give-money-through-kickstarter.html?smid=go-share&_r=1&

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/magazine/why-would-you-ever-give-money-through-kickstarter.html?smid=go-share&_r=1& “…it provides something increasingly
rare in today’s society: a platform for an essentially noneconomic transaction, the kind that builds friendships and communities. Kickstarter…is baffling by the tenets of a self-serving marketplace.”

“…it provides something increasingly rare
in today’s society: a platform for an essentially noneconomic transaction, the kind that builds friendships and communities. Kickstarter…is baffling by the tenets of a self-serving marketplace.”

“…it provides something increasingly rare
in today’s society: a platform for an essentially noneconomic transaction, the kind that builds friendships and communities. Kickstarter…is baffling by the tenets of a self-serving marketplace.” There is an increasing amount of “private space masquerading as public space” John Palfrey, Harvard Berkman Center Digital Public Library of America

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

http://europeana.eu/

http://europeana.eu/ “Scale is really at
the heart of the business model for Europeana” Harry Verwayen Business Development Director Europeana Over 20 million CC-0 Records Over 2,400 content providers

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm This order of magnitude
is visible at web scale

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/China%E2%80%99s+new+Age+of+Enlightenment/23495

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/China%E2%80%99s+new+Age+of+Enlightenment/23495 China is scaling museum
construction to a degree that I can barely comprehend…

http://www.economist.com/node/9339948 China is scaling museum
construction to a degree that I can barely comprehend…

http://www.economist.com/node/9339948 1,000 new museums between
2000 and 2015 THAT’S ONE NEW MUSEUM OPENING EVERY FIVE DAYS FOR 15 YEARS

http://openlibrary.org/

“without users, our shelves are
empty” Brewster Kahle

“The people who are supposed
to be doing universal access to knowledge, and are getting $12b a year to do it, are not getting the job done” Brewster Kahle

http://www.librarything.com/

1.6 million members 81 million
books 96 million tags 2.1 million reviews 3.9 million talk/comments

User “ending2012” has added/cataloged 65,535
books

User “bluetyson” has written 35,779
reviews

User “ThomasKleinert” has added 144,973
tags

“Library is not an institutional
thing: anyone who has a large collection of books has a library.” Tim Spalding

IS SCALE JUST FOR BIG
ORGANIZATIONS?

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO9Q5_D6tItyoilmDogexng

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO9Q5_D6tItyoilmDogexng Public.Resource.Org is a small
non-profit that helps make public/government information available to all. In one project, they ask US government entities to send them old analog videos, which they rip and put online.

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO9Q5_D6tItyoilmDogexng 20 million views on
YouTube 20 million views on Internet Archive MORE VIDEO than all but 3 U.S.A government agencies “Me in my spare time and a couple of volunteers” --Carl Malamud

http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/

”A free, not-for-profit, multi-media web-
book designed as a dynamic enhancement (or even substitute) for the traditional art history textbook.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca- taylor/smarthistory_b_785154.html http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/

512 videos 247 essays 6
million visits Viewed in 200 countries Tech budget of $700 + two laptops http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/

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

http://www.youtube.com/user/smarthistoryvideos ”As professors, we reach
200 students a semester.” -- Beth Harris Last semester, Smarthistory content reached 750,000 users

http://www.youtube.com/user/smarthistoryvideos ”As professors, we reach
200 students a semester.” -- Beth Harris Last semester, Smarthistory content reached 750,000 users

SPECIAL KINDS OF SCALE

http://dml2013.dmlhub.net/content/videos-day-1-keynote-ignite-talks

http://dml2013.dmlhub.net/content/videos-day-1-keynote-ignite-talks
symbolic impactful
thin
thick

http://dml2013.dmlhub.net/content/videos-day-1-keynote-ignite-talks symbolic impactful thin thick
SLACKTIVISM Example: liking a cause on Facebook

http://dml2013.dmlhub.net/content/videos-day-1-keynote-ignite-talks symbolic impactful thin thick
Voting Designed to be easy for everyone, but impactful

http://dml2013.dmlhub.net/content/videos-day-1-keynote-ignite-talks symbolic impactful thin thick
OCCUPY… The “occupy” movement is a lot of work, but they’re not directly working on proposing new policies

symbolic impactful thin thick http://en.wikipedia.org/w
iki/Occupy_Sandy Occupy Sandy After hurricane Sandy, experienced occupy members became a highly effective local aid team

symbolic impactful thin thick easy
to scale hard to scale

http://www.shakespearebehindbars.com/
OTHER KINDS OF SCALE

Scale has a Z axis
X Y ZThe Z axis, depth, is for emotion and impact on individuals. OTHER KINDS OF SCALE

Scale has a Z axis
X Y ZThe Z axis, depth, is for emotion and impact on individuals. It scales, not in quantities of individuals served, but in how deeply we affect them. OTHER KINDS OF SCALE

http://metrotimes.com/arts/behind-bars-with-the-bard-1.1371708

http://metrotimes.com/arts/behind-bars-with-the-bard-1.1371708 “Inmates who have been
involved in the program say they experience a profound personal growth through it, first by recognizing the depths of their own emotions, then by connecting with fellow prisoners through the camaraderie of sharing a stage.”

http://metrotimes.com/arts/behind-bars-with-the-bard-1.1371708 “…Those benefits are hard
to quantify, but they have a big effect on a number that isn't. Participants in the Shakespeare Behind Bars program have drastically lowered recidivism rates to a low of 7 percent, [compared to a] national recidivism rate at 43 percent.”

AND MISSIONS CAN BE SHAPED
IN DRAMATIC NEW WAYS THE Z AXIS Can you deepen the experiences of the people you already serve? http://www.yongestreetmedia.ca/features/humanbooks1208.aspx

AND MISSIONS CAN BE SHAPED
IN DRAMATIC NEW WAYS http://www.yongestreetmedia.ca/features/humanbooks1208.aspx

AND MISSIONS CAN BE SHAPED
IN DRAMATIC NEW WAYS http://www.yongestreetmedia.ca/features/humanbooks1208.aspx “The Toronto Public Library held its first Human Library event at five branches on Nov. 6, attracting more than 200 users who checked out the likes of a police officer, a comedian, a sex-worker-turned- club-owner, a model and a survivor of cancer, homelessness and poverty.”

SPECIAL KINDS OF SCALE 0
to 1 http://channelviewpublications.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/education-and-literacy-in-ethiopia/

SPECIAL KINDS OF SCALE 0
to 1 Going from the total absence of something to the basic presence of it is its own kind of scale. http://channelviewpublications.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/education-and-literacy-in-ethiopia/

Room to Read is a
non- profit that builds libraries and schools in places where literacy and education are wanted, but absent.

• 850 million people lack
basic literacy (2/3 are women) • 100 million primary age kids are not in school. UN Estimates via http://books.google.com/books?isbn=006112 107X

Distributed 10 million books Built
12,000 libraries Built 3,200 schools Since 1998 Room to Read has…

“There are no books for
kids in some languages, so we had to become a self- publisher,” Wood explains. […] Room to Read has, so far, published 591 titles in languages including Khmer, Nepalese, Zulu, Lao, Xhosa, Chhattisgarhi, Tharu, Tsonga, Garhwali and Bundeli.

“In 20 years,” [founder John
Wood] told me, “I’d like to have 100,000 libraries, reaching 50 million kids.

“In 20 years,” [founder John
Wood] told me, “I’d like to have 100,000 libraries, reaching 50 million kids. Our 50-year goal is to reverse the notion that any child can be told ‘you were born in the wrong place at the wrong time and so you will not get educated.’ That idea belongs on the scrapheap of human history.”

CULTURAL IMPOVRISHMENT ISN’T JUST A
3RD WORLD THING IT EXISTS EVERYWHERE

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/dec/10/uk-lost-200-libraries-2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/dec/10/uk-lost-200-libraries-2012 "Working men and women
in the north-east have fought, generation after generation, for the right to read and grow intellectually, culturally and socially – to be as 'civilized' as anyone else. It is a heritage that took decades and decades to come to fruition but will be wiped out in a moment. You are not only about to make philistines of yourselves, but philistines of us all." Billy Elliot playwright Lee Hall

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caitlin-moran/libraries-cathedrals-of-
o_b_2103362.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

Everything I am is based
on this ugly building on its lonely lawn--lit up during winter darkness; open in the slashing rain--which allowed a girl so poor she didn't even own a purse to come in twice a day and experience actual magic: traveling through time, making contact with the dead--Dorothy Parker, Stella Gibbons, Charlotte Brontë, Spike Milligan. A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caitlin-moran/libraries-cathedrals-of- o_b_2103362.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

No new libraries will be
built to replace them. These libraries will be lost forever. And, in their place, we will have thousands more public spaces where you are simply the money in your pocket, rather than the hunger in your heart. Kids--poor kids--will never know the fabulous, benign quirk of self-esteem of walking into "their" library and thinking, "I have read 60 percent of the books in here. I am awesome." Libraries that stayed open during the Blitz will be closed by budgets. A trillion small doors closing. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caitlin-moran/libraries-cathedrals-of- o_b_2103362.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

No new libraries will be
built to replace them. These libraries will be lost forever. And, in their place, we will have thousands more public spaces where you are simply the money in your pocket, rather than the hunger in your heart. Kids--poor kids--will never know the fabulous, benign quirk of self-esteem of walking into "their" library and thinking, "I have read 60 percent of the books in here. I am awesome." Libraries that stayed open during the Blitz will be closed by budgets. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/caitlin-moran/libraries-cathedrals-of- o_b_2103362.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

http://danielsolisblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/cutting-libraries-in-recession-is-like.html

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

We love our museums, libraries,
and archives We want them to be successful We need them to be super successful

PUT THE TOOLS OF KNOWLEDGE
CREATION INTO MORE HANDS

SHARE THE JOY AND MEANING
OF ARTISTIC AND CULTURAL EXPLORATION WITH MORE CITIZENS

DEEPEN ENGAGEMENT WITH THE CHALLENGES
THAT FACE OUR SPECIES

NURTURE THE HABITS OF A
CIVIL AND SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY

PUT THE TOOLS OF KNOWLEDGE
CREATION INTO MORE HANDS SHARE THE JOY AND MEANING OF ARTISTIC AND CULTURAL EXPLORATION WITH MORE CITIZENS NURTURE THE HABITS OF A CIVIL AND SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY DEEPEN ENGAGEMENT WITH THE CHALLENGES THAT FACE OUR SPECIES

PUT THE TOOLS OF KNOWLEDGE
CREATION INTO MORE HANDS SHARE THE JOY AND MEANING OF ARTISTIC AND CULTURAL EXPLORATION WITH MORE CITIZENS NURTURE THE HABITS OF A CIVIL AND SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY DEEPEN ENGAGEMENT WITH THE CHALLENGES THAT FACE OUR SPECIES This is our job in 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?

Many museum visits are...

imperfect

Scale can be confusing If
scale matters, are 1 billion TED videos better than 2.4 million museum visits?

Not necessarily, but the vast
difference in scale is evidence that something significant—rich in potential—is going on There are more powerful ways of accomplishing museum missions than getting people through the doors.

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

http://www.wired.com/business/2013/01/ff-qa-larry-page/all/

“Page expects his employees to
create products and services that are 10 times better than the competition. That means he isn’t satisfied with discovering a couple of hidden efficiencies or tweaking code to achieve modest gains. Thousand-percent improvement requires rethinking problems entirely, exploring the edges of what’s technically possible, and having a lot more fun in the process.”

“Page expects his employees to
create products and services that are 10 times better than the competition. That means he isn’t satisfied with discovering a couple of hidden efficiencies or tweaking code to achieve modest gains. Thousand-percent improvement requires rethinking problems entirely, exploring the edges of what’s technically possible…”

We have all this money,
we have all these people, why aren’t we doing more stuff? You may say that Apple only does a very, very small number of things, and that’s working pretty well for them. But I find that unsatisfying. I feel like there are all these opportunities in the world to use technology to make people’s lives better. At Google we’re attacking maybe 0.1 percent of that space. And all the tech companies combined are only at like 1 percent. That means there’s 99 percent virgin territory.

We have all this money,
we have all these people, why aren’t we doing more stuff? You may say that Apple only does a very, very small number of things, and that’s working pretty well for them. But I find that unsatisfying. I feel like there are all these opportunities in the world to use technology to make people’s lives better. At Google we’re attacking maybe 0.1 percent of that space. And all the tech companies combined are only at like 1 percent. That means there’s 99 percent virgin territory. This “small scale/boutique” rationale is often used by GLAMs to avoid the challenge of scale and speed

We have all this money,
we have all these people, why aren’t we doing more stuff? You may say that Apple only does a very, very small number of things, and that’s working pretty well for them. But I find that unsatisfying. I feel like there are all these opportunities in the world to use technology to make people’s lives better. At Google we’re attacking maybe 0.1 percent of that space. And all the tech companies combined are only at like 1 percent. That means there’s 99 percent virgin territory.

We have all this money,
we have all these people, why aren’t we doing more stuff? You may say that Apple only does a very, very small number of things, and that’s working pretty well for them. But I find that unsatisfying. I feel like there are all these opportunities in the world to use technology to make people’s lives better. At Google we’re attacking maybe 0.1 percent of that space. And all the tech companies combined are only at like 1 percent. That means there’s 99 percent virgin territory.

We have all this money,
we have all these people, why aren’t we doing more stuff? You may say that Apple only does a very, very small number of things, and that’s working pretty well for them. But I find that unsatisfying. I feel like there are all these opportunities in the world to use technology to make people’s lives better. At Google we’re attacking maybe 0.1 percent of that space. And all the tech companies combined are only at like 1 percent. That means there’s 99 percent virgin territory. Larry Page

We have all this money,
we have all these people, why aren’t we doing more stuff? You may say that Apple only does a very, very small number of things, and that’s working pretty well for them. But I find that unsatisfying. I feel like there are all these opportunities in the world to use technology to make people’s lives better. At Google we’re attacking maybe 0.1 percent of that space. And all the tech companies combined are only at like 1 percent. That means there’s 99 percent virgin territory. Larry Page There’s a lot of room at the top!

DON’T GET ME WRONG

I DON’T WANT LESS 1:1
ENGAGEMENT

I WANT MORE OF EVERYTHING

MORE GLAMS MORE VISITORS DEEPER
ENGAGEMENT

MORE WEB MORE PARTICIPATION BETTER
OUTCOMES

And when we do, new
opportunities present themselves… WE CAN GO TO 11

THANK YOU