Passionate Geographers

Ian Davis — August 10, 2009 - 3:21am

I noticed a very interesting initiative recently Project Geograph: Photograph Every Grid Square.

This project is working towards collecting and making available images depicting the geography of every square kilometre of the British Isles. This ambitious project seems to be progressing very well, with many good quality images loaded to the website.

Already over 8,900 contributors have submitted nearly 1,500,000 images, with an average of 5 images associated to each geographic square across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. This is a great resource, preserving in amazing detail what the British Isles looked like at the start of the 21st Century. This is also a wonderful way to learn about the geography of these amazing islands and to dig deeply into their hills, valleys, towns and villages. This is also a superb source for genealogists looking at how a particular part of the British Isles looks today.

Back in 2007 I attended the Blogs and Social Media Conference 2.0 in London. One presentation which has stayed in my mind since then, was Lee Bryant's, "Engaging with Passionates". In his exceptional presentation Lee described a ground-breaking social networking case study and talked about the energy that can be released when organisations successfully tap into a group of people who are truly passionate about a given topic.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better example of the power of passionates than the Geograph Project. Looking at the number of contributors, the amount of the British Isles covered, and the quality of the photography and metadata created, makes a clear point - find people who are passionate about a topic, people who are committed to a hobby or interest, engage them in the right way and they will deliver time and again.

I wish everyone associated with the Geograph Project all the luck in the world, may they stay passionate and committed to what they do, and may their project benefit from their commitment.

Oh, and if you like what you see, submit a photograph, or start a similar initiative.

Ian

Ian Davis's blog

Great post and a very

Ian Davis / Dow Jones (not verified) — August 31, 2009 - 1:33am

Great post and a very interesting set of things to think about.

I agree that a lot can be achieved by people, sometimes without them even knowing it! It's true that you can get a bunch of people, each doing their own thing, and the results you see from that activity can produce outcomes that no-one anticipated. I'm not sure whether this had never happened before - seems a bit too much of a 'shocking news revelation' to me. I'm scratching my head trying to think of instances when it has happened before and what it then lead to.

The more I think about it, I suppose it happens all the time whenever individuals create and contribute to a whole - I'm thinking of art galleries, village fetes with tables of heaving cakes, local art exhibitions, writing competitions. Anywhere really when individuals focus on their little piece - do their best with that, but then add it to a whole without any central planning.

The nature of the individual creation, when combined with the chaos of not knowing who is creating what, will produce unexpected outcomes. The web has made this process easier and more public - but nothing is ever that new - since human nature does not really change.

This is interesting. I would

Zoe Rose (not verified) — August 12, 2009 - 2:48am

This is interesting. I would say, though, that along with the passionates there is a lot to be gained from (let's call them) 'incidentals'.

I read Clay Shirkey's 'Here Comes Everybody' recently, and the idea that struck me most in the whole book was the idea of the non-organised, not-goal-oriented group that, without specifically trying to, self-organises and achieves goals. Consider flickr users: Many people on flickr are passionates, but no-one very few (if any!) are passionate about creating a great collection of photos of geese. None the less - if you search 'geese' on flickr, you will find an excellent collection of images of geese, probably the best in the world right now.

It's extraordinary, really - Shirkey argues that outcomes like this (undirected collective action resulting in specific outcomes) have never happened before in human history, and I'm inclined to agree.