Nearly a month ago, our own Nathan Maton wrote about Wikipedia’s A/B testing in their fundraising drive.

Today, thanks to the umpteenth view of Jimmy Wales asking me to donate with his forlorn glance, a little down time waiting for the night to end / day to begin, talking a lot about Wikipedia’s 10th anniversary (big things in store from JESS3 on this, more to come), reading Bill’s “top 10 of 2010” round-up over at The Wikipedian and, finally, the impression that broke the camel’s back (so to speak) from Robin Wauters over at TechCrunch who heralded just now: “Wikipedia Still $1M Short Of Fundraising Goal For 2010 (And Why I Donated)“… I donated, too. And borrowed the parenthetical header (thanks Robin!).

As a believer in public goods like NPR and Wikipedia, it is up to all of us to do our part.

And, like Robin Wauters and I am sure many (if not all) Wikipedia readers, I too love getting lost in the sea of links that start ISO current news and events or with the (re)looking up an esoteric concept I (mostly) remember from college and ends hours later with a black belt in etiological mining (how’s that for mixed-metaphors).

All of that to say: It is the most amazing display and execution of what we all can accomplish when we come together, in every language and every land, to do something.

And to think, like the fact that we use < 10% of our brains, even smaller still is the % of people who contribute to Wikipedia (even though millions read and reference it every day). Not the first to say it or think it, but boy oh boy, what would the world be like if we all pointed our collective knowledge... not just a few thousand of us, but millions of us, all in one direction. Three words folks: CARE. BEAR. STARE. My team has heard me use this analogy before, but for the record… pointing our unique skills, knowledge, experiences at a single topic, challenge, problem or issue results in collective, team driven, “crowd-sourced” (if you will) success. Incredible to think about the possibilities. Right now, I am thinking big about applying the “Care Bear Stare” to the areas of human / sex trafficking. But I digress.

(Note that even “Care Bear Stare” makes it into the Care Bear entry on Wikipedia as the “Care Bears’ ultimate weapon” … oh so many ways I love thee).

So here’s looking at you Wikipedia. A big, huge… THANKS!

Written by: Leslie Bradshaw | President & COO, JESS3

Tags: leslie post, wikipedia