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A 100-year plan??

If we’re really serious about our mission—to figure out how Flickr can last 100 years—we’re going to need a plan.

We’re developing a 100-year plan to consider organisational change, preservation of this huge collection, and how to survive across several generations.

There will be no Gantt charts in this plan, we think. The finer detail of how things get done will come from the people involved at the time. Instead, we must investigate the portable, repeatable conditions and rituals to help the crew consistently examine the shared direction of what we’re here to do. 

Research workshops

As we’ve been establishing the Foundation—getting 501(c)(3) status, appointing the board, connecting with partners, developing our programs—we’ve also been running “How to write a 100-year plan” workshops. This is a lovely way to survey people’s thoughts about what should be accounted for and ponder what a century means to them.

We’ve held workshops with the Flickr crew, at a conference in Ontario, at Europeana 2022 in Den Haag, and we’re looking forward to more.

We plan to publish a first version of our plan in 2023. We’d also like to offer a template or guide you may be able to use in your context.

Some ideas generated at the 100 Years: Oxford Chapter workshop held at the Oxford Internet Institute on the 22nd May 2023
Read the event write-up
Some ideas generated at the 100 Years: Oxford Chapter workshop held at the Oxford Internet Institute on the 22nd May 2023
Read the event write-up
Some ideas generated at the 100 Years: Oxford Chapter workshop held at the Oxford Internet Institute on the 22nd May 2023
Read the event write-up
Some ideas generated at the 100 Years: Oxford Chapter workshop held at the Oxford Internet Institute on the 22nd May 2023
Read the event write-up
Some ideas generated at the 100 Years: Oxford Chapter workshop held at the Oxford Internet Institute on the 22nd May 2023
Read the event write-up
Some ideas generated at the 100 Years: Oxford Chapter workshop held at the Oxford Internet Institute on the 22nd May 2023
Read the event write-up
Some ideas generated at the 100 Years: Oxford Chapter workshop held at the Oxford Internet Institute on the 22nd May 2023
Read the event write-up
Some ideas generated at the 100 Years: Oxford Chapter workshop held at the Oxford Internet Institute on the 22nd May 2023
Read the event write-up
Some ideas generated at the 100 Years: Oxford Chapter workshop held at the Oxford Internet Institute on the 22nd May 2023
Read the event write-up
Some ideas generated at the 100 Years: Oxford Chapter workshop held at the Oxford Internet Institute on the 22nd May 2023
Read the event write-up
Some ideas generated at the 100 Years: Oxford Chapter workshop held at the Oxford Internet Institute on the 22nd May 2023
Read the event write-up
Some ideas generated at the 100 Years: Oxford Chapter workshop held at the Oxford Internet Institute on the 22nd May 2023
Read the event write-up

Past Workshops

We have held workshops at places like:

Inspiration & thanks

Thanks to Ella Saltmarshe from the Long Time Project, for her guidance and co-design of the initial workshop structure, and our research partner, Temi Odumosu, for her input around grounding the session in personal photographic histories.

During the 02021 research stage, we talked with Alexander Rose from the Long Now Foundation and enjoyed learning about The Organizational Continuity Project running there.

We’re looking to adapt the Ownership Model Canvas by start.coop too, since our suspicion is a very long organisation will need cooperative bones.

We love input!

The plan will be much better if it contains lots of voices. If you’re doing related work or would like to collaborate or run a workshop with us, please get in touch.

Prakash, Heather, Brad, Ellie, and George at Museums without Walls in Ontario. Photo by Yuting Shen.
Read the event write-up
Floating London head in Sacramento
Photo by research partner, Eliza Gregory
One of the Flickr sessions
A question for the ages
Lots of century-spanning thinking
Sebastiaan, Brad, and Beth at Europeana 2022

First sketch of the plan

The idea sprang into the world in April 2021. This is the first sketch of what it could comprise, drawn in Adelaide, South Australia, in one of George’s notebooks.

The concept is that the plan itself is mostly a set of questions asked regularly to an evolving group of members. Of course money will always be a challenge, but the questions themselves could persist and/or be revised periodically.

Enlarge the image