Today Flickr Commons turned 5 years old. The Commons has turned into an incredible resource of over 250,000 images from 56 different libraries, archives, and museums throughout the world. For me, the launch of Flickr Commons heralded what turned out to be a huge turning point for my career.
Flickr Commons allowed me to build my first proper mashup – my Google Streetview Then & Now. This was a bit of a breakthrough moment for me. It was my first demonstration of the power that comes from having interesting photos and associated data that was freely licensed and freely available to be shared through an API so others could do things with it. It made my day when George Oates at Flickr saw it and called me a superstar!
A bit to my surprise, people liked what they saw. I overcame my fear of public speaking and starting talking about what I had done and what could come from sharing and reusing data at conferences. People outside of work took an interest in what I had to say. People were willing to fly me places to listen to what I had to say & to listen to my ideas. Not only that, people referred to what I was doing in their conference papers and blogs. This led to me becoming the first Australian to be named as a Mover & Shaker of the library world by Library Journal. It’s allowed me to become a bit of an experimenter at work and
Along the way, my Commons experiences have introduced me to so many like minded people throughout the world. It’s these connections that can’t be measured by the number of views or comments an image contains.
In 2011 my Commons experience was complete when my work set up our own Commons account. I’m now on the other side trying to get interesting things from our collections out there to see what other clever people do with it. It’s a blast!
Little did I know that way back then that building a mashup at 3am one morning would influence my life and my career. I’m absolutely loving the journey it’s taking me on and can’t wait to see what happens next.
Thanks Flickr for what you’ve created.