What's the story?

Te Ara—the encyclopedia of New Zealand/Aotearoa—launched last week with "New Zealanders," the first of nine themes which are to appear progressively over the project’s remaining seven years.

The tagline "What's the story?" is a catchy acknowledgement of the importance of narrative in articulating our multiple perspectives and cultural identity. To meet their goal of involving the community the project team also invited people to tell their own, or their ancestor’s stories—initially stories of the voyage out to New Zealand.

While I commend the approach, after reading some of the stories I can’t help feeling an opportunity has been missed to tell them in a more engaging way. Kiwi blogger David Farrar is suggesting 10% of Te Ara’s NZ$12 million funding be diverted to fund researchers to update New Zealand-related Wikipedia entries. My suggestion is that 3% of the funding be used to send a team of digital storytellers into New Zealand communities to help our people tell their stories creatively in the digital medium.