NPC Communicators Lunch and Learn: How Wikipedia Can Help or Hurt You

Wikipedia, the free multi-lingual online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of some 200,000 editors and contributors, is accessed by 1.4 billion unique devices every single day and is one of the 15 most popular websites (as ranked by Alexa so far this year).

While Wikipedia has received praise for its enablement of the democratization of knowledge, the extent of coverage, unique structure, culture, and reduced amount of commercial influence, it has been criticized for its perceived unreliability and for exhibiting systemic bias.

This Lunch and Learn program, which is hosted by the NPC Communicators Team, will provide attendees with an understanding of the issues (both good and bad) surrounding Wikipedia and what communicators can do to manage articles and topics that involve them, their clients, and/or their products, services, and issues.

Josh Greene, CEO of The Mather Group, an agency that helps companies manage how they are found online through Wikipedia and search engine optimization (SEO), will discuss the ins and outs of this online encyclopedia, including:

• Why your Wikipedia page looks the way it does and what you can do about it
• How pages get edited
• How to see who else is making changes to your page
• What you can and cannot do as a communicator
• Tactics for communicators to internally manage a Wikipedia presence and messaging
• Things to consider as you are writing for Wikipedia
• Review "live" Wikipedia pages and strategize solutions