About a year ago,  knowing my passion for Brand, a colleague at McDonald’s, forwarded me a link to the GMnext wiki.  It was a fantastic idea; instead of GM telling it’s story, it invited the public to create a living, evolving history of GM’s products, it’s people, it’s factories.  Unfortunately it was very poorly designed, promoted and executed.  As a consequence, the GM wiki was “frozen” in May of this year (2010) and it’s content integrated into the GM Heritage Center (pictured above).

Imagine the possibilities – a site that would let both the company and consumers tell it’s story.  Executed correctly, it could have been the single most respected source of GM information and history — all under the GM roof!  Passion for GM products could have been shared on Facebook, Twitter, countless enthusiast blogs, websites, and communities.   They tried to use a standard wiki interface, great for wiki-savvy contributors, very poor for Jane & John Public.  It was isolated from other GM digital properties and received little promotion/leverage from them.

The irony in all of this is that many current wikipedia references used the GMnext wiki as a source.  By the way, it may sound like I am not an advocate of wikipedia, not true.  But I believe that Brands need to own and promote their information and history as passionately as they advertise.