Helen FieldsScience Writer

Alan Mairson, a writer who left National Geographic at the same time as me, has big ideas on how to do something about the Society’s problems. (Maybe also society’s problems, but he’s mostly talking about the Society for now.)

The idea is to use his new website, Society Matters, to unite people to do things like “crowdsourcing” and “beatblogging” – the internet is a bottomless well of new words – and come up with a way for the National Geographic Society to get its act together and find a way forward in this era of aging subscribers and plummetting ad revenue.

To which I say, Awriiight! Go Alan! I’ll be following along for sure. Because, really, it’s a pretty cool Society when you think about it. They fund research on underwater archaeology and mongoose diseases, for goodness’ sake.