Internet celebrity interview: Jack Herrick from Wikihow.com part 1/2

Posted on March 3, 2007
Filed Under Interviews |

Today we have the pleasure to talk to Jack Herrick the founder of wikiHow, a great website that explains how to make things in a perfect way…

-What is your name, age and association to wikiHow.com?

Jack Herrick, 37 . I founded wikiHow. I continue to serve as a steward of the project.

-Why did you decide to create wikiHow.com? In addition, if your response to the previously asked question doesn’t answer this question, what was your goal in creating wikiHow.com and why?

wikiHow is a collaborative writing project aiming to build the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual. Our mission is to provide free and useful instructions to help people solve the problems of everyday life. In time we envision this huge how to manual providing free, unbiased, accurate instructions on almost every topic imaginable. It is a noble but difficult goal that we expect will require decades to accomplish. According to the old proverb, “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”. And wikiHow is doing more than just teaching one man to fish, we are sharing our knowledge with millions of readers. Edit by edit we are building a free resource that will teach anyone to do anything. And this information will empower the world.
Imagine if we succeed…Imagine if every person on earth had access to an expert coach who could teach them how to do anything? Imagine if you could learn to do any new activity you wanted? How would this free knowledge make the world a better place?
Everything we do here comes back to this mission and vision. From the way we edit articles, to our discussions on the forums to the mission based business that supports wikiHow. It all happens to support the mission.

-Do you yourself use wikiHow.com for help? If so, why?

Yes, I use it all the time. I’m always trying to learn new things. Sometimes I’m just trying to fix something on my computer such as getting rid of a dead pixel
http://www.wikihow.com/Fix-a-Stuck-Pixel-on-an-LCD-Monitor
In December, I was picking out a Christmas tree and took out my mobile phone and surfed to wikiHow mobile to help me pick the best tree. The instructions on this page helped me chose a fresh tree
http://www.wikihow.com/Pick-out-a-Christmas-Tree

move to part 2/2 of the interview: click here