Social Media and Cultural Communication Conference 2008
Museum of Sydney and Australian Museum, 28-29 February
The inaugural Conference and Masterclasses were a great success, with over 120 attendees from cultural agencies around Australia and beyond. Copies of the conference presentations can be downloaded from the presenter biographies below. Please address further enquiries to Conference Chair, Associate Professor Angelina Russo
The Social Media and Cultural Communication Conference 2008 was presented by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation; with the support of Museums & Galleries NSW; the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales; the Museum of Sydney; and the Australian Museum.
Read this blog for further information on the Digital Cultural Communication 2009 event.
Co-Chair Angelina Russo presents to Conference
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Conference Program Friday 29 February 2008
Museum of Sydney, AGL Theatre, Sydney NSW
SESSION 1 The World of Social Media
Presenters: Kevin von Appen, Ontario Science Centre
Sebastian Chan, Powerhouse Museum
Chair: Jerry Watkins, Swinburne University
Leading web exponents Kevin von Appen and Seb Chan presented a world tour of current best practice in social media and cultural institutions.
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Kevin von Appen and Sebastian Chan respond to audience questions
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SESSION 2 Social Media and Informal Learning
Panel: Tim Hart, Museum Victoria; Brett McLennan, Australian Centre for the Moving Image
Chair: Dr Lynda Kelly, Australian Museum
This expert panel discussed how social media can provide powerful tools to enhance connections with learning communities.
Lynda Kelly, Tim Hart and Brett McLennan present to a full house
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SESSION 3 Re-imagining Cultural Interaction
Panel: Louise Douglas, National Museum of Australia
Lea Giles-Peters, State Library of Queensland
Frank Howarth, Australian Museum
Caroline Payson, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
Chair: Assoc Prof Angelina Russo, Swinburne University
This high-level round table debated whether social media can or even should evolve the business of museums and libraries. Can the authoritative cultural voice be extended and maintained by wider popular engagement? What part will social media play in the twenty-first century institution?
Frank Howarth, Lea Giles-Peters, Caroline Payson, Louise Douglas and Angelina Russo
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SESSION 4 Social Media: The Future
Panel: Kevin von Appen, Ontario Science Centre
Fiona Hooton, National Library of Australia
Carolyn Royston, National Museums Online Learning Project
Damien Tampling, Deloitte Corporate Finance Advisory group
Chair: Ms Kerry Cody, Queensland Museum
The final session summarised the main findings from the conference and used these to explore new directions in social media.
Damien Tampling, Kevin von Appen, Carolyn Royston and Fiona Hooton
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Masterclass Program Thursday 28 February 2008
Australian Museum, Sydney, NSW
Transforming Visitor Engagement
This masterclass by Kevin von Appen - Associate Director of Daily Experience Operations at the Ontario Science Centre - invited participants to imagine new possibilities for social media inside their own organisations, using the Rapid Ideas Generation technique.
Building and Maintaining an Online Community
This masterclass by Caroline Payson described how the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum’s online Educator Resource Center has provided a testbed for creating and sharing knowledge. Caroline provided pointers for any organisation seeking to build its own online communities.
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Presenters
Kevin von Appen is Associate Director of Daily Experience Operations at the Ontario Science Centre. He directs the Centre’s internet initiatives, publications, science writing and translation, and knowledge management. He has developed creative web-based projects for AOL Canada, Sympatico.ca, MSN – Microsoft Network, Bell Emergis and Canoe.ca.
Session 1 presentation
Session 4 presentation
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Sebastian Chan is Manager of the Web Services Unit at the Powerhouse Museum. He has a background in social policy, journalism and media criticism as well as information technology, and has been building and producing websites and interactive media since the mid-1990s.
Fresh+New - digital media in museums blog.
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Kerry Cody is Head of Information Management and Information Technology at Queensland Museum where she is is currently coordinating the redevelopment of new media services.
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Louise Douglas is General Manager, Audiences and Programs at the National Museum of Australia. Louise has worked in cultural heritage management for 20 years at senior and executive management levels at both the Powerhouse Museum and the National Museum of Australia.
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Lea Giles-Peters is State Librarian at the State Library of Queensland. Previous positions include Director, Northern Territory Library and Information Service; Assistant Secretary, Northern Territory Department of Housing and Local Government; and Manager, CSIRO Library Network and Information Services.
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Tim Hart is Director of Information, Multimedia & Technology at Museum Victoria. He has worked in museums for the past 18 years in collection management, policy development, project management, IT and new media.
Session 2 presentation
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Frank Howarth is Director of the Australian Museum. He is passionate about the natural world, and passionate about Sydney and its cultural institutions. Frank’s general interest is policy, with a particular interest and expertise in science policy and management of science based programs.
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Fiona Hooton is Manager of Picture Australia, an online pictorial database hosted by the National Library of Australia. Fiona has worked as an artist, educator, community worker and arts administrator.
Session 4 presentation
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Dr Lynda Kelly is Head of Audience Research at the Australian Museum. She has extensive experience in planning and conducting quantitative and qualitative research for a variety of programs and clients.
Session 2 presentation
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Brett McLennan is Screen Education Manager at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). His portfolio covers ACMI’s screen education programs, which includes the oversight and alignment of ACMI education programs to both ACMI core business and current and future government initiatives.
Session 2 presentation
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Caroline Payson is Director of Education at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, a Smithsonian Institution in New York. Payson has an extensive background in arts education, and was formerly Director of Educational Services at Maryland Public Television.
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Carolyn Royston is Project Manager of The National Museums Online Learning Project, a significant new partnership involving 9 UK national museums, led by the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Session 4 presentation
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Associate Professor Angelina Russo leads the research project Engaging with Social Media in Museums at Swinburne University, which brings together 3 Australian museums and the Smithsonian Institution to explore the impact of social media on museum learning and communication. She also leads the research project New Literacy, New Audiences which examines the development of user-generated content in collaboration with six major Australian cultural institutions.
Publications
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Damien Tampling is a Partner in Deloitte’s Corporate Finance Advisory group in Australia and specialises in providing business strategy and M&A advice to organisations in, or investing in, the media, digital media and technology space. Damien leads Deloitte’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications industry group in Australia.
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Jerry Watkins has a 20-year track record in commercial communication design and multimedia production. He has provided creative consultancy to some of the world’s leading brands. He is a researcher on the projects New Literacy, New Audiences and Engaging with Social Media in Museums at Swinburne University.
Publications
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Hi all,
Thanks for this great event. I am a 28 year old female working in lending and reference services and on the Emerging Technologies team at a regional public library. I feel fairly comfortable in the new world of social media, and hope best practice is taken up by the cultural services industry to broaden delivery, build online communities and market services/collections. I am thrilled and inspired to take some ideas and ‘how tos’ back to my team.
There are a couple of issues though which I am feeling a little lost/concerned about…
1. Access. ABS says “…46% of households were using the Internet at home by 2002. However, there are substantial differences in levels of access between different groups of the population”. Working in a public library I see this everyday. Who are we ignoring? What about the ‘have nots’? Lea’s brief comment on the panel on Friday about ‘abolishing reference services’ brought this home to me.
2. Quality. A lot of what I see on the web is great. A lot is narcissistic “pseudo communication” between avatars (v real people) -many of whom aren’t well informed but all of whom are opinionated. (Thanks Brett for the Duchovny/Rollins clip). Does this matter? I think so if what we are trying to do is build real communities. The rampant individualism dominating the www is a problem for me - my job is to locate and direct others towards *quality* resources.
3. Digital overload. What about the tangible world? The online world is a little disconnected from reality. My everyday life is quite disconnected from my virtual self. The rows of people sitting in the public library accessing our www pcs aren’t looking at or talking to *each other* - and many of them are members of the same family! The reification of Web 2.0 has me a little worried. I would hate for second life to become first.
Hi Majave
Thanks for such a thoughtful response to the conference. It’s great to see that the library you work with has an Emerging Technologies team. This is very encouraging for the sector!!
In response to your concerns:
1 - Access
Access remains a driver for both digitisation and the use of social media. While digitisation has its own complexities and is often discussed within the context of national standards for collection, registration and access, social media is a relatively small bandwith exercise. Social media software is open source and the user interfaces are particularly good. We see social media as a mechanism through which to draw audiences to cultural institutions. For those without access at home, social media provides a simple tool which can be used within public places. We’re waiting to see how the statistics change over time.
2 - Quality
Jennifer Trant talks about creating ‘trusted cultural networks’ - a situation where cultural institutions themselves take a proactive stance in linking together to provide authoritative information. The Musuems Online Learning Project in the UK which Carolyn Royston talked about is an excellent example of this.
Pseudo communication and narcissism will always be around and we can’t do anything to stop that, what we can do is promote genuine networks around cultural knowledge exchange -something our organisations are expert in!
3 - Digital overload
I get a reality check whenever I watch teenagers who have access to the internet and mobile phones simultaneously. They can msn, text, make phone calls, download videos, listen to music and talk to others in the ‘real world’ with them simultaneously. They might not do any of it particularly well but their primary objective is communication. I am always encouraged by this need to seek out others and exchange knowledge. Perhaps those early images of kids playing computer games on their own were more indicative of disconnection from the real world but even these are now networked.
Perhaps ‘remote communication’ will continue to evolve as another form of communication in our daily lives. Perhaps over time we will come to see this as a more natural extension of our desire to communicate!
Thanks again!
Please feel free to let us know how the Emerging Technonologies team goes!