Look Who’s Talking -Conference Session 2

This session was premised on the notion that audiences now have the ability to express their own thoughts about their engagement with cultural resources in very public ways. The questions posed to each of the speakers included:
– Interpretation – is it at all relative nowadays? What is the value of expert knowledge?
– Where to next? – using social networking to disseminate views and experiences
– How do we encourage young people to see the value of their cultural participation?
-How can cultural organisations apply web 2.0 tools authentically and therefore in a way that sustains the interest and loyalty of an online community?
Here are some thoughts from our three speakers:

Shelley Bernstein
Shelley spoke about the processes involved in developing the ‘Click’ exhibition at Brooklyn Museum. The exhibition was based on ideas which came from the seminal book ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’ by James Surowiecki. Audiences were able to comment on art works which would be included in both the online and eventually, the onsite exhibition. Yet the way the feedback systems were established, participants were not able to see others’ responses thereby limiting crowd influence. As some twitterers suggested, the provided a challenge to the audience as it was clear that the exhibition development faze was not truly ‘web 2.0’. Even so, as one twitterer suggested, the cloud structure of images and the release of fuzzy data made for an extremely interesting project. The project demonstrated the convergence of physical and online visits and provided ideas of how those interested in capturing visual images, whether professional or amateur, engaged in the process.

Click
Wisdom of Crowds
Other Resources
Art Info

Thanks to Brett McLennan and Lynda Kelly for diligently twittering extra resources during this session!

Sebastian Chan
Seb only had 100 slides today and he managed to fit them into his allocated 15 minutes with his usual flair!! He described the Powerhouse online presence suggesting that there was a general movement from websites to web presence – one which demonstrated impact in the general community. As one of our twitterer’s suggested, visitors share their experiences of museums in spite of what the organisation does and Seb concurred, suggesting that there was a need to see what was really useful and to sift out the noise. A couple of important points underpinned Seb’s talk, importantly:
– allow people to BROWSE rather than search;
– allow people to contribute & help with collection information

There was a suggestion that bureaucracy doesn’t’ make web 2.0 initiatives safer, the social rules or community monitors do. Another important point both Seb and Shelley made was that museums can’t afford to outsource their learning when it comes to new tools for engaging with audiences. In the end, passing social media project to interns or short term partners ensures that the organisation doesn’t develop internal, sustainable knowledge – a recipe for future disasters I think!

Other resources
Example of visitor engagement from Australian Museum visit via Flickr

Vivienne Waller
Vivienne presented an entertaining piece on the relationship between Google and Libraries.
She began by suggesting that the relationship had developed over four stages:
– Romance – where libraries and google seemed to have everything in common
– Reality check – where the differences began to appeare
– Reaslisation that the two players wanted different things
– Regaining a separate sense of self – negotiating their boundaries.

The first stage was premised on the idea that google organised the world’s information and made it universally accessible and useful while libraries ensured access to information for all. Cracks started to appear when the integrity of search results began to be questioned. At the same time, digitisation grew exponentially and increasingly, there was a sense of a lack of public control.
At this point there was the realisation that Google’s omnipresence – from calendar to health, finance, street views, world maps etc. signified that Google wanted something very different from public libraries – Google wanted to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful! Public Libraries on theother hand were dedicated to ensuring access to information for all.
In the final stage of the relationship, there was an appreciation the difference between from and content of information. Additionally, we had come to understand what could be lost in the translation to digital services.

References included:
Picasa Web
Orkut
Ask Now
along with a plethora of google products including: Google Maps, Streetview, Health, Wishlist, News and Finance!

Culture 2.0 – Conference summary

Following a successful, highly entertaining and (dare I say it) educational conference, I’ve been at a slight loss as to how to communicate it to those who weren’t there. In time, we will place the recordings online and I’ll upload images to the museum3.0. I’ve also got the twitter feed which is an invaluable record of the issues as they were addressed. So, in an effort to create a comprehensive, useful document, I’ll be uploading reflections on each of the speakers along with the websites they discussed in their presentations. I’ll do this over the next week as, from experience, I know that faced with an entire conference full of links and ideas, chances are, we don’t get the time to go through them properly.

I was delighted with the quality and diversity of the speakers. There is a certain leap of faith that occurs between establishing conference themes, sourcing the speakers and then wondering whether your internal organisational structures will mean anything to anyone else!!! This was most definately the case with the Culture 2.0 session. I knew why I’d invited Graham Durant and Colin McLeod to speak in the same session.

I was convinced that although they were speaking from different realms, their common interest – capturing and maintaining an audience – would mean that they could speak to the issues of the session in provocative ways. The underlying principle was that cultural and commerical organisations are now no longer just using the same tools (marketing, exhibition, events) etc. they’re occupying the same spaces (Facebook, YouTube) etc. Few of us, organisations and individuals included can hide behind the ivory tower for much longer. In academia we’ve had to get used to being more public (had you told me I would be writing in this way 5 years ago, I’d have had a few unpublishable comments to make!) But, as we see the value in new technologies, we tend to use them. I for one, haven’t washed clothes by hand for a good thirty years! But I digress… So with that as the preamble, here are summaries of their presentations:

Professor Graham Durant
Graham’s insightful and thoughtful presentation focused on the evolution of co-creation and its potential impact on cultural communication. Some of the main points included:
-cocreation enables people working together wherever they are
-we need to get used to living in a beta world – adapting to change as issues arise
-we can use our institutional web presence to communicate & reach audiences and once there, we need to develop culturally appropriate content
-we need to experiment with new partners
-we need to go where our audience is rather than wait for them to come to us

Graham questioned why museums weren’t, for the most part, placing more emphasis on shifting their resources to meet the new demands of changing audience expectation. As a Director a highly successful Science Centre, it was telling to hear his thoughts on resource management and future needs. Questacon has a growing presence in social networking spaces including a YouTube channel. The presentation was developed using Michelangelo’s ‘Creation of Adam’ as the background image. Details of the painting were used to emphasize particular points – a delightful detail which contextualised the complexity of the case within an historical understanding of both aesthetic and economic concerns.

Graham’s mix of historical reference and contemporary issues was, in itself, a metaphor for the great challenges which the sector faces. The knowledge sector is built on 19th century ideas of enlightenment through civic education and Graham’s presentation suggested that fundamental shifts in communication – from one way to co-creative, wer a necessary part of the evolution of the institution. His summary slide described some of the reasons the sector might choose to participate in social networks and discussed some of the downfalls of that participation. Judging by the the trememdous initiatves which Questacon is involved in, I would suggest that Graham has found a way of balancing these complex issues!

Teen and Social Media Pew Internet Report

Quetacon YouTube Channel

World Community Grid

Science Squad

Dr Colin McLeod
At first (as documented by the Twitter feed and subsequent blog feedback) it appeared that some audience members were questioning what the General Manager, Marketing, Communications and Public Affairs at the Australian Football League was doing, speaking about Culture 2.0.

The crux of Colin’s presentation was the need to be clear about the value that can be brought to experiences, events and partnerships when exploring social media. As the largest sporting body in the country with close to a million participants from AusKick (entry level football education) through the clubs to the national league, the organisation needs to maintain its focus – so how might they connect with cultural content and what place does social media have in their business plan? His main points included:
-social media allows AFL to connect with fans in ways that engages them,allows audiences to express themselves and AFL learns from this process
– AFL needs to keep engaged and stay relevant – social media is a constant challenge for them
– AFL likes social media as it challenges way they think about engagement & participation, making the old new again through new connections
– Social media questions the values the AFL want to share and how they want to engage with community

Colin described a project AFL had undertaken in conjunction with researchers from Queensland University of Technology ( Dr Mark Pennings) and Swinburne University (me). This project linked the AFL with State Library of Victoria and Melbourne Cricket Club through the development of two online exhibitions which discussed the origins of Australian Football (1848 – 1898). The sites were linked to a ning site where viewers could become active participants, sharing their knowledge, stories, images and objects with a broader community. Colin emphasised that in such partnerships, the value came from enabling the audience to share their stories and to connect to content within the library.

Colin also discussed the power of social networking in relation to supporting sporting endeavours and building communities. He used the ‘My Football Club’ example, ‘the world’s first and only web-community owned football club’. In 2008, the online community purchased the Kent based, Ebbsfleet United football club for £600,000. Three months later Ebbsfleet united won the FA Trophy at Wembley. Colin used this example to illustrate the power of shared values and community engagement.

In his closing statements, Colin told us that he’d been asked to speak about a great many things in his time, but never about culture – and for this he was thankful!

Australian Football 150 years

Australian Football’s Origins – Interactive Exhibition

Australian Football’s Origins – social network ning site

My Football Club

Couch Surfing

Here at Shelley Bernstein’s masterclass

Here at the Transformations in Cultural and Scientific Communication Conference, Shelley Bernstein is giving her first masterclass! Follow the feed on twitter – tag #tcsc. I’ll be summarising feed as we go!