Crowdsourcing design: what will this mean for museums?

Across the online environment, there is growing engagement with user-generated content which impacts on designers as they move from sole author and producer to facilitators of the design process. User-driven and open innovation models of collaboration are impacting on the design and development of services and while there is a growing body of theory exploring the basis of this innovation, there are few models for the way in which designers will practice within this environment.

We are currently witnessing transformations in the ways in which clients engage designers and the ways in which designers participate in the development of products, services and experiences. These transformations in design practice are closely aligned to changing audience expectation and a growing demand for user participation in the design process. This is in keeping with a shift from the development of a service to an experience economy. (Gilmore & Pine 1999, Rivkin 2000)

The notion of experience enterprises has been coined in response to the experience economy. It encompasses those enterprises, both commercial and publicly funded, which have at their heart, the mandate to attract new audiences/ consumers/ producers through the development of integrated, multiplatform experiences. For example, both Nike, with its hugely successful Nike + social networking campaign which facilitates the development of communities of runners worldwide and Flickr Commons, the photo-sharing facility developed for cultural organisations to share archival imagery focus on adding value to existing services by creating and sharing in memorable experiences.

In the museum environment, it is sometimes suggested that audiences/creators and producers are willing to pay more for products and services if these are provided in an atmosphere that generates ‘memorable’ experiences. If this is the case and designers have yet to explore the impact of the user/creator on their practice, what will it mean for the development of future museum communication programs?

This posting is a starting point for problematising a broader shift in consumption and production, recognising the profound impacts that these shifts will have on future design practices and in turn, the ways in which they will affect museum programs.

Some of the questions it seeks to explore include:
How will social networking affect design as an enterprise?
What will this mean to organisations which engage designers?
Will services and experiences converge?
Who will drive new models of design innovation?
How will innovation drive new audiences/clients?

This thought-piece hopes to explore the demand-driven environment for design innovation, supported by establishing partnerships throughout the value-chain of development through a participatory process of design which seeks to engage both audiences and users in the design and development of cultual interactive experiences. I am very interested in gaining insights from our community into how this might develop over the next few years. Please feel free to leave a comment here or on twitter. I look forward to your feedback.

When social media and formal learning collide…

The other morning (I can’t remember which one now – timezone changes and all) I had a new experience in relation to research dissemination and teaching. I was invited to develop a guest blog post for the University of Manchester’s digital heritage course blog site
Having (re) experienced the late night US lack of internet connectivity, I eventually managed to send the blog post to Kostas Arvanitis and set myself up for the skype conversation to follow. It was an interesting experience. The students had been discussing the blog post in their class and towards the end of the session Kostas rang me on Skype and asked me some questions which had arisen during the session. With a poor connection and no sense of who was in the audience, I basically did a radio interview wondering how much was actually being sent down the skype line (often poor at the best of times). After we were cut off mid-way we tried again and successfully finished the session. I appreciated the opportunity to discuss some of my most recent ponderings on the shift from cultural to value networks and look forward to further discussion on the course blog.
In hindsight it was a tough session, particularly with the poor line. Even so, it’s a format I’d like to explore more fully. The blog post has posed some more questions which I will be exploring there and elsewhere. Thanks to Kostas and the students. I do hope we can do it again!

Here at Museums and the Web 2009

I’m here at Museums and the Web in Indianapolis. Seb Chan and I delivered the Planning for Social Media Workshop yesterday. The slides can be viewed on the M&W site later today. I’ve been summarizing this morning’s session. Thanks to some killer jet lag I can’t promise to be awake for the afternoon session. You can follow the twitter feed at #mw2009. If you would like to follow me (when I’m awake) or to comment on this blog post, it would be great to do so either here or on Twitter. I’m artech05.

Opening Plenary
Maxwell Anderson, The Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO, Indianapolis Museum of Art
Moving from Virtual to Visceral

It is imperative to make behind the scenes available to audiences before and after visits.

Finding ways to keep volunteers engaged is a worthwhile effort

Exhibitions are curator’s conceits. They are only one way of communicating museum programs.

Looking and learning are only part of what visitors do: they also park, shop, eat. Museum needs to be sensitive to the whole visitation experience

Choice and opportunity are critical to visitation

Viewing art is analogous to watching drag racing – moments of viewing

Experiential environments can be compromised by excessive orientation

Virtual solutions as simulacrum- do we become caught up in our own obsession with technology?

Take our visitors to the movies rather than just show them the credits

Telling stories is the key issue

Wetting our appetites online

Urges us to maintain educational mandate of the museum rather than commercial intrusions

Encouraging voyeurism- how did this come to pass? Take cue from television appetite for behind the scenes

Allow audiences to see themselves in the narratives we deliver – an empathetic response

Present museum statistics online

Could steve project change the language of art criticism?

We should allow tagging to influence our decisions

Artbabble.org – not just enjoyment but incrementally, these recordings can become part of visual record

Visual traditions are not owned by curators

Most of what we acquire in museums is accidental- donors etc.

Flickr Commons – how long will it be around. Make sure we have something sustainable in-house

Look for experiential hooks – what makes visitation meaningful to audiences

Encourages push-back to ‘big banana’ curators
Serendipity is so much part of accessioning

Be reflective of what matters, not just what can be measured

Next steps…
More engagement
Not just access

Non visitor is such an important part of museum program- making a case online is experiential substitute for being onsite

Museum visitation can be transformative. Build intergenerational experience of museum visitation

manderson@imamuseum.org

Organisational Change
Chair Mia Ridge, Science Museum UK

Organisational Change for the On-line World: Steering the Good Ship Museum Victoria
Tim Hart and David Methven

In sourcing model – build capability in-house
How do we bring the organization along in the change?
How should we change our work practices? What are the key objectives?

At Museum Victoria an online strategy was created from information logic map
Drivers, objectives, benefits, changes

Organisation wanted ownership of their processes

Online planning group
Framework
Schedule
ICT restructure

Online planning group
Endorses projects
Ensures adequate resources and schedules

Framework
Understands online
Works and manages
Evaluates
Establishes measures of success

Online experiences
Information
Participation
Relationship

Collectish – organise and share yr collection
Connect with other collections. Result of the recognition that relationships are part of the new agenda and core business of the museum.

Down to Earth: Social Media and Institutional Change
Vincent de Keijzer and Patricia Deiser

Make use of audience participation

What will benefit staff? How do you seduce them?
Start talking to people inside museum- create online platform for internal discussion

Continuous access to cultural heritage project
Ideas, proposals, projects, experiments

“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new one.” Nicolo Machiavelli

Who benefits most from the solution to the problem? Make them the project leader

Next steps…
Build the community from within the organisation

After the Heroism, Collaboration: Developing an Inter-Departmental Interpretive Goals Process at SFMOMA
Stephanie Pau and Peter Samis

Organising learning and mobile space

Creativity within IT team could be better utilised if folded into broader processes

Curators provide outline of interpretive goals of project

246 and counting
Architecture and design exhibition showcasing current acquisitions

The art of participation
The artist describes his silent sonata: “It seems idiotic but that’s what I did”

Frida Kahlo
Reaching out to new audiences

Evaluations showed that audiences were interested in
Artists own voice
Art curators and critics
Not so interested in other visitors voices

Tap on artwork and hear about the work – very popular

Mobile content via cell phone very problematic
Expensive for travelers
Wireless is intermittent
Dialing into content creates barriers

Next steps…
Promote with museum wide strategy

Thanks to Mia Ridge for chairing the session.

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!

What do we do when someone sets up a blog called Museumsuck.com?

This morning’s twitter feed (artech05) included a link to the ‘Museums Suck” website (thanks to Seb Chan).
While the article is provocative, the site itself is quite interesting. William Crowley, whoever he might actually be, has actually spent a great deal of time posting videos he’s taken, discussing museums he’s visited and sharing technical knowledge.

This last point is of particular interest. Crowley provides insight into how to create interactives simply, efficiently and cost effectively. He discusses iterative exhibition design, provides instructions for developing a simple tilt application and a simple multi-touch surface platform. This type of public user innovation is quite rare to find in a museum context. Between Crowley’s sometimes hurtful assessments of the museum environment, he’s actually providing useful design and exhibition information.

The blog is only new and Crowley doesn’t tell us enough about himself to assure the critics that he isn’t a fraud, yet his desire to share useful technical information seems genuine. Granted he does this between his individual insights, but I admire his generosity.

Be warned though, the rest of the blog is not for faint-hearted! Perhaps this site is an example of ‘look who’s talking’ – one of the themes for next week’s Transformations in Cultural and Scientific Communication Conference!

Here at Enterprise 2.0

Just spent the day at Enterprise 2.0. Really interesting conference! Well done to Ross Dawson. Here are some notes from the conference. It also ended up being a great example of how Twitter can be used to broadcast conference ideas live. You can follow the feed at #e2ef

Ross Dawson: Enterprise 2.0
– understand drivers
– create enabling frameworks
– support initiatives
– drive adoption and value
iteration and refinement – unpredictable intersection between culture and technology
build on what the community is already doing

focus on people, not on technology

discover, pilot and integrate
find champions within the organisation
be open, transparent, honest

Nathan Wallace: http://www.e-gineer.com
all news to be posted to internal intranet
anyone can edit almost anything
we know who you are
capturing the flow of ideas – lead to more conversation and collaboration
shift from user innovation to open innovation
embedding this flow of ideas in the development of products, services and experiences

Twitter
What is the business value?
focus on interactions over processes and tools
ease of use over comprehensive training
flexible tools over completeness
respond to needs rather than creating demand

clarify what the business is looking for
simplify
implement

Peter Williams: Deloitte
leadership and culture is where it starts
employees want to put in vs employees are scammers
experiment and embrace
make it participative
make sure you do something when you get the involvement
don’t be scared
it’s emergent so just do it!

JP Rangaswami
consume structure
produce structured
consume unstructured
produce unstructured

post 1982 – trained to use computer capabilities and facilities well before they began work

trading information across conversations – marketplace

giving people the right to right – upload rather than download rights

what do people do at work?
search – all search is wildcard – not deterministic
syndication – subscribing only to those aspects of information you are interested in.
eg: Twitter – subscribe and publish – requested information rather than broadcast at a time and in form you require
fulfillment – what the inventory is, does it match your needs, price, deal, settlement instructions

Focus on value of output rather than input

While much of what we do in enterprise is insecure, in Web 2.0 environment we leave a trail!

David Backley Westpac
PhD – role of ICT in work/life balance
new initatives must demonstrate
– retention
– new business
-drive down costs

You even need to have a methodology for doing something agile within an organisation.

Code of contact online is same as that offline

content and context: the technology is not the issue, it’s a work style generational thing!
– my revelation!
i sit on the phone most of the day and then I go home and phone friends and family – do I wonder about the work/life
balance of this technology?

technology needs to be able to scale
stop or wind up a project when it is done!
have fun
getting something to stick – embedded in the organisation!

And finally, my take on measures of success:
It’s a boomer – you drive costs down or create new income
Collaboration – new partnerships
Impact on organsiational communication – new strategies
outputs – new products and services/ experiences. increased empowerment of key resources
innovation – broaden collection intelligence

Converting user-generated content into cultural interactive physical experiences

I didn’t think it was going to be possible for a museumophile like me to be completely enthralled in an exhibition again. That was until I went to TePapa in Wellington, New Zealand last week!! 

Not only is TePapa an incredibly rich, complex and beautiful museum, it continues to be the single most popular tourist attraction in New Zealand – not a mean feat in a country well known for it’s extreme adventure possibilities!

Late last week TePapa launched the NZMuseums which showcases the museums and collections of New Zealand. This site aims to become a directory of New Zealand museums, and an online collection management system for museums.This initative will grow over time as more collection information and additional functions are added. Congratulations to the team!

While at TePapa, Wallis Barnicoat, Manager Museum Development arranged for a sneak preview of the soon to be launched ‘Our Space’ exhibition. And what an exhibition it is!! The space itself includes an 18metre projection wall where audiences can load user generated content and create their own creative works. Here’s how it works. You can visit the website, sign up and start loading your images online. The images are then transferred to kiosks within the physical space and are made available for audiences to remix as they desire. You can then buy your final artwork at the helpdesk or find your contribution online.

This exhibition brings the best of co-created experiences together in an impressive museum exhibition. It is a significant example of the conversion from virtual user-generated content to physical cultural interactive experience and we look forward to watching how it progresses once launched later this week.

Our Space also includes two other fascinating exhibits:
The Map – Images from all around New Zealand  and The Rides:

The Map includes a large floor map of New Zealand. As you walk across the map, images appear on the mirrored media walls around the Map, triggered as you move across the glass floor. Each time you step on a trigger, a new image of that region appears.

The Rides bring together the best of thrilling physical encounters with glorious images of life in New Zealand. Based on roller-coaster type technologies, the interactive rides situate you in front of a large screen which projects images of New Zealand as you fly, free fall, swim and skate across the space (while strapped into a seat!) Part theme park ride, part natural science documentary, the two rides are some of the most entertaining physical experiences I’ve had in a museum for some time. If you only go to New Zealand once, go and see these exhibitions – and make sure you go on an empty stomach!!

Thanks to Wallis Barnicoat for organising this special viewing. I look forward to watching the ‘Our Space’ exhibition evolve as audiences connect both physically and virtually with cultural content!