Can you hear me at the back?

Good post from Nina Simon on Museum 2.0 about Museums collecting comments and info from visitors but not doing anything with it or making it into a usable form.

Seems a lot of institutions are liking the sound of open access and social networking but struggling to adjust to the new world of communicating ideas and acting on user focussed thinking.

Add comment July 8th, 2009

The Long Tail of Museums

Neil Macgregor’s comment quoted in the Guardian yesterday made me take renewed interest in the goings on at the British Museum:

“The future has to be, without question, the museum as a publisher and broadcaster”

Following Vaughan’s comments about the BBC leading the way in We Think thinking (not necessarily referring to Scott Mills the Musical here) I’m keen to grasp how Urbis can prepare itself to redress the “imperfect communication between visitors and curators”.

Having given it some thought the thing the BBC are doing really well that we are failing to do is making their archive available online…and most importantly then being able to understand what people watch, when and where.

I agree with Macgregor’s point that the future lies online and keen to point out that an important layer of possibilities is not being addressed directly – the ability of the museum properly using 2.0 software and technology to better understand their visitors understanding, preferences and learning patterns to develop and deliver a meaningful, lasting impact from their collections and exhibitions- not necessarily going down the route of creative Crowdsourcing that seemed to dominate proceedings at the Cornerhouse seminar.

Just like the BBC we need to be listening to our audience, like we always have done, but we also now have the opportunity to learn from their patterns of engagement without having to rely on dull as dishwater surveys or pseudo market research focus groups under a range of different guises. Looking at the BBC it becomes clear that while the Crowdsourced material is hugely popular – Reality TV, Talent Shows (which I’d argue only give the impression of audience control and involvement while the institution actually shapes the experience and orchestrates it entirely – remember the John Sargeant debacle?) they’re not giving up on high quality professionally produced material.

We need to keep up the production of targeted, effective experiences but learn how to deliver them in a more targeted and strategic way as a complete, malleable package. Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail” has really being a crucial influence in my thinking behind this, both in form and content.

As a sector we’re seriously behind the game and the necessary update can only happen with serious investment in tech infrastructure to get museums and cultural institutions up to speed with their commercial counterparts…anyone got a big chequebook?

Edit: I should add that that investment also needs backing up with built in ongoing support and business models that allow proper maintenance and back office staff to keep the resources created as workable and useful tools. Open Source does not mean free.

Add comment July 8th, 2009

GMP Steal Thunder!

Video:Matthew Caine Mckenzie addresses police conference

The MEN ran an article today abou our RECLAIM boys, Matthew Caine Mckenzie and Isaac Adegbola, making a rousing speech in front of the great and the good at the Association of Chief Police Officers’ annual conference.

All good news, however, GMP do not run reclaim Urbis do.

Big respect to Matthew and Isaac for getting up there!

Add comment July 8th, 2009