Early adopters vs laggards?

I believe digital inclusion is part of the mission at cultural heritage institutions. A lot of work is going on in Europe right now to raise awareness about and to prevent digital exclusion.

In Sweden there is a whole campaign, Digidel 2013, run by the Swedish adult education in its broadest sense, that is, libraries, learning centers, adult education, adult education colleges. The campaign was launched December 3, 2010 with ”The appeal of digital inclusion”. The campaign aims to decrease the digital gap by half a million persons by 2013. The goal is for these people ”to start using the internet”.

So what is digital inclusion. The fact is that 1.5 million Swedes are excluded from the internet, mainly because they don’t have access to the internet in their homes. The term for these people is ”non-users” according to www.digidel.se.

Starting to think of the correct term for the people who actually have access to internet in their homes, but chose to not take part of the communities and conversations going on, I dropped a question on Twitter: What do you call the opposite of ”early adopters”? The English term is apparantly ”laggards”.

Laggards is a term quite impossible to translate to Swedish. It’s in any case rather negative. I find it excluding in itself (in it’s Swedish translation) even though it might be a common term in English.

In general I got quite excluding answers. I sense quite some frustration among my early adopter-Twitterfriends about these ”laggards”.

Communications consultant Brit Stakston at JMW Communications has with great persistance recently emphasized  the need to take into account the people with ”analogue values”, who are unaccustomed to life online and how to use the internet. And this is what I am after. Maybe I won’t find a final term to use, but this is close enough.

And why does it matter? Well, trying to mediate cultural heritage online it’s ofcourse vital to know who is online and who is not, and to learn what ”being online” actually means. This is surely an interesting topic in itself.

Conclusion

The consumers of cultural heritage could perhaps, very roughly, be described as follows:

1. Non-users (15 % in Sweden)
2. People with internet access, analogue values, unaccustomed to live on the internet
3. Early adopters (how many?)

I am still exploring the terms and the ”classification” and will surely return with new insights further on this year.

Read more

• Wikipedia on E-inclusion
• News on Digital Inclusion from Swedish Institute of Assistive Technology – SIAT

Twitter, trending topics and dashboards

Last night the Swedish version of the Eurovision Song Contest 2011 was broadcasted live on TV. It was the first out of four saturdays when the Swedish people will pick a Swedish representative for the big European event in Düsseldorf in May.

The ESC is a huge event that has been going on for decades, and it’s become more and more popular the last ten years. And now with the effect of social media, the hype just seems to explode. For a couple of years, there’s been a growing community of Swedish Twitterers/Tweeps that you could call early adopters and especially interested in social media and communication. Last year the Swedish version of the ESC was followed by a lot of these people and an extensive conversation, small talk I would say, was taking part on Twitter.

This year the small talk within a fairly limited community has grown into something much larger. The hashtag #mel2011 even raised into the top trending list world wide for a couple of hours. A Twingly liveboard channel was set up to display the Twitter stats for the hashtag, and the tweets just kept coming faster and faster, it wasn’t even possible to follow the flow.

In the end, after about two hours or so, the spam tweets started to show up. This is the risk of all trending topics, as we experienced with the #askacurator initiative in September 2010. How this will effect the next competitions within #mel2011, we’ll find out in the next couple of weeks.

In any case, the nicely designed Twingly Liveboard gave interesting statistics, and the speed of the twitterfall was astonishing. This makes me wonder how many people are actually using Twitter in Sweden? And how will communication through social media, and services like Twitter, evolve in the next couple of years?

The best use of Twitter last night goes to (my own awards): @wikimediase who happily threw themselves into the Twitter conversation giving links and personalized comments to each of the competing artists. Well done!

Reflections from yesterday’s Wikipanel

Last night I participated in a panel discussion on Wikipedia’s future. It was quite an informal event at a the bar/club/restaurant Strand in Stockholm.

Invited were a couple of guests with various backgrounds: A writer, a poet, a politician, a journalist, a political scientist, a web entrepreneur and myself from the cultural heritage sector.

All, except me, are frequent participants in public debates and arenas. The panel thus attracted an audience that was exceptionally large and trendy for a Wikipedia event. This event was also coorganized with a PR and communication agency Skugge & Co which was a great success for Wikipedia Sweden, who has had some difficulties reaching out to a larger crowd with their events.

At least half an hour late we started the panel discussion led by Axel Pettersson, press contact at Wikipedia Sweden. He had prepared a few questions to get the discussion going and then the panel contributed with a few questions, anecdotes and opinions.

The Wikipedia representatives were few, and worked hard all evening keeping the event going. They did an excellent job, but there was some critique from the audience. First of all it was percieved to some extent as not a very coherent discussion. From my point of view we covered a broad aspect of Wikipedia, but needed perhaps to stop and put focus on certain issues. Also there were no questions from the audience, mainly because they weren’t really invited into the discussion.

This strikes me as one of the weaker points of Wikipedia, there is a large crowd of just ”users” of Wikipedia. It’s just there when you perform a search on Google. There is a need to market (I am not sure if it’s the right word to use) Wikipedia as a crowdsourced organization and service, where you’re never just a user, but a contributer in one way or the other.

Then we have the interesting meeting between Wikipedia and the trendy and very demanding audience, who attend the top social media and communication events and expect nothing but perfection (technichque, content etc.). They want to be entertained by the best. To succeed and prosper, Wikipedia Sweden will need to not only get the attention of this crowd but also an active commitment (this is a lesson I bring back to the cultural heritage sector as well). Also, I believe larger Wikipedia events would benefit from a more focused programme adressing current issues of interest for segmented audiences.

I truly enjoyed last night and I believe Wikipedia Sweden all in all did a great job. Important questions were brought up, and a few things were brought to my attention:

• The young politicians are very interested in solving copyright issues, but they are also concerned and a bit frustrated that these issues aren’t taken seriously by the government, i.e. they feel there’s a lack of understanding of the real problems and how important this new culture online is to the younger generation
• A recurring issue is the poor user interface of Wikipedia (both for users and for contributers), this seems however be taken seriously by the Wikipedia foundation who are now giving scholarships and employing Wikipedians around the world to find solutions
• For the cultural heritage sector it’s important to look outside the sector for input around collaboration with Wikipedia (in the sense of contributing to digital inclusion, making a difference in society and finding new ways of mediating cultural heritage online)

Today, Wikipedia Sweden are having a meeting at Nordiska museet. They are also making time for a meeting around the collaboration between Nordiska museet and Wikipedia Sweden, which I am particularly looking foward to. Yesterday’s panel discussion was a great occasion for reflection and networking and this weekend the celebrations of Wikipedia 10 years continue.

Wikipedia 10 years old

This Thursday I will particpate in a panel discussion here in Stockholm, about Wikipedia turning 10 years old and about the future of the organization. My perspective is ofcourse the one of the museum.

Having quite recently participated in GLAM-Wiki UK, I am convinced there is a future for further collaboration between GLAM:s and Wikipedia. The challenge is to shape this collaboration in the best possible way.

There are several concerns from both GLAM:s and Wikipedians about collaboration. Some concerns were expressed on the blog Social Media and Cultural Communication, after the 2009 GLAM-Wiki conference in Australia: http://nlablog.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/feeling-glum-after-glam-wiki/

In June 2010, I organized a full day event, in Stockholm, focusing on Creative Commons and Photographic Collections within the cultural heritage sector. This was my first real encounter with Swedish Wikipedia, who kindly co-sponsored the day by giving presentations and inviting Liam Wyatt, at the time a digital volunteer at the British Museum. The day was a success and in many ways a small but profitable starting point for collaboration between Swedish GLAM:s and Wikipedia.

I believe collaboration with Wikipedia can give GLAM:s great advantages, among others:

• Reaching a larger audience
• Reaching target groups where they are
• Building relationships with new audiences
• Training the staff in communicating the cultural heritage in new ways
• Challenging the institution to develop in a positive direction

Since contributions to Wikipedia are made under conditions other than those common in museums (texts aren’t attributed, they can be changed etc.), museums have to rethink and challenge a lot of conventional methods and ways to mediate cultural heritage, and even their role in society. Not all social relations should be monetized, instead there are questions to ask: By participating in Wikipedia, can we make a contribution towards a greater digital inclusion? And contribute to a more open and creative internet? And with this I don’t say we shouldn’t look at ROI, just have an open mind when thinking about collaboration.

At the same time GLAM:s need to understand how the world ”out there” (online as well as offline) works, and assess if they are willing to adapt to these new game rules or not. I believe it’s vital to a museum to include social media participation in the operational plan, and to understand the consequences of participating as well as not participating. Collaborating with Wikipedia is a way to, in real time and step by step, leave the theories and strategies behind and implement the action plan.

To Wikipedia there is the challenge of not only collaborating with individuals, but with organizations and institutions. Also, I believe Wikipedia has to develop in the same direction as successful social media services as Facebook and Twitter, as far as user experience is concerned. The issues with contributing to Wikipedia (technical difficulties) can eventually put individuals and organizations off.

So there are challenges on both sides, but the possible benefits should definately be taken into account. This is one of my job assignments for 2011 as a Digital navigator at Nordiska museet, Stockholm. More about this in an upcoming blogpost.

For those interested in collaboration between GLAM:s and Wikipedia there is more to read:

• Recommendations from the GLAM-Wiki Australia conference
• Wikipedia-British Museum Collaboration
• The Wittylama Blog, by Liam Wyatt
• History Museums in a wiki world

Can marketing kill social media?

In a recent blog post on Mashable, Douglas Rushkoff is concerned that social media will evolve into social marketing, ie. social P2P relationships are threatened by the need for new marketing channels.

In the blog post the author claims crowdsourcing is really a corporate friendly variant of open source. And viral media has evolved into viral marketing.

Perhaps we’re not all there yet, but we might be heading in that direction. I believe it’s in place for the cultural heritage sector to be aware of the risk of contaminating social media methods with the demand to make money out of every single social relation.

It is a thought-provoking posts. How do we want social media to develop? How do we separate marketing and the thriving culture that social media enables? How can the cultural heritage sector contribute to a more sustainable development of social media?

Read the blog post: http://mashable.com/2011/01/06/marketing-threatens-social-media/

From tactile to digital

One of the problems that museums face when disseminating cultural heritage on the web is that the collections often have no voice, they are more or less silent. During a large part of the 1900s the collecting and collection management has been devoted to dissecting and classifying, each thing in its place. In addition conservation also has caused for example photographs to be separated from documents and objects.

Today, we are aware of the need to collect and preserve a comprehensive view of objects, documents and photographs. Research in the humanities have in recent years increasingly focused on the objects” materiality and social biography (see for example Photographs, Objects, Histories and Raw histories, photographs, anthropology and museums of Professor Elizabeth Edwards, the London College of Communication). It is not just the object itself that is important, but its social biography and context. Yet this paradigm shift has not reached the web interfaces. Much of the available knowledge about the collections is filtered and lost when going online.

To mediate tactile objects in digital channels requires new thinking and new approaches. We need methods to identify the context which is necessary to fully understand an object, document or photograph, and also methods on how to convey the very same context online.

Ethnologist Hanna Jansson has this spring completed her master’s thesis on knitting blogs. Title of the thesis is From yarn to words – tactile objects and narrative worlds in knitting blogs (my translation from Swedish). In September, she presented the thesis at an internal seminar at Nordiska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.

A starting point for this paper is the American folklorist Katharine Young’s model of narrative worlds (Tale Worlds and Storyrealms, 2000). Narrator and audience can move between different worlds. In Young’s model there is Tale World (the events in the story) and Story Realm (the realm of storytelling). Hanna Jansson builds a new model in which she adds to Young’s model a new dimension, the World of experience, i.e. the everyday world of tactile experience. The World of experience is offline and the representations are online. The documenting and translating practices of the blogs are found both online and offline. The interaction between the blogger takes place both online and offline.

Hanna Jansen is interested especially in the transformation process, in which physical knitted objects are transformed into digital stories in the form of text, photographs and moving images and presented in blog format. In her work she has in addition to studying blogs also studied the informants” lives offline. These blogs have, besides being a focus for the study, also yielded valuable information about knitting culture today in Sweden.

A conclusion that Hanna Jansson makes in her essay is that blogs are an ongoing story, through the linking of blog entries and comments. By following an individual object the story’s various elements emerges and can they be linked together to form a whole. Individual blogposts appear to be almost meaningless. The stories provide a context and follow objects that gradually emerge.

The relationships between online and offline is particularly interesting. Those who write posts on their blogs and those who comment are involved in each other both via the web – in commenting on each other’s posts – but also through meeting in real life. The boundaries between offline and online will thus be fluent. The study of bloggers also show that they are relevant to knowledge processes related to knitting.

Interestingly, Hanna Jansson concludes that RSS feeds can be limiting for interactivity. Those who consume blogs via RSS feeds tend to be less prone to comment on posts. While she draws the conclusion that the blogs that are frequently updated and have a superior quality and extensive scope, still get many comments on their posts.

Photographs play an important role in blogging, on multiple levels. First, the use of photographs make up a substantial part of the content of the blogs. Secondly the authors make a true effort to photograph the knitted items, and they know very well what a good picture should look like (how light will fall and so on). They also express an awareness that they really would like to produce even better images, but can not mainly because of time constraints.

The core of this paper is how Hanna Jansson shows how the tactile is conveyed in words and in pictures. Blog texts are very descriptive and illustrate the feeling of the yarn, the hard work of a knitting project, etc. The photographs aim to convey the same spirit, color, texture and fit. However, one seldom sees interaction with the yarn. The photographs do not to a greater extent convey tactile sensations. This might be caused by various factors, the bloggers do not always carry a camera or have the time to produce the images they would like. Secondly the media itself – the semi-public arena – puts the limit for what you want to show or tell.

But above all (my translation:) “the digital texts acquire a distinct materiality and physicality through the readers’ tactile skills” (in Swedish) ”får de digitala texterna genom läsarnas taktila kunskaper en tydlig materialitet och kroppslighet…”(Hanna Jansson, 2010, p.67). So it is by the well-informed audience, and the digital text and image processing, that the tactile experience can be delivered digitally. That the audience interact actively with the blog authors and participate in the emerging knitting projects, and also use their skills in this interaction, is crucial to the blog’s development. Hanna Jansson clearly shows how a survey of all participants on the blogs is essential to understand the knitted object’s transformation to a digital story.

Hanna Jansson reveals therefore the integration between object transformations and textualisations, the underlying tactile experiences, translating and interactive practices in the analysis of the knitted onjects. Online and offline merge. ”Digitalt och analogt, kropp och text samt erfarenhet och representation måste… förstås som grundläggande aspekter av både stickningens och bloggandets kreativa praktiker.” My translation: Digital and analogue, body and text, experience and representation must…be understood as basic aspects of the creative practices of knitting and blogging. (Hanna Jansson, 2010, s.67).

Hanna Jansson concludes her essay by saying that blogs are of great importance for folklore researchers when studying stories and storytelling. Blogs by their nature allow ”the study of storytelling both as process and as integral part of the informants” lives.” My translation. In Swedish: ”att studera berättandet både som process och som integrerad del i informanternas liv.”

Studies like Hanna Jansson’s are invaluable to the process of developing a web presence for museums in the cultural heritage sector. Among other things we get new insights about what the web does today for cultural creativity and interaction.

Hanna Jansson is currently a doctoral student at Stockholm University and will continue studying blogs, a career that I look forward to follow.

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Hanna Jansson’s essay is available (in Swedish) in full text through the Nordic museum’s library.

Från taktilt till digitalt

This is a blogpost about a seminar held at Nordiska museet in September, an English translation will follow shortly.

Ett av de problem som museer står inför i arbetet med att förmedla kulturarv på webben är att samlingarna ofta saknar röst, de är mer eller mindre tysta. En stor del av 1900-talets insamling och förvaltning har gått ut på att dissekera och klassificera, var sak på sin plats. Även av bevarandeskäl har exempelvis fotografier splittrats från dokument och föremål.

Idag är vi medvetna om behovet av att samla och bevara med en helhetssyn på föremål, dokument och fotografier. Forskningen inom humaniora har de senaste åren har allt mer fokuserat på objektens materialitet och sociala biografi (se bland annat Photographs, objects, histories och  Raw histories, om fotografiets materialitet av professor Elizabeth Edwards, London College of Communication). Det är inte bara föremålet i sig som är av betydelse utan hela dess livshistoria och kontext. Ändå saknas ofta detta synsätt i minnesinstitutionernas förmedling via webben. En stor del av den kunskap som finns om samlingarna filtreras bort i webbgränssnittet.

För att kunna förmedla taktila föremål i digitala kanaler krävs nytänkande och nya metoder. Dels metoder för att identifiera den kontext som är nödvändig för att fullt förstå ett föremål, dokument eller fotografi, och dels metoder för att också på webben kunna förmedla desamma.

Etnologen Hanna Jansson har under våren skrivit sin masteruppsats om stickbloggar. Uppsatsens titel är Från garn till ord – stickbloggars taktila ting och narrativa världar. I september presenterade hon uppsatsen vid ett internt seminarium på Nordiska museet.

En utgångspunkt för uppsatsen är den amerikanska folkloristen Katharine Youngs modell över narrativa världar (Taleworlds and Storyrealms, 2000). Berättare och åhörare kan röra sig mellan flera olika världar. I Youngs modell finns världarna Taleworld (händelserna i berättelsen) och Storyrealm (berättandets rike). Hanna Jansson bygger en ny modell där hon kompletterar Youngs modell med upplevelsevärlden, den vardagliga världen av taktila erfarenheter. Upplevelsevärlden finns offline och representationerna online. Bloggandets dokumenterande och översättande praktiker rör sig både online och offline. Interaktionen mellan bloggare sker både online och offline.

Hanna Jansson intresserar sig specifikt för transformationsprocesserna, genom vilka fysiska stickade objekt blir till digitala berättelser i form av texter, fotografier och rörliga bilder, presenterade i bloggform. I sitt arbete har hon förutom att studera bloggarna också studerat informanternas liv offline. Bloggarna har förutom att vara ett studieobjekt i sig också givit värdefull information om stickkulturen idag i Sverige.

Några slutsatser som Hanna drar i sin uppsats är att bloggarna utgör en pågående berättelse, genom att de knyts samman av bloggposter och kommentarer. Genom att följa enskilda objekt framträder berättelsens olika delar och kan knytas samman till något sammanhängande, en helhet. Enskilda inlägg framstår å sin sida om i det närmaste meningslösa. Berättelserna ger en kontext och följer föremålens successiva framväxt.

Förhållande online och offline är särskilt intressant. De som skriver i sina bloggar och de som kommenterar är involverade i varandra såväl via webben – man kommenterar varandras inlägg – men också via träffar i verkliga livet. Gränserna mellan offline och online blir alltså flytande. Studiet av bloggarna visar också att de har betydelse för kunskapsprocesserna som rör stickningen.

Intressant är att Hanna Jansson konstaterar att RSS-feeds kan vara begränsande för interaktiviteten. De som konsumerar bloggar via RSS-feeds tenderar att i mindre grad kommentera inlägg. Samtidigt drar hon slutsatsen att de bloggar som ofta uppdateras och har ett kvalitativt och omfattande innehåll ändå får många kommentarer på sina inlägg.

Fotografier spelar en viktig roll i bloggandet, på flera olika plan. Dels utgör fotografierna en väsentlig del av innehållet i bloggarna. Skribenterna anstränger sig för att fotografera de stickade objekten, och vet hur en bra bild bör se ut (hur ljuset ska falla osv.). De uttrycker också en medvetenhet om att de egentligen skulle vilja producera ännu bättre bilder, men kan inte framförallt på grund av tidsbrist.

Kärnan i uppsatsen är hur Hanna Jansson visar hur det taktila förmedlas i text och i bild. Bloggtexterna är mycket beskrivande och belyser känslan av garnet, det hårda arbetet med ett stickprojekt osv. Fotografierna strävar efter att i samma anda förmedla färg, struktur och passform. Dock ser man sällan interaktionen med garnet. Att fotografierna inte i större grad förmedlar taktila upplevelser kan bero på olika faktorer, dels att man inte alltid bär med sig en kamera eller har tid att producera de bilder man skulle vilja, och dels att själva mediet – den halvoffentliga arenan – sätter gränser för vad man vill visa.

Men framförallt ”får de digitala texterna genom läsarnas taktila kunskaper en tydlig materialitet och kroppslighet…” (Hanna Jansson, 2010, s.67). Det är alltså genom den initierade publiken, och den digitala textens och bildens framställning, som den taktila upplevelsen förmedlas digitalt. Genom att målgruppen interagerar aktivt med bloggskribenterna, deltar i det framväxande stickprojektet och genom sin kompetens blir avgörande för bloggens vidare utveckling visar Hanna Jansson tydligt hur en kartläggning av alla aktörer på bloggarna är väsentlig för att förstå det stickade objektets transformation till digital berättelse.

Hanna Jansson synliggör alltså integrationen mellan objektens transformationer och textualiseringar, bakomliggande taktila upplevelser, översättande och interaktiva praktiker i analysen av representationerna. Online och offline går in i varandra. ”Digitalt och analogt, kropp och text samt erfarenhet och representation måste ”… förstås som grundläggande aspekter av både stickningens och bloggandets kreativa praktiker.” (Hanna Jansson, 2010, s.67).

Hanna Jansson avslutar sin uppsats med slutsatsen att bloggar är av stor betydelse för folklorister för att få tillgång till berättelser och berättande. Bloggens karaktär ger möjlighet ”att studera berättandet både som process och som integrerad del i informanternas liv.” För museerna är studier som Hanna Janssons ovärdeliga för arbetet med att utveckla en webbnärvaro i kulturarvssektorn. Vi får nya insikter om vad webben betyder redan idag för kulturskapande och interaktion.

Hanna Jansson är idag doktorand vid Stockholms universitet och kommer att fortsätta studera bloggar, ett arbete som jag ser fram emot att följa.

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Hanna Janssons uppsats finns bland annat att läsa i fulltext genom Nordiska museets bibliotek.

The Social Media Toolbox

Just a short blogpost on Social Media Tools:

I recently started to discover Twingly and Delicious (yes, call me backwards, but it has really taken me this long!). And now that I am completely into these two services, I do have to share the benefits.

Starting with Twingly.com. It is a website where you can create your own channels of RSS-feeds. The purpose is to gather feeds from the top blogs within your area of interest. The result is great. In an instant you have an overview of the top stories in the area. My Twingly Channel is available through my Blogroll, and here through this link: Digital Cultural Heritage at Twingly.

The second website that I now have in my Social Media Tool Box is Delicious.com. No longer do I save the website URL by bookmarking it in my browser. It’s all available online. Also I get to collect great links that pass through my Twitter account, since they are automatically saved to my Delicious account (this requires a service Packrati.us). Best of all, Delicious allows me to follow other people and take part of their bookmarks.

Any service that allows me to save time, gather and share top stories, is quickly added to my daily routines, and will – hopefully – also allow me to get more organized. Twingly and Delicious are, I believe, great and necessary complements to f.ex. Slideshare, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter.

What is in fact a museum?

Every now and then I come across situations where museums and museum-like institutions interact on the same premises. I am then often referred to the definition of a museum according to ICOM:

”A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.”

The words ”acquires” and ”conserves” the tangible and intangible heritage catch my eye. To acquire something means that you collect, wether it may be objects or stories, photographs or songs.

However there are both institutions and organizations that, to the general public, are perceived as museums, but as they don’t collect, they are not defined as museums. For example, in France there is Cité de l’Espace, in Toulouse, that doesn’t use the word museum anywhere, but have exhibitions very similar to a museum of natural history, a science museum or even a children’s museum.

There are historical sites like caves with 14 000 year old paintings, that have a higher ambition than just to entertain or give an experience. (And then there’s in fact the museum showing replicas of the very same paintings, telling stories about the people who lived in the caves.)

And there are historical sites like the castle of Chenonceau, Indre et Loire, that perpahs don’t necessarily have the ambition to educate the visitors, but rather give a memorable experience.

Château Chenonceau, France, 2010.

In Sweden there is the Fotografiska, a center for contemporary photography, who doesn’t define itself as a museum but calls itself ”not an ordinary museum”.

To the general visitor, the experience is pretty much the same. Therefore the ICOM definition of a museum is often irrelevant.

Ofcourse the museum has a different goal, especially within education. There are resources set aside especially for schools etc. The pure historical site, or tourist attraction, will not have the same ambitions. On the other hand Cité de l’Espace does receive school classes, just like any museum.

Again if we ask the visitors, not ICOM, isn’t it fact so  that not only is the difference between the ”attraction” or ”historical site” and the museum in many cases irrelevant, the expectations on both experiences might in fact be the same. There is a desire to be entertained, have a memorable experience, but also a desire to learn something. This is possible in museums, but also at historical sites like the Pyrenéan caves that preserve and communicate paintings.

That is why I am interested in these ”almost museums”. How do they attract visitors? How do they communicate in the digital world? And what can we learn from each other? And to what extent does the definition matter when talking about digital communication?.

Go tribal!

Archives, libraries and museums have their particular audiences that probably have stayed the same, in a demographic sense, for a longer period of time. However, looking closer at this group of cultural heritage consumers, they are changing their habits just like everyone else.

The people we’re trying to reach today have their own audiences, they are not at the end of the communication line. In fact their networks and audiences have in turn their own audiences, etc. And as people are acknowledging the responsibility of maintaining their networks, the messages passed on will be refined in each step. There is in fact a sense of curation going on.

Brian Solis reminds us, in an interview at 26DotTwo, that since traditional media is no longer central in people’s lives (they are instead focused on their Twitter-stream, their Facebook wall etc.) there’s a need to adapt the communication to this changing world. And the only way to really understand this change is to actually live it, be a part of social media. ”If you don’t live it and breathe it yourself you can’t necessarily get it.” He even says: Like an anthropologist, go tribal!

And as a passionate anthropologist I do get it. By going tribal we’ll learn how this (not so) new world of communication works, and we’ll learn how to communicate and how to reach new audiences. Last but not least, sharing the insights we gain along the way is vital to the development of the cultural heritage sector.

See the film clip: The new influencers. Does old school media ”get it”?