Transformation Into Sociable Media

"What you've seen in the last three to five years is a transformation into sociable media, and people really wanting to interact with each other and with the materials...sometimes."
- Deborah Douglas, 6/23/09

My discussion with Deborah Douglas, Curator of Science and Technology at the MIT Museum touched on several topics including
- trends in the ways that museums are using technology
- various innovations in the mobile technology space,
- challenges integrating interactive tools into exhibitions, from the dual perspectives of institutional comfort and technological hurdles.
- projects that attempted to address these topics both that she had worked on and that she knew of.

Having worked on the Museum Without Walls project with her colleagues, Deborah had already faced many of the questions we're facing with Juncanoo, and was well versed on the topic of art and technology as a result. Having already addressed the key questions of how to deepen interaction between museums and visitors, and how to make those interactions relevant to all involved, our discussion yielded several fruitful bits of knowledge that we can apply while developing Juncanoo. These will be listed in preliminary form here, and then addressed in full in the next post.

First; the demand for interactivity demonstrated by websites and social networks such as YouTube, FaceBook and Flickr present an opportunity. They also present some challenges;

- control; every enterprise that thrives on user driven content faces the issue of control; how to ensure that those posting material have the rights to do so, how to ensure that the material posted is appropriate for the intended audience and so on and so forth,
- storage + bandwidth; for particularly popular applications, such as Facebook and YouTube, the costs of storing user driven content are enormous and can quickly overwhelm the standard server that a museum might use,
- relevance; how do you ensure that the interactions are relevant to the institution's mission. For example, a museum, as a "center of culture" or an institution of learning, would likely want any interactions to increase the body of knowledge around any particular item, either by fostering richer subjective discussions or improving the body of factual knowledge.

Second, the nature of a product that flexibly delivers educational content to any user with an enabled device, means that other educational organizations may also have a need for it. In her words:

"a product that serves an organizational or grassroots need...what if there's something that helps kids learn cool stuff about cambridge, and maybe the schools create it. It still may be a valuable enterprise”

This suggestion raises the prospect of developing Juncanoo as an educational tool - more on this later.

Third and finally, the need for a product that allows institutions link their works to other, already existing, bodies of knowledge. This would allow institutions to partner with other content providers and facilitate access to these other sources for guests who want to follow up.

I'll detail how we're addressing all these issues in the next post. For now, thanks for reading.

Ayo

"a lot of museums will be grappling with their comfort level with letting go of control over the information that is collected and presented. All I can say in terms of advice is, that every institution will respond differently. Some will want strict editorial controls while others will be much more permissive. To date, I've been surprised by the fact that I could not predict where an institution would come out on this question."

-Deborah Douglas, 6/23/09