Sunday Times – “The 10 best museum websites”

The Culture24 site made it into the Sunday Times last weekend in their list of “The 10 best museum websites” – the list is global so we are in rather illustrious company – Louvre, Smithsonian, Rijks, Science Museum, National Archives etc

Cloudcomputing and the future

Looks like I missed a good event at the ICA yesterday with Charles Leadbeater talking with others about his new book/pamphlet for the British Council “Cloud Culture – the future of global cultural relations” (you can download it here and its well worth the effort).

Catch up with a short but succinct interview with Charlie here.
Read a blog posts about the day from Joanna Jacobs and an ‘Open Cloud Declaration’ from Charlie on the British Council thinktank ‘Counterpoint’.

Join in the debate at the BC here.

Reaching Teachers: Culture24 at the Learning and Technology World Forum 2010

Our Chairman and Becta board member John Newbigin opened the session yesterday on “educational learning from the media Industries” as part of the Learning and Technology World Forum 2010.

The Forum is part of the run up to the BETT conference that is on from Wed 13th Jan to Saturday 16th Jan. Read more here.

Culture24’s Head of Programmes Anra Kennedy did a great presentation challenging the education sector to make use of the fabulous rich online content from museums that it already out there. I watched it all on the Webcast provided by bTween (who were involved in curating the session).

She cited some of the good examples where teachers can already find/explore really useful stuff;
Flickr Commons
Pre-Raphaelites
National Archives
and of course the new Culture24 Teachers section.

You can read an excellent roundup of the session on Joanne Jacobs blog here.

Looking back over the development of Culture24 over the last ten years (the video!)

The lovely people from New Zealand’s National Digital Forum has posted the video of my keynote, complete with all the slides.

If you want to hear from the horses’ mouth (so to speak) the inside story of Culture24’s journey from ‘portal to publisher’ then watch this!

Read my take homes from the conference.

Culture24 listed as one of the Guardians 100 most *essential* websites

Thanks to lovely people at the Guardian (in particular Jack Schofield) for the professional recognition on this one.

I’m really proud of the new Culture24 site and think that it really *does* offer an essential service to anyone interested in what’s going on in museums, galleries, archive, heritage site and more around the UK.

Great to be listed in this.

Take homes from the National Digital Forum (NDF2009) in New Zealand

It was long way to New Zealand from Brighton, three planes, 28 hours and a lot of movies, but it was worth it. The people are friendly, the landscape breathtaking and the coffee is fantastic. Add to this the National Digital Forum itself and you have a recipe for a really fun, thought provoking and stimulating week.

above: Penny Carnaby (National Library) and John Garraway (NDF Chair)

Thanks to the British Council, I was sponsored to come over and invited to do a keynote on the afternoon of the NDF’s first day. The conference venue was in the truly wonderful Te Papa museum and I was one of three international speakers, the others being Daniel Incandela (Director of New Media, Indianapolis Museum of Art) and Nina Simon (Museum 2.0 blog).

above: Te Papa wall outside conference “Embrace the past. Prepare now to shape the future”

Daniel opened with a very witty account of the transformation he has overseen of the IMA’s online presence and production. In particular the great use of personalities, narratives and stories told using low cost video but with high production values). He comes from a background like myself of video production and I totally related to his insistence on voice, opinion, humour trumping over the technology.

Nina (a woman after my own heart) talked about audience, mostly from the point of view of the physical exhibition but the issues translate to the online world very easily. The spoke of the importance of framing the ‘right’ question as a way to draw people in to an idea. She also got the whole conference on its feet, sharing skills and seeking advise in the one-to-one, with the reward for a a successful skill swap of banging a huge gong hanging on the stage. See the visual evidence of my successful sharing here!

above: me and my big slides!

For my slot, I told the story of Culture24 over the last ten years, what we set out to do, what we actually did, what worked, what didn’t and what next. I also looked back on the duplication, lack of strategy, leadership and sustainability in UK digital cultural online. Ending with what I see as possibly the start of some real change in 2009 thanks to the following:

MLA digital principles published
Arts Council state digital opportunity as a key priority
National Museum directors speak out to say future for museums lies with Internet
MA conference, first year they have had a strand on ‘digital change’

You can see the slides of my talk, which are in two parts here: Part One / Part Two.

It seems from the Twitter back channel and the face to face chat that the stories were appreciated, which coming from such a highly skilled and digital literate group of people was a real compliment.

Also enjoyed hearing about the excellent stuff they are doing at the DigitalNZ (part of the National Digital Library). Their work with API’s, data aggregation and date sharing is really innovative for the cultrual sector and I for one an watching their space with interest.

Same applies to the stuff that Liam Wyatt from Wikimedia Australia is talking about concerning how to engage the GLAM sector more effectivly with Wikimedia. His recent blog posts on the low hanging fruit in this area are really interesting.

above: Liam Wyatt (Wittylama) and Phillipa Tocker

Finally, this has got to be the best badge ever ….

Thanks to the British Council, Te Ara, NZlive and the NDF committee for their support and for making the trip both possible and worth it.

New Zealand: National Digital Forum and 5th Culturemondo Roundtable

Heading off the 11,000+ miles to New Zealand to give the keynote for what looks set to be a fantastic National Digital Forum. Really looking forward to meeting the other speakers and to meeting some of the people who are behind New Zealand’s great digital offer.

The conference runs for two days and then I am chairing the 5th Culturemondo roundtable at which we will publish the latest Culturemondo report “5 years on – where are we headed?”, the recent international survey and ask “What are the trends, issues and future directions suggested by the survey?”

The roundtbable will also include a workshop by Seb Chan on web metrics and evalaution asking “How do we measure the economic and social value of cultural websites? This will raise issues of metrics, evaluation etc.

Thanks to TELDAP, NZLive.com and Te Ara for their continued support.

Overview of my keynote:
From Portal to Publisher: A case study of online cultural publishing
It was May 1999 when the 24 Hour Museum went live, one of the first generation of publicly funded cultural „portals‟.
Since then, the digital world has seen many big changes. The online world is radically different, the economic and political climate has fundamentally shifted and online user behaviour is unrecognisable from ten years ago.
Renamed „Culture24‟ in 2008 to reflect a developing remit and reach, the UK-based organisation behind 24 Hour Museum now publishes a family of sites targeted at different audiences. They are also developing a range of strategic data services that reach out beyond their own web pages to other platforms and publishers.

In this session, Director Jane Finnis will tell the story of their journey – the successes, failures and ongoing challenges. She will talk about the wider digital cultural climate in the UK and her thoughts on the challenges of working across different government departments and sectors. She will explain how Culture24 seek to connect users to online culture, how they support search and browse and how they are trying to build audience trust in their brand and share a behind-the-scenes look at their technical infrastructure and data sharing work.
Jane‟s presentation will reference the newly launched Culture24 site www.culture24.org.uk, their award winning children‟s zone www.show.me.uk and Caboodle – a playground for kids to share and explore collecting www.caboodle.org.uk

Are you ready for the Internet of Things?

Fellow Culturemondo-er Rob van Kranenburg (seen below at our 4th Roundtable in Taiwan), the Founder at Council, has come togeher with Tinker.it! to present: “Are you ready for the Internet of Things?”

A LIFT @ Home event on December 4, 2009, at Brussel’s Center for Digital Culture and Technology. See Launch.

Take homes from two Culture24 workshops – Social Media, Web Metrics, Evaluation by Seb Chan

Just finished a full-on week with Seb Chan from Powerhouse, delivering this years ever popular and inspiring workshops – the first on Social Media and the second on Web Metrics and evaluation.

Under Seb’s guidance, Powerhouse Museum has been consistency leading internationally on how museums can use digital tools to further engage and reach audiences. This fact, combined with Seb’s own passion for the subject and his ability to dissect, confront and interpret his own digital, made this years workshops better that ever.

Take homes for me from both were:

Tuesday 3rd November – Social Media

1. Start with what are you trying to achieve and who is it for. Sounds obvious but its harder than you think.
2. You have to know who your audience are to reach them (the more segmentation the better).
3. Your content is your marketing. If your messages are not your actual stuff, your stories, your views, the stuff that makes you who you are, then its just noise.
4. Your social media channels need curating just like your exhibitions (all the time).
5. You need to monitor what is happening in our social media channels – what are people saying about you – and you need to respond to them.
6. Digital strategy needs to really be the responsibility of the whole museum team.
7. One museums misuse is another person’s valid interpretation.
8. Websites are not social spaces so don’t try and make your one. Take your stuff out into the existing social spaces where your target audience already are.

The day was held at CILIP in central London, great venue for courses and good catering with real hot food (very important). The mixture of people was really interesting, some museums, heritage, photography, arts – and individuals with responsibilities for marketing, curation, publishing, technical.

Living proof of the huge range of ways that organisations are dealing with digital strategy. There was a marked different from last years workshop and people seemed to be further developed in their thinking and understanding of the key issues. You can see this clearly in the fact that this year at least third of those attending were in the process of writing a digital strategy for their organisation, whereas last year, about the same number left the workshop having realised this was something that needed to do.

Wednesday 5th November – Web Metrics

This subject is a particular hobbyhorse of mine as I am so often amazed by how many digital projects have not even considered the basic questions of what are they trying to achieve and who is it for – without this how do you know what to evaluate to tell if it worked?

The big issue here I think is the fact that some projects are clearly commissioned because people think they have to ‘do’ something about digital – have a website, have a facebook page, put their collections online – whatever it might be.

Seb has done a great blog post on what he calls the “five rules of museum content” Worth a read and definitely worth interrogating your own work to see if you can answer the questions well or not.

Next meeting up Seb at the New Zealand National Digital Forum where we will do the Web Metrics workshop again as part of the 5th Culturemondo roundtable. Looking forward to seeing how the NZ museums/galleries/archives are coping with all this.

A further set of take homes from another participant – Bilkis Mosoddik at the Museum of London – can be found on her blog here.

Two new Culture24 training events by Seb Chan

Following the sold-out success of last years event, Culture24 are pleased to welcome Seb Chan back to the UK for two dynamic sessions:

- “Strategic social media for the cultural sector”

- “Web analytics and measuring online success in a rapidly changing online landscape”

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Strategic social media for the cultural sector
Tuesday, November 03, 2009 from 9:30 AM – 6:00 PM
At: CILIP, 7 Ridgmount Street, London
Cost: £150 (inc lunch)

How does your museum engage with its audiences? Do you use social media to reach and engage with new audiences?
Understanding social media marketing is essential for museums in the 21st century. This workshop will show you how you can listen to and engage with audiences online, and consider some of the challenges involved in running effective campaigns.

What will you get from the day?
• Practical ideas about ways to make your digital collections more accessible
• An understanding of the changing nature of online publishing
• Evidence to argue for investment in online services within your organisation
• Ideas and strategies for building sustainable online audiences

For full details and how to book click here:
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Web analytics and measuring online success in a rapidly changing online landscape
Wednesday, November 04, 2009 from 1:30 PM – 6:00 PM
At: Royal Observatory, Greenwich
Cost: £75

Explore the emerging landscape of metrics and measurement in the world of the social Web. The workshop will begin with an examination of the traditional measurement tools available on the Web, explaining their pros and cons, before looking specifically at the new suite of tools needed to discover ‘actionable insights’ for your social media projects.

What will you get from the day?
· Insights into current issues around online measurement
· Practical understanding of how to use and not to use existing measurement tools
· Ideas and strategies for developing more complex and effective results

For full details and how to book click here:

About the presenter:
Sebastian Chan leads the Digital, Social and Emerging Technologies department at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. His teams include the museum’s web unit, audio visual and photography, rights & permission and the photo library, the research library and Thinkspace, the Powerhouse’s digital media teaching laboratories. He is a researcher in several Australian Research Council Linkage projects researching social media, museums, and technology; and speaks internationally about the use of cutting edge technology in the cultural sector. He is on the international programme committees of Museums and the Web (USA), Digital Strategies for Heritage (Eu), the Horizon.Au New Media Consortium, and is an International Steering Committee member of Culturemondo, an international group of representatives of cultural portal strategists. Seb is also a member of the Australian Government’s Government 2.0 Taskforce examining ways of improving citizen engagement with government and opening access to public sector information