Posted: June 1st, 2010 | Author: Jasper Visser | Filed under: Inspiration, People | Tags: community, connections, conversation, do's and don'ts, guidelines, Interaction, storytelling, tips | No Comments »
Today was the fifth edition of Mediamatic’s Kom Je Ook? conference.* Today’s topic was storytelling. Storytelling seems to be hot. As some of the speakers at today’s conference pointed out today, however, it’s nothing new. Virgil’s Aeneid and Homer’s Iliad used to be told as stories. That’s a long time ago. Storytelling once was the only real source of information sharing we had. The Moroccan storytellers who still tell the stories of A Thousand and One Nights are one of the many examples of this ancient tradition, still present today.
So, what we’re doing is trying to reinvent an old tradition. Fortunately, most of today speakers showed that we haven’t thrown away X million years of experience with storytelling. Actually, we might have made some small steps forward. Or regained some lost skills.
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Posted: May 24th, 2010 | Author: Jasper Visser | Filed under: Expositions | Tags: connections, conversation, crowd, exhibition, experience, photography, practice | 9 Comments »
Nieuwe groeten uit… (“New greetings from…”) is a crowd-sourced, crowd-curated exposition in the city of Arnhem in the east of the Netherlands. Last Thursday my museum opened the last part of the yearlong project. In many ways it’s a special exposition and project, I think, and worth sharing.
Somewhat over a year ago FOAM photography museum Amsterdam, the ANP Historical Archive and the Museum of National History of the Netherlands came together to find a replacement for the traditional postcards. Most postcards show an old-fashioned image of Holland: cheese, cows and wooden shoes. The Netherlands has changed significantly over the last years, and Nieuwe Groeten Uit… was a search for new postcards.
The general public played a mayor part in every phase of the project: gathering the photographs for the postcards, selecting the best post-cards and even putting them on display.
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Posted: May 16th, 2010 | Author: Jasper Visser | Filed under: Inspiration, Technology | Tags: advice, conversation, do's and don'ts, energy, experience, guidelines, lessons, tips | 10 Comments »
Photo from the Flickr Commons (Field Museum Library)
I’m relatively new to museums. Apart from a short intermezzo in an ecomuseum, the last year has been my only year within the walls of a museum. I do new media and technology. We do a lot of innovation. This is what I learned last year.
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Posted: March 16th, 2010 | Author: Jasper Visser | Filed under: Technology | Tags: conversation, do's and don'ts, guidelines, lessons, practice, strategy | No Comments »
Lately I’ve been getting a lot of questions about social media guidelines for museums. There’s been a lot written about the use of social media guidelines, so I’ll limit this post to my experiences.
Why use social media guidelines?
More and more people join social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook or blog about their life or work. Not everybody is a digital native with perfect understanding of the subtleties of the web. I think guidelines are to guide these people towards a rewarding and safe use of social media.
Social media guidelines help people:
- To benefit from the opportunities of social media.
- To engage in a constructive way in online conversation, be it about a museum or their favourite pet.
- To avoid doing things online they might regret, personally or professionally.
- To find their way in your organisation when they discover conversations about your organisation on the web.
- To feel comfortable while writing about their work online.
Social media guidelines are meant to enrich people’s online behaviour, not to limit it.
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Posted: January 28th, 2010 | Author: Jasper Visser | Filed under: People, Technology | Tags: communication, community, conversation, do's and don'ts, museums, strategy, twitter | 4 Comments »
Next Monday, February 1st, is “follow a museum” day. As there are a lot of museum with quite extraordinary collections, I think it’s worth following one or two for inspiration, information and entertainment. Therefore, I applaud the idea of follow a museum day.
However, I also have my doubts.
Followers seem to be the new currency. The more followers, the better. I strongly disagree. It’s involvement that matters. It’s not about the number of followers a museum has, but about the communication with its audience a museum has.
Jim hinted using Ad.ly Analytics to measure the involvement of your followers. I say 100 involved followers beats 100.000 uninvolved ones. (Read about the “benefits” of being on Twitter’s Suggested Users List by Anil Dash.) Read the rest of this entry »
