Strindberg, innovation and a wrap-up of #kulturwebb

Innovation can be painful, in my translation of what Johan Ronnestam said.

Last week I presented at a #kulturwebb conference in the Nordiska Museet, Stockholm. My presentation opened with an 1888 quote from Strindberg, from his preface to Miss Julie (translated by Michael Robinson).

(…) people have believed in the possibility of creating a new drama by filling the old forms with new content; but this approach has failed, partly because there has not yet been time to popularize the new ideas (…) and partly because we have not yet found the new form for the new content, and the new wine has burst the old bottles.

Apparently, the debate about innovation in content and medium in culture is nothing new. Of course, I would like to add. When we talk about innovating cultural institutions, it’s not about starting to use Twitter or Facebook. We talk about continuously reinventing ourselves to stay meaningful in a changing world. Change and innovation are an on-going process. As the adage goes, change is the only constant (Heraclitus?). Read the rest of this entry »

Born Digital Museums – Wrap up of MW2011 unconference session

Photo by Craig on Flickr.com.

At yesterday’s unconference sessions at Museums and the Web, I proposed a discussion about what digital museums could look like. What would a born digital museum in the 21^st century be if we look beyond Second Life? Magdalena, Martin, Chloë, Jamie, Fiona, Timothy, Linda, Nanna and Fiona shared some great ideas, which I’m happy to share with everybody.

The Open University Challenge

In 1965 the Open University (UK) started being planned to challenge many of the presumptions of traditional universities. When it opened in 1969 many people did not believe the model of a ‘virtual’, easily accessible and inclusive would prove viable. In 2011, the Open University is still around and educating over a quarter million students a year, with its concept exported to many other countries.

A “born digital museum”, in many ways, faces the same challenges as the Open University did once. Why is the Open University successful? And, can we apply these lessons to a museum, to make it succeed as a museum without a physical location? Read the rest of this entry »

Next steps for the National Vending Machine (and how you can help)

Good news for all fans of our National Vending Machine: this week we received confirmation of a significant subsidy to further develop the project. The great people at the DOEN Foundation will invest in improved visitor participation, a better website and information structure and activities to involve new audiences. Thanks!

These new funds allow us to work on some of our own recommendations for improvement. For instance, it allows us to put in practice the lessons about participation and crowdsourcing we detail in our Museums and the Web paper. Also, we can professionalize our outreach activities. Here’s some of the things we’re hoping to do with the help of DOEN: Read the rest of this entry »

How the Google Art Project might revolutionize the physical museum experience

There were people who said the iPhone and iPad would fail. There’s even a wonderful article about how the Internet will fail from 1995. If the invention of the writing press had preceded the invention of the wheel, I’m sure we would still be reading naysayers elaborate bashing of easy transportation. Today I’m reading a lot of stuff about the Google Art Project not delivering.

Sure, not everything Google touches turns to gold (remember Google Wave?). However, like any future Apple iThing it’s silly to underestimate the impact a Google product will have on a sector. Their marketing budget, distribution channels and development budgets are simply no match for any well-intentioned alternative.

Let’s do a thought experiment and presume the Google Art Project will revolutionize the museum experience the way the iPad will change the publishing industry. Below are six complaints about the Google Art Project I’ve heard most often. What will happen if these become standard practice in our physical museums (which, as I hope to have proven by now, they very well might).

1. Navigation: The navigation in Google Art Project apparently sucks. In fact, it’s much like finding your way through an endless number of strangely connected galleries, but with the option of going to your desired gallery immediately. Beat that, big 19^th century building. Google Art Project will have your audience want to choose highly individual routes through your museum, jumping from room A to room Z back to K to see what they want to see. Just like on the computer. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s no such thing as innovation

Innovation is scary. And the fear of innovation keeps many of us from innovating. So let me try to take a position and state that innovation does not exist. Only maybe once every hundred years something truly innovative happens. And then often by chance. Everything else we call innovation is only a remix of what already exists.

Creativity – together with guts the thing responsible for innovation – is something rare. A particular eye-opener to me was John Cleese’s ideas on the origins of creativity as can be seen in the movie below. Creativity is something magic. As opposed to having good ideas (every now and then), which is something you can learn. A skill.

I am not a creative person. However I do occasionally have good ideas. A good idea comes from taking what already exists and applying it differently. It’s why I always advocate looking beyond your own sector, travelling and meeting new people. This, and more, provides you with the building blocks of future good ideas. This is remixing. Whether it happens in the movies, as seen in the video above, or in your job doesn’t matter.

Read the rest of this entry »