A quest for relevance

Photo by Stephanie Schuldes on Flickr.

To succeed in our never-ending quest to make culture and the arts more relevant in the lives of people, all we have to do (online) is approach the right people at the right time and place with the right message through the right communication channel.

Simply put, don’t tweet about overflowing toilets unless you want to make a point about the pressing need for maintenance funds. And in that case, be sure to ask at the beginning of the month, when people just received their paychecks.

The museum of the 21^st century is as successful in being relevant to people, as Google and Facebook ads are. (Or, if you prefer, will be in the near future.) In fact, we can use the very tools Google and Facebook ads provide us to prove that the more relevant we make our content, the more likely they are to engage with it.

In the chart below I’ve plotted a number of Facebook ads we ran. The potential reach of the ad is on the horizontal axis, on the vertical each ads true reach (normalized to a similar number of impressions per ad). The CTR chart of the same data is very much alike.

Without a doubt, ads aimed at a specific target group, with a specific message, almost always outperform the more general ads.

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Top-selling items in the National Vending Machine

One of the objectives of the National Vending Machine is to provide us and partners insight in popular historical objects. Stuff that gets people enthusiastic. In a way, we’re doing an extremely fancy kind of market research. The other day I received a provisional overview of Holland’s hottest historical objects (read: top-selling items in the machine). Here they are:

1. Volkswagen camper van: By far the most popular object in sales, comments and enthusiasm of buyers, probably due to its everlasting hipness and important place in the youth memories of the Culturally Engaged.
2. Cow: A replica of the famous Dutch grazer in Delftware, popular to more than just the tourists. Maybe owing to its cute smile or maybe because it’s a colourful object which boosts sales (we found when testing the objects).
3. Cheese slicer: The representation of being Dutch (in all its meanings) and a Norwegian invention. I’ve heard the tiny slicer actually works, especially with French cheese. Read the rest of this entry »

DOK Delft, inspirational library concepts

Photo by Henk Kosters on Flickr.com (CC BY-NC-SA)

Libraries can be inspiring places, and not only because of their books. I’ve written about the public library of Amsterdam and its astounding interior design before. This week I’ve visited the public library of Delft, DOK. In 2008 the shifted librarian called it the world’s most modern library. Three years later, the “library concept center” still made a tremendous impression on me.

Five great things about DOK I took home:

1. A good understanding of a library’s future role in society

Libraries are about making information accessible to people. Libraries that are not used by the people, fail their task. Books have become increasingly cheaper and information more easily accessible. To the greater audience there’s hardly a need for the traditional library. There is, however, a need to be guided in the quest for information, to detach from the busy society, to discover new things, to meet people and learn from each other. DOK is more an “information community centre” than a library. They have an art library in the building, organize debates about literature but also finace, … This might very well be the future of more cultural institutions than just libraries.

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5 lessons about oral history projects for museums – Wrap-up of the New Technology Conference 2010

Photo by Fred Ernst. View all photos of the New Technology Conference on Flickr.

Last Wednesday the Museum of National History organised its second annual New Technology Conference. This year’s topic: innovation and oral history. Five speakers gave their shared their views on oral history from a variety of backgrounds. From each of them I learned (at least) one valuable lesson about oral history projects for museums. Read the rest of this entry »

A broader perspective on participation – 5 things I’ve picked up outside of museums

Photo by kagey_b on Flickr.

In a few weeks my girlfriend Suzan will move to London to do a masters in Applied Drama. Applied drama is, amongst others, theatre aimed at social empowerment and often participatory by nature. When Suzan discovered Nina Simon’s book The Participatory Museum, she quite correctly observed that if you search and replace “museum” by “theatre” in the book, the lessons in it are still true.

In fact, many of the participatory theatre book lingering around address the same issues, give the same solutions and occasionally go beyond what we in museums know about participation.

Lessons about participation and community work are not unique to one sector, I believe. They’re universal. A broader perspective to other sectors might help us to get further, sooner. Therefore I’m quite happy Suzan will be blogging about Applied Drama, so I can learn from what she learns. Maybe you’ll learn from it too. (This is shameless publicity, I agree.)

In the mean time, I’d like to share with you these 5 things I’ve picked up about participation along the way. I’ve learned them far from museums, but somehow they’re still useful (and probably utterly cliché).

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