lego beowulf and the web of hands and hearts, for the danish national museum awards :: michael edson
DESCRIPTION
This talk was delivered at the awards ceremony for the 2012 Bikuben Foundation Danish Museum Prize in Copenhagen, Denmark. Ideas about what museums are, who they serve, and the role they play in society are changing with dramatic speed, driven largely by social media and the participatory culture of global networks. Denmark supports world-class museums, with remarkable collections, expert staff, and beautiful architecture. But how can museum leaders balance the traditional concepts of organizational mission and outcomes with the disruptive possibilities being demonstrated by those who love and use museums in new ways? A text version of this presentation, with hyperlinks and footnotes, is available at http://www.slideshare.net/edsonm/michael-edson-lego-beowulf-and-the-web-of-hands-and-hearts-for-the-danish-national-museum-awards-13444266TRANSCRIPT
“When it comes to dealing with the big problems we face, are we just going to be a crowd of voices, or are we going to be a crowd of hands?”
Jennifer PahlkaCode for America
{About this talk}
• A full text version, with footnotes and links, is online at http://www.slideshare.net/edsonm/michael-edson-lego-beowulf-and-the-web-of-hands-and-hearts-for-the-danish-national-museum-awards-13444266
• The video will be online soon…
{About this talk}
• This was the keynote at the Bikuben Foundation Danish National Museum Awards (Bikubenfondens Museumpriser) in Copenhagen, Denmark, June 11, 2012 (http://www.museumsprisen.dk/)
• The audience was directors and executives from Danish museums, The Danish Heritage Agency, the Association of Danish Museums, and other invited guests
• Special thanks to Tobias Golodnoff, Nina Hviid, Charlotte S H Jensen, Miriam Lerkenfeld, Merete Sanderhoff, and Jacob Wang for their help and guidance with this talk
—Michael Edson, @mpedson
Prelude
[Play video] http://youtu.be/1SGJS0VN0hE
Washington D.C.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rcsj/5087028899/sizes/s/in/photostream/
Washington D.C.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rcsj/5087028899/sizes/s/in/photostream/
These museums set an important example for me about citizenship and participatory democracyas I was growing up
Washington D.C.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rcsj/5087028899/sizes/s/in/photostream/
But that was before the Internet
These museums set an important example for me about citizenship and participatory democracyas I was growing up
Washington D.C.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rcsj/5087028899/sizes/s/in/photostream/
How shall we get this work done in society, now?
I’m very impressed with the professionalism, quality, and sense of purpose in theDanish museum community
But here’s how we’ve traditionally thought about getting achieving meaningful outcomes…
ResourcesOutcomes
Trust, money, real estatecollections, staff,
attention… Something really good forsociety
ResourcesOutcomes
Museums
Something really good forsociety
Trust, money, real estatecollections, staff,
attention…
ResourcesOutcomes
Broadcast
Broadcastwe do they consume
The broadcast idiom is the traditional 20th century way museums accomplish our
jobs in society
Broadcast
The broadcast model gave us great things in the 20th
century…
Automobiles The Hoover Dam Baywatch
BroadcastBut something is missing here.
The Internet is the dark matter in this equation of how to get work done.
The Long TailJoy’s LawCognitive surplusMoore’s Law & MobileEvery user a hero…
More on these themes in Come, Let us go Boldly Into the Present
The Long TailJoy’s LawCognitive surplusMoore’s Law & MobileEvery user a hero…
Global audiences formingaround niche interests
“Extraordinary Individuals”
The Long TailJoy’s LawCognitive surplusMoore’s Law & MobileEvery user a hero…
“No matter what business you’re in, most of thesmart people work for
someone else”
The Long TailJoy’s LawCognitive surplusMoore’s Law & MobileEvery user a hero…
One trillion hours of free time available every year from
educated, Internet connected people on earth
(Clay Shirky)
The Long TailJoy’s LawCognitive surplusMoore’s Law & MobileEvery user a hero…
In 12 years this device will be 1,706 X more powerful than my
desktop computer
The Long TailJoy’s LawCognitive surplusMoore’s Law & MobileEvery user a hero…
Billions of connected mobile users. Voice, data, cameras,
GPS, sensors…
The Long TailJoy’s LawCognitive surplusMoore’s Law & MobileEvery user a hero…
The Long TailJoy’s LawCognitive surplusMoore’s Law & MobileEvery user a hero…
The Long TailJoy’s LawCognitive surplusMoore’s Law & MobileEvery user a hero…
These are not new ideas anymore
Broadcastwe do they consume
Broadcast is great, but it’s not a complete model for getting
things done
Digital Strategy Workshop 2012
More on these themes in Come, Let us go Boldly Into the Present
Digital Strategy Workshop 2012
http://www.flickr.com/photos/invattur/4013772522/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Digital Strategy!
Digital Strategy Workshop 2012
http://www.flickr.com/photos/invattur/4013772522/sizes/l/in/photostream/
We must useNew Media!
Digital Strategy!
Digital Strategy Workshop 2012
http://www.flickr.com/photos/invattur/4013772522/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Yes, we must..!
Digital Strategy Workshop 2012
We’ve got a yearto decide…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/invattur/4013772522/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Blah blah blah broadcast
Digital Strategy Workshop 2012
http://www.flickr.com/photos/invattur/4013772522/sizes/l/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/invattur/4013772522/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Digital Strategy Workshop 2012
This organization is stuck
http://www.flickr.com/photos/invattur/4013772522/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Digital Strategy Workshop 2011 ExampleFrom a real
museum strategy workshop
http://www.flickr.com/photos/invattur/4013772522/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Digital Strategy Workshop 2011
“Become the preeminent placefor engagement and dialogue
about national identity and the accomplishment and
experience of citizens”
Strategic Goal of the museum
http://www.flickr.com/photos/invattur/4013772522/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Digital Strategy Workshop 2011
“Build an online collectionof 10 million portraits ofcitizens and their stories,created and uploadedwithout official curationby members of thepublic.
Proposed Strategic Initiative
http://www.flickr.com/photos/invattur/4013772522/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Digital Strategy Workshop 2011
“Build an online collectionof 10 million portraits ofcitizens and their stories,created and uploadedwithout official curationby members of thepublic. Build acommunity around thisinitiative to fuelengagement withnational history,biography, and artisticcreativity.”
Proposed Strategic Initiative
http://www.flickr.com/photos/invattur/4013772522/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Digital Strategy Workshop 2011
“Do a website about family portraits”
Adopted
“Build an online collectionof 10 million portraits ofcitizens and their stories,created and uploadedwithout official curationby members of thepublic. Build acommunity around thisinitiative to fuelengagement withnational history,biography, and artisticcreativity.”
Proposed Strategic Initiative
http://www.flickr.com/photos/invattur/4013772522/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Digital Strategy Workshop 2011
“Do a website about family portraits”
Adopted
“Build an online collectionof 10 million portraits ofcitizens and their stories,created and uploadedwithout official curationby members of thepublic. Build acommunity around thisinitiative to fuelengagement withnational history,biography, and artisticcreativity.”
You can’t get this with broadcast
thinking
Proposed Strategic Initiative
http://www.flickr.com/photos/invattur/4013772522/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Digital Strategy Workshop 2011
“Do a website about family portraits”
Proposed Adopted
“Build an online collectionof 10 million portraits ofcitizens and their stories,created and uploadedwithout official curationby members of thepublic. Build acommunity around thisinitiative to fuelengagement withnational history,biography, and artisticcreativity.”
Resources Outcomes
Are you usingthe best tools to turn resources
into outcomes?
Does the broadcast idiom deliver the best outcomes
for society?
How does this work in a traditional organization?
http://smithsonian-webstrategy.wikispaces.com/Strategy+--+Table+of+Contents
http://smithsonian-webstrategy.wikispaces.com/file/view/20090729_Smithsonian-Web-New-Media-Strategy_v1.0.pdf
On the Wiki:
PDF:
Business Model
“The Smithsonian’s basic business model is to create social and economic value through the increase and diffusion of knowledge…Ultimately, the most valuable business asset we can cultivate—and the one that is most fundamental to our core mission—is a community of engaged and committed Smithsonian enthusiasts.”
Update the Learning Model
“This strategy is based on the growing understanding of learning as a hybrid of formal education and self-directed discovery that can be brought together and enhanced by online tools and communities…. that allow our audiences to be our partners in the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”
No Yes!
We assume this is usin the middle,
the official museum running the show
museum
Hundreds, thousand, millions of connections between people with
expertise, perspective, abilities, passion, curiosity…
But these connections are the most important, the most powerful for
generating big outcomes
museum
Maybe the most powerfulplace for us is here
The Long TailJoy’s LawCognitive surplusMoore’s Law & MobileEvery user a hero…
museum
Maybe the most powerfulplace for us is here
Examples
The Smithsonian owns SpaceShipOne, the first privately financed rocketto take a human into orbit
Spaceship OneHere’s the collection page on our website.One picture. Curatorial text.
http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?id=A20050459000
On Wikipedia you get…Hyperlinks!!
Translated into 26 languages
(by users, with no centralcoordination or control)
Almost 400 editors
Flickr is a picture sharing website. People upload, share, and tag their photos
There are over 9 billion photos on Flickr
A search on “SpaceShipOne” returns 2,592 photos of the rocket ship, taken, uploaded, and tagged (cataloged) by users, with no central coordination or control
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pvogel/110579166/in/set-72057594079211111
Stunning images, multiple points of view across the history of the project
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pvogel/110579166/in/set-72057594079211111
The image belongs to many thematic sets
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pvogel/110579166/in/set-72057594079211111
The image belongs to many thematic sets
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pvogel/110579166/in/set-72057594079211111
Curation!
Video from spaceship one
http://youtu.be/FNXahIoXMw8
On YouTubeyou can see it fly
Where do people go tofind out about the world?
Where do you goto find your news?
Question asked at a focus group of young adults for the newspaper industry…
“If the news is important enough,it will find me.”
Answer :
This is a great homepage.
http://natmus.dk/en
But does it really function as your
home page?
Or, given the abundance of different ways to find out about the world, is thisyour homepage?
Solvongen
The Solvongen—the Trundholm Sun Chariot—is one of the most iconic museum object in Denmark.
How would we learn about it?
An experiment
The Sun Chariot
The Sun Chariot
Horrible images!
(We could make them better. Ask the Riksmuseet about the
Problem of the Yellow Milkmaid)
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Trundholm-sun-chariot/135441099821236
With some help, I found the canonical collection information page for the Sun Chariot on the National Museum website
http://natmus.dk/en/historisk-viden/danmark/moeder-med-danmarks-oldtid/the-bronze-age/the-sun-chariot/
http://natmus.dk/en/historisk-viden/danmark/moeder-med-danmarks-oldtid/the-bronze-age/the-sun-chariot/
Small image windowwith zoom feature
http://natmus.dk/en/historisk-viden/danmark/moeder-med-danmarks-oldtid/the-bronze-age/the-sun-chariot/
2,845 views
Through a Google “Discussions” search, I found a brief discussionabout the Trundholm Sun Charioton the Skadi Forum
http://forums.skadi.net /
The Skadi Forum has40,000 members
300 topics700,000 posts
http://forums.skadi.net /
Google Books search found this
http://books.google.com/books?id=g15MdNvO5ngC&pg=PA55&dq=trundholm+sun+chariot&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ciHTT4yLA4Hh0QHWwvWYAw&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
“The Trundholm Sun Chariot could easily have been carried in someone's arms. It was found in a peat bog in 1902, deliberately broken into little pieces and carefully placed there about 3,500 years ago.”
(Lovely, human voice)
But I love this one too, on
http://pinterest.com/nationalmuseet/
Pinterest is akind of image collecting site
Search for“Sun Chariot”
Search for“Sun Chariot”
9 National Museum Sun Chariots collected by users
This one was collected by Sunnifa Heinreksdottir…
…In a collection calledBronze Age
http://pinterest.com/pin/32369691041944044/
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/bronze-age/
Images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/bronze-age/
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/bronze-age/
British Archaeology
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/bronze-age/
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/bronze-age/
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/bronze-age/
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/bronze-age/
“The History Blog”
National Museum of Denmark
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/bronze-age/
National Museum of Denmark
National Museum of Denmark
National Museum of Denmark
There’s theNational Museum’s Sun Chariot
But it doesn’t link back to the National Museum!!!
http://people.hsc.edu/faculty-staff/maryp/Core/western_culture_101_studylinks.htm
Western Culture 101Beginnings to900 C.E.
Sunnifa has 40 collections on Pinterest
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/
OMG!She’s curating
her own museum!
Sunnifa has collected 1146 images
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/pins/
Linking, sharing, metadata and community“by default”
She follows 41 people
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/following/
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/following/
Portland, Oregon
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/following/
“little village of 20 houses in the North of Germany”
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/following/
1,927 followers!
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/following/
“little village of 20 houses in the North of Germany”
And they each curate and collect, follow people, and are followed by people
http://pinterest.com/harrasteora/following/
The 41 people Sunnifa follows have 16,090 followers.
And they follow 12,485 people.
Sunnifa’s immediate social network has 28,485 people in it.
AND THIS IS JUST A RANDOM USER I FOUND!!!
And they do all kinds things
http://www.flickr.com/photos/monsted/487105795/
http://youtu.be/0eLJcUIxRz4 http://youtu.be/jGB1l8iuPg8
Tribute videos!
http://www.flickr.com/groups/historical_lego/
Historical Lego Group
778 members7,157 photos
http://www.flickr.com/groups/historical_lego/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shadowviking/3399432262/in/set-72157616011592049
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shadowviking/3399432262/in/set-72157616011592049
Fan Fictionengagement, curiosity,
creativity…
http://www.flickr.com/people/shadowviking/
Holland MichiganUSA
Would your marketing department know that there was an audience for Viking history in Holland, Michigan?
http://www.flickr.com/people/shadowviking/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thorskegga/4941989896/in/pool-371955@N24/
http://www.brickforge.com/store/product.php?productid=16217&cat=252&page=1
Attention to detail: people manufacture historically accurate accessories!
http://www.brickforge.com/store/product.php?productid=16217&cat=252&page=1
A Viking was a member of the Scandinavian seafaring warriors who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the 9th to the 11th century. If you are looking for a more historic alternative to the iconic horned Viking Helmet - look no further. The BrickForge Viking Helmet is based on the more traditional 'Spanglehelm' design and features a spectacle guard around the eyes and nose. Fits most standard minifig heads.
http://www.flickr.com/people/thorskegga/
“Middle age eccentric woman living in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England”
http://www.flickr.com/people/thorskegga/
She’s in the same Flickr group as the person fromHolland, Michigan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SGJS0VN0hE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SGJS0VN0hE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SGJS0VN0hE
202,297 views!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SGJS0VN0hE
[Play video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuxv510dh6w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuxv510dh6w
162,549 views!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuxv510dh6w
Compare with 2,845 views of the Sun Chariot video from
the National Museum of Denmark Site
162,549 views!!
162,549 views!!
Compare with 2,845 views of the Sun Chariot video from
the National Museum of Denmark Site
Does that mean this video is 57 times better than the National Gallery video?
Not necessarily, but…
• It is not easy to achieve thiskind of scale
• How many times have we put up a video or a blog post and wondered why nobody cared?
• We should have much higher ambitions for scale and impact
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuxv510dh6w
How do I learn more?
Search the National Museum site?
You can’t be the authority on everything
You can’t be the authority on everything
“Knowledge is a Mashup”http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/08/the-smithsonian-commons-projec.html
“Wikipedia is a great place to start research, but a terrible place to end it”
A Wikipedian
Coordinates
http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=Battle_of_Maldon¶ms=51_42_55_N_0_42_3_E_type:event_region:GB
http://toolserver.org/~geohack/geohack.php?pagename=Battle_of_Maldon¶ms=51_42_55_N_0_42_3_E_type:event_region:GB
GeoHack links to dozens of free maps for the site of the Battle of Maldon
“OpenStreetMap is a free worldwide map, createdby people like you”
Hundreds…thousands of edits to this map by a community of volunteers
“Harmonized tagging of Ways of St. James…Fixed some little
minor stuff”April 28, 2012
“Updated ownership of bakery”April 24, 2012
In Google Street Viewwe can see the landscape and imagine what it might have been
https://ssl.panoramio.com/photo/2127892
Panoramio lets us see photos that have been uploaded and positioned on the map by users
(A battle monument)
https://ssl.panoramio.com/photo/7753503
We tend to dismiss the notion that “users” can create outstanding content
But users—people—love your museums, and they create and share remarkable content…
…they do remarkable things while exploring the world
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thioboy/6154940942/in/set-72157627512718617
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thioboy/6153423014/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/46758972@N00/7420524502/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thoughtbrain/4941565885/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jingqunluo/3666546703
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jrgensen/4422340062/in/set-72157623466859743/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spinello/256239150/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48561129@N04/4793799631/in/set-72157625550929974/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/larspind/2750488537/in/photostream/lightbox/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/larspind/3376421237/in/photostream/lightbox/
ResourcesOutcomes
Museums
So, what should this equation look like?
a
“When it comes to dealing with the big problems we face, are we just going to be a crowd of voices, or are we going to be a crowd of hands?”
Jennifer PahlkaCode for America
a
Let’s make the future together
Mange tak!Thank you!