MuseWeb (the conference formerly know as Museums and the Web) is one of my favorites. The attendees are amazing and I always learn so much. This year’s MuseWeb, to combat Zoom fatigue, is spread all over the month. But this week saw it all begin, with three back to back days. Here are some personal highlights.
RevDigital
I did something I’ve never done before. As I’ve been soft-announcing my upcoming book – The Revolution has Been Digitized – a Toolkit for the Future of Museums – I have been looking for spaces to workshop it among museum peers. Essentially, I want to know from them what they need for it to be of use in their work.
So rather than present at MuseWeb I proposed a Birds-of-a-Feather session, where rather than talk I could just listen. I had no format going into it, and no idea why anyone might attend.
Can I please do this EVERY DAY???
What a privileged it was. Twenty or so folks came and spent over an hour chatting with me about my goals for the book, its content, and places I’ve been stuck. What generosity! They asked great questions, helped me understand what they need (and where my book might or might not meet them), and gave me a lot to think about.
One big change I took from it was hearing what THEY were seeing in the book but I had been missing. I can now elevate that content – it was ALREADY there – but rather than minimize it I can now feature it. That should lead to a new tool in the Toolkit: Team Up!
It also helped me realize, while the title seems to work, it needs a nickname. I’ve trying RevDigital for now. Let’s see if it sticks.
Who Wants to Be a MWillionaire?
I am volunteering a lot at MW this year. In one capacity I am on the Social Events committee. The committee owns certain nights on the schedule. In person, there’d be the now infamous karaoke night, trips into town, and more. Being fully remote just creates new and interesting design challenges.
Along with Hiroko Kusano & Allison Heney from MuseWeb, I worked with Katherine Behnke (International Women’s Air & Space Museum), James Sims (Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture), and Tonika Berkley. And what we created together was Who Want to Be a MWillionaire?
Using the web site Kahoot, we created a series of fun challenges, in a game show format. All attendees could participate and compete against one another for lovely prizes, like MOMA tote bags and the book “What Would Frida Do?” by Arianna Davis. The Kahoots were themed on the history of MuseWeb, on the topic and content of Katherine’s and James’ museums, and about museums around the world. The winners of the first three rounds went head to head in the Final Death Battle, with the crowd rooting them on.
There were winners, and even more losers, but in the end we all had a fun night (and I got to wear many hats, literally).
Social Media Team
I love conference backchannels. But this is the first time I am using those skills officially for the event. Together with Marta Maria Peinador Aquado (@peinadormarta) and Sean Blinn (@the_museum_guy), our team has divided up the schedule and are taking to Twitter to “report” on the conference the best we can. So far I’ve been covering user experience design sessions (on journey maps, Lean UX, and more), the finalists of the GLAMi Awards, the inspiring keynote from Lonnie Bunch, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and Adam Martin (Chief Digital Officer, NMAAHC) and team about creating an amazing new online project.
Spatial Chat
Finally, another new one for me. To have a more meaningful way for us to socialize beyond Zoom, MuseWeb is exploring spatial chat. As your circle gets closer to others, they sound louder and you can see their live video feed; as you move further way, they get quieter, their circle shrinks, and you just see their initials. Interesting!
See you next week, MuseWeb!
