Transformations in Cultural Communication: Social Media, Cultural ...

Volume 54 Number 3

July 2011

DIGITAL

Transformations in Cultural Communication: Social Media, Cultural Exchange, and Creative Connections ANGELINA RUSSO

Abstract Throughout the cultural institution sector, shifts in audience participation call for new ways to share knowledge and view partnerships both online and onsite. Increasingly, this ‘‘transformation in cultural communication’’ suggests that a new type of mutually beneficial exchange is required between audiences and museums; and that those acting as agents of cultural change must be cognizant of how a participatory culture will drive our future institutional missions. This paper offers two examples of how the implementation of strategic social media programs can drive online cultural exchange and create new connections with diverse communities. It presents a convergence of initiatives undertaken within the sector over the past five years while offering a frame through which to view future innovations. Based on research undertaken with multiple organizations, it recognizes that the time is right to merge existing innovations with strategically developed communication programs to achieve a demonstrable, verifiable basis for the value of our museums.

INTRODUCTION

Over the past few years we have witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of participatory media technologies that museums have employed to engage audiences. Institutional blogs, wikis, podcasts, photo and video sharing, virtual environments, tagging, annotation, and other authoring tools have offered new opportunities to engage with museum processes through co-creation and participatory cultural experiences. Arguably, these platforms and tools are creating new relationships between institutions and the public. Yet while the uptake of social media in the commercial and public spheres has been widely described (Benkler 2006; Tapscott and Williams 2006; Shirky 2008; Tapscott 2009) its effects within the cultural sector are yet to be fully examined. The enthusiastic embrace of participatory media technologies by many museums has produced initiatives which sometimes assume a

‘‘build it and they will come’’ attitude rather than focusing attention on the development of strategic and sustained relationship building. One of the keys to building these relationships that has received little attention so far is the question of cultural exchange and creative connections with existing communities. This paper takes as its starting point the view that to create sustained participation in social media spaces, museums will need to develop better understandings of the types of cultural exchanges they wish to elicit. This includes a critical reassessment of their relationships with the people who use these services, particularly those who can achieve a mutual benefit from partnering with trusted authoritative institutions. It proposes two distinct sites of investigation. The first examines the commemoration of the centenary of the beginning of World War I. The second offers a process by which museums can connect with design communities to facilitate discourse on contemporary

Angelina Russo ([email protected]), associate professor, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, 124 La Trobe Street, Melbourne, Australia.

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CURATOR THE MUSEUM JOURNAL

issues. Both examples offer innovative ways of considering transformations in cultural communication and are in keeping with recent research such as that of Gilmore and Pine (2007), who suggest that in this era of multiple experiences, museums must reconstruct the value of their ‘‘authentic’’ experiences and develop new relationships with what they previously considered ‘‘audiences.’’ CULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND EXCHANGE

In 2010, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, launched an innovative multiplatform program entitled ‘‘A History of the World in 100 Objects,’’1 which was based around a series of 100 15-minute podcasts produced in conjunction with the BBC2 and distributed through iTunes.3 The program opened up British Museum collections to hundreds of thousands of non-museum visitors, capturing the wonders of the collection and communicating the future role that museums can play in connecting global communities. The program incorporated podcasts (narrated by the director himself); a multi-partner website (hosted by the BBC) where community museums and individuals could upload their own objects; and a bestselling book (MacGregor 2010) illustrating the objects described in the podcasts and mentioning online forums where audiences could discuss the program and its significance. This unique curatorial approach to collections offered a glimpse into the ways in which museums could partner with other organizations, publish in non-traditional formats, and encourage audience participation by brokering online cultural exchanges through social media platforms. Importantly, it demonstrated the pro-active role that museum directors can play in establishing a

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discursive environment for contemporary cultural issues. In a public seminar at the London School of Economics in July 2009, MacGregor spoke of the need to draw connections between Western and Eastern institutions in order to arrive at a global understanding of the value of museums. This role, he suggested, could be achieved by considering museums as cultural broadcasters and curators as cultural producers. If this approach is to be considered as viable—and one would assume that, having been offered by one of the most senior museum directors in the world, it has relevance—then it suggests that museums around the world need to reconsider their existing communication programs and the ways in which they broker cultural exchanges between their organizations and their audiences. What can we learn from ‘‘A History of the World in 100 Objects?’’ Is MacGregor’s premise—that the British Museum should be a leader in ‘‘taking the world to the world’’ (MacGregor 2009)—a viable and sustainable model for future online cultural exchanges in other museums? How has the extensive use of social media enabled this initiative to succeed? And what are the opportunities for other directors to play a significant role in promoting their organizations through online platforms? If museums are to be seen as both viable and valuable in an increasingly financially stressed world,4 are the leaders of these institutions the portals through which community engagement and participation can be supported and enacted? Holden, Briggs, Jones, and Bound propose that cultural exchange ‘‘gives us the chance to appreciate points of commonality and, where there are differences, to understand the motivations and humanity that underlie them. As identity politics exert an increasing influence on domestic and international exchanges, these

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attributes make culture a critical forum for negotiation and a medium of exchange in finding shared solutions’’ (2007). If this is so, then the centenary of the start of World War I offers a unique opportunity for museums to play a proactive role in creating shared understandings of the ways in which our collections can act as signifiers of shared experiences, both within local and with our diasporic communities. It can provide a forum to explore how cultural understandings become discursive in online distributed environments by offering collections as illustrations of mutable, share-able contexts through which non-traditional museum visitors can explore a common identity, diasporic activities, and social and historical connections. In doing so, online cultural exchanges can explore fundamental questions of meaning as they relate to audiences, shifting the focus of museum communication away from ‘‘what matters to them’’ to ‘‘what matters to us.’’ Previous research by Kelly and Russo (2008; 2010), Russo and Peacock (2009), and Russo and Watkins (2005; 2006; 2007) delivered both theoretical advancements in the framing and understanding of digital content creation and practical outcomes which industry partners tested within their online communication programs. As we move beyond the first wave of social media, research and practice that focus on cultural exchange can contribute significant innovations and unique theoretical insight into the future role of participatory practices to inform the repositioning of museums as vibrant and relevant organizations in our national cultural imaginary. TESTING GROUNDS FOR CULTURAL EXCHANGE: 2014 COMMEMORATIONS

In 2014, national museums around the world will join in commemorating the World

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War I centenary. These commemorations offer a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to investigate the social media strategies that will underpin the future of cultural exchange and online museum communication. The 2014 anniversary provides an innovative, international lens through which to investigate and frame online cultural exchanges while re-imagining historic events and offering unique global perspectives and mutual understandings between cultural organizations, communities, and individuals. Importantly, in these times of restricted funding and polemics of relevance and value (Scott 2007), 2014 offers a unique platform through which to investigate broader communication practices and offer insights into how museums can shift their programs from ‘‘what matters to them’’ to what ‘‘matters to us,’’ their audiences (Weil 2003). While it is often difficult for museums to create communication programs based on subjects of interest, there are some subjects which cut across cultures, societies, and demographics. The commemoration of World War I is one such subject. A recent U.K. study found that 76 percent of the population was keen to learn about subjects that were of interest to them (Arts Council England 2010). While there are significant broadcast programs—for instance, Who Do You Think You Are,5 and Nova Science Now,6 which capture audience curiosity and draw them directly to cultural collections—such programs do not explicitly offer new forms of online cultural exchange. With such a significant global event at our doorstep, museums would do well not to underestimate the potential of the commemorations to demonstrate the leadership role museums can take in drawing together collections and narratives from around the world to offer deep and relevant interpretations of a contentious and divisive time in our global history. The 2014

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centenary can provide a framework for exploration of online cultural communication; ways in which audiences engage with museums; the types of online experiences that can be generated; and evaluation of social media practices within museums. Importantly, it offers a window into the discourses surrounding the use of technology to achieve a contemporary understanding of the diplomatic and mediating role of museums as leaders of online cultural exchange in increasingly globalized organizations (Sayers 2010; MacGregor 2009; Dobrzynski 2010). While 2014 offers a unique test bed for social media, it is important to consider that we are currently witnessing significant reductions in funding to cultural organizations, suggesting that museums are not always seen by either the public or funding bodies as either central or immutable. In 2010, the Australian government ceased funding the Cultural Portal,7 a government initiative created by the then-Department of Culture and Recreation to provide online access to over 3,800 websites, stories about Australian culture, news and events and resources for the general public. It also withdrew funding for Collections Council of Australia8 (established by the Cultural Ministers Council in 2004 with the aim of advancing the stability and the sustainability of the Australian collections sector) and the Collections Australia Network,9 formerly Australian Museums and Galleries On Line (http://amol.org.au/)—this portal was intended to be the public gateway to small and medium-sized collecting institutions across Australia. While each of these services offered unique resources to specialized communities within the cultural institution sector, the cessation of funding suggests that the connection between distributed online collections and national benefit has not been articulated in relation to government policy. Importantly, the cessation of these important services challenges

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the notion that the ways in which online cultural exchange were enacted over the life of these services (none of which has been replaced) were in keeping with national political priorities. This raises questions of whether these services, once instigated, were focused on audience need or organizational desire. In 2009, the Australian government established the Government 2.0 Taskforce to explore the ways in which audiences engaged with government agencies through online resources including social media. The report identified that ‘‘. . . a number of Museums such as the National Museum of Australia (NMA) and Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum have engaged Australia’s citizenry in contributing their own time and content to enrich and improve national historical collections of text and visual material’’ (Government 2.0 Taskforce 2010). While these few examples are mentioned directly, the report goes on to say: ‘‘However efforts to date have tended to rely on the interest and enthusiasm of individual agencies’’ (2010 xiii), suggesting that the Taskforce was not able to discover a comprehensive strategy for online audience participation in the museum sector. As museum professionals it behoves us to consider these funding cuts and government reports as significant indicators of the ways in which collecting organizations are viewed by both governments and a broader public. While we within the sector are both complimentary and excited by our colleagues’ initiatives, it would appear that new forms of participatory communication enabled by social media have not changed communication practices for the majority of museums. Therefore, future explorations into the use of social media could benefit from investigations and demonstrations of the viability of museums as organizations that can connect cultural practices to audiences in ways meaningful for them. In doing so, museums can


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offer insights into how innovations in online cultural exchanges can achieve a comprehensive sector-wide understanding of how best to connect government policies (Vaizey and Poole 2010, Scott 2009). The use of a single global subject to explore and evaluate the impact of opening up challenging cultural conversations on topics of societal influence blends publication channels and methods of audience participation which move beyond a single museum to far-reaching distribution channels. In doing so, it documents and analyzes multi-layered responses to sensitive collections to create global understandings of the past and future, thus demonstrating how museums can reposition themselves as initiators and brokers of online cultural exchange. INNOVATION AND EXPECTATION OF EXCHANGE

This paper calls for continuing innovation regarding the way in which museum studies has applied the critical theories and key principles of semiotics and postmodernism to reframe the larger changes within which the museum now operates (Bennett 1995; Pearce 1994; Hein 2000). While the focus on postmodernism and semiotics has broadened the more traditional one-to-one communication focus of museum programs, these fields of discourse do little to contend with the realities of consumer-led changes to audience perceptions and user interaction with museum content. Therefore, the 2014 commemorations could be framed within socio-cultural theory, by exploring the notion that human activities take place in cultural contexts, through social interactions that are mediated by language and other symbol systems, shaped by an individual’s historical development. In doing so, theory would recognize, account for, and make explicit the ‘‘unplanned

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intersection of people, culture, tools and context’’ (Hansman 2001, 44), emphasizing the importance of culture, environment, and history in learning contexts and events (Schauble, Leinhardt, and Martin 1997). As social learning is considered an active process of reflection leading to self-awareness and change, an investigation of a global, consistent context (such as the commemoration of World War I) across multiple nations, institutions, and culturally diverse audiences could provide an appropriate theoretical framework for an innovative investigation into the ‘‘unplanned’’ social media environment and the ways in which it supports on online cultural exchanges. In late 2010, the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in the U.K. assembled an international group of collecting organizations to create the First World War Centenary Partners (FWWCP).10 This group is tasked with exploring key messages that underpin the representation of conflict, including aspects of history, community, and understandings of the impact of that conflict on society and the world we live in today. FWWCP is an innovative international forum that will enable national collecting organizations from around the world to share their approach to the commemorations and will bring contemporary cross-cultural perspective to the commemorative events, particularly as first-person eyewitness accounts are now no longer possible. FWWCP offers extraordinary access to the assembled organizations: a network through which to analyze approaches to the commemoration in order to achieve an international benchmark of online cultural exchange, led by museums and mediated by social media. Additionally it offers a platform through which to discover the challenges that underpin new museum communication practices as they inform models of cultural exchange in the re-imagining of museums.

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The first wave of social media established an ‘‘expectation of exchange’’ which can be explored more fully by identifying discourses, programs, and partnerships that can achieve the critical civic debates imagined as a result of this global attention to the same subject. FWWCP offers the potential to map different approaches, offering distinct national and cultural views on the challenges to audience engagement and participation and the ways in which social media can be used to generate new models of online cultural exchange. National collecting organizations could potentially promote themselves as future spaces of online cultural exchange and provide an unprecedented vehicle through which to explore future curatorial practices and leadership models. Connecting online cultural exchange with audience expectation and international content programs has the potential to enrich understanding of the value of social media in creating dynamic spaces for the development of collective memory (Halbwachs 1992), a sense of civic participation, and localized notions of community. Barriers to participation cannot be underestimated (Russo and Peacock 2009), and a move away from the use of social media as a marketing tool to a platform for communicating innovative methods to improve audience well-being could address how museums can fill civic roles which have often been left to chance within and between museums (Hooper-Greenhill 2000, 42). Despite significant investment by governments world-wide, the sector’s potential to create and distribute more local and niche content has been limited. National museums have been slow to develop multi-platform content or to partner with organizations such as broadcasters to achieve new models of content distribution. Public policy has tended to overlook the potential for the sector in terms of its contributions to

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innovation (Cutler 2008). As a result, the sector has not played a significant role in leading content innovation. Funding initiatives have tended to focus on the instrumental processes of digitization, while broadcasting initiatives such as ABC Open11 in Australia have yet to produce the anticipated significant partnerships between community museums and regional radio stations and ⁄ or networks. Uptake of social media has been slow in the regions, and while localized promises of faster and ⁄ or national broadband networks offer a new platform on which to capture the public’s attention and imagination, without structured models for online cultural exchange, the sector may well re-create the barriers to participation that have stymied regional uptake of bespoke online services. Advancing knowledge and understanding of the value of audience participation and online cultural exchange in this environment could be further enhanced by analyzing the challenges which Cameron (2010) suggests are a result of a reluctance by museums to engage in complex social and political issues. Contentious topics are often difficult to represent; they can involve conflict and are challenging to values, beliefs, and ideologies, and consequently have tended to be seen as challenging to institutional foundations and the philosophical integrity of the museum (2010, 10). This lack of self-critical reflection (Janes 2009) has resulted in problematic cultural exchanges in which museums have held a privileged existence: often unaligned with government policies; repeatedly creating their own polemics by reiterating their existing conventions; disconnected from either community or commercial concerns. Howarth describes museums as ‘‘sliding into a dignified irrelevance’’ (2009b). That is, while museums continue to create new programs that offer opportunities for audiences to connect with them, museums find it difficult to


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accurately describe where such participation and engagement leads. By drawing on an established network of cultural organizations willing to share their approaches to a single subject, the commemorations of 2014 could not only provide an original context for understanding approaches to online cultural exchange, but also an inventive model for conceptualizing contemporary understandings of identity through the lens of difficult and contentious issues which challenge internal beliefs of whether museums are able to deliver relevant programs to contemporary audiences (Throsby 2000). In an interview Howarth suggested that ‘‘We have a danger in being seen to be indulging in excellent irrelevance doing first class work about which most people don’t care very much or which isn’t an influencing policy or isn’t making a difference’’ (2009a). With very few exceptions,12 it remains difficult for audiences to witness how public, educational, and curatorial programs are justified within the complex and diverse set of research, education, and civic facilities which museums have available to them. Therefore, identifying the challenges that underpin new communication programs provides another dimension for advancement of knowledge within the sector. Finally, just as contested subjects such as world conflict could be treated with benevolence by cultural organizations, there has always been an underlying understanding that the same discourses could be used for malevolent purposes, thus limiting the extent to which museums themselves wish to be seen to be engaging in such issues in public ways (Weil 2003, 203). Through the analysis of national and international museums working in partnership to simultaneously achieve local and global understandings of conflict through online cultural exchanges, 2014 could contribute vital models for the future integration of social media and

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participatory practices in museum communication. Such advances in knowledge could create what Poole suggests the sector currently lacks: ‘‘. . . a compelling simple value proposition for museums, we can’t express their value in a single, comprehensible sentence, and that the lack of such a proposition does us profound political damage’’ (2010).13 CREATING A FRAMEWORK FOR CULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND ONLINE EXCHANGE

Communication research has generally institutionalized qualitative research as scholarship ‘‘that views the empirical dimensions of symbolic interaction as the raw material for documentation and reflection ⁄ s’’ (Lindolf and Taylor 2011, 12). Potentially, these practices can make the world more visible and discussable to its participants (Denzin and Lincoln 2005, 3). Since the late 1980s, interpretivist scholars have focused on reciprocal and emergent relationships between communication and culture, emphasizing the social construction of cultural knowledge (Collier 1998). This insight is foundational in intercultural communication. It yields compelling analysis of the relations between power, cultural diversity, gender identities, and the dissolution of clear geopolitical boundaries in the context of globalization (Collier 2000). To these relations needs to be added the integration of theory and practice that is a further defining feature of communications research. In the context of 2014, it applies equally to the conduct of research itself, which combines theoretical sophistication with practical outcomes, and to the object of study, where audience and institutional practices are both studied and evaluated. Open and exploratory communication research (see Russo, Watkins, Kelly, and Chan

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2007) brings us to the lesson of how social media such as Facebook and Twitter enable participant content creation with organizations. It embeds issues relevant to regional audiences by anticipating barriers to participation (Russo and Peacock 2009) and the value networks that underpin the production of new content and cultural exchange that advances the communication practices of the museum (Kelly and Russo 2008). As communication research grapples with the social construction of knowledge, the connections between trusted sites of discourse (museums) and contested global events (WWI) combines internal practices and protocols to deliver new theoretical insights into future online cultural exchanges between audiences and museums. Programs developed by museums for 2014 could employ an intercultural communication approach to analyze how narratives are transformed and re-interpreted by contemporary global audiences. In doing so they could bring a multi-perspective approach to a common subject and explore the mechanisms by which audience participation and user stories contribute to the agency and exchange of culture. The museum sector is undergoing a period of substantial change in response to policy and technology initiatives, yet little understanding of the future of cultural exchange exists among museums or academic researchers in the field. By exploring conceptual and inter-institutional approaches to the commemoration of World War I, museums could bring a wider social and organizational framework to the production and distribution of cultural content, thereby identifying partnerships and activities that contribute to national significance: interactive systems, multiplatform media, digital media creative design, and content generation. At the same time, investigating mechanisms by which user-led and non-professional participatory

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content creation contribute to the future of cultural exchange could provide audiences and creators with a direct stake in innovation culture. SOCIAL MEDIA, MUSEUMS, AND DESIGN COMMUNITIES

Just as the commemoration of 2014 offers a unique lens through which to view online cultural exchange, the ways in which collecting organizations partner with creative communities offer a demonstrable framework for addressing important contemporary issues. In particular, focusing on creative connections with design communities provides an innovative platform to explore the use of social media as a mediator of networked discourses and the role that museums can play in both facilitating discourse and building capacity. Today’s designers are addressing human and environmental problems with renewed vigor. This social and collaborative turn is the single most important trend connecting the many fields of contemporary design practice, from architecture and products to fashion, graphics, new media, and landscapes. While such collaborations have great promise, they can also be opportunities for exploitation, particularly when enacted online. Museums offer trusted authoritative environments through which to explore collaborations between creators and producers; to gather culturally diverse experiences; and to propose new models for co-creation and collaborations. Social media offers a platform through which to create content and support design communities, and in the process, achieve innovative outcomes that contribute to social well-being and economic growth. By creatively connecting design communities, museums could achieve innovative solutions to complex problems by using social media as a platform and


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museums as a laboratory for extending partnerships and building capacity. Increasingly, creative production is recognized as both the result of skilled and viable practitioners and their connection to and participation in a networked society. Such forms of contemporary practice are iterative in their reliance on participation and knowledge sharing as integral to the success of the creative endeavor. From the commercial successes of Flickr14 and YouTube15 to design-centric initiatives such as ReadyMade16 and Design it Yourself17, transformations are occurring in the generation and distribution of digital content, connecting creativity to user-generated demand through social media, broadcasting, cultural organizations, and other forms of media. Social media facilities can now connect previously disconnected individuals and global communities of practice. This has resulted in new economies, new communities, and new forms of cultural exchange. Botsman and Rogers (2010) suggest that the drivers for these changes are a convergence of two ideologies: a recognition that the way in which we live our lives is no longer sustainable; and that we benefit from and therefore have a vested interest in offering contributions to online communities. Increasingly, designers are addressing this convergence by collaboratively developing products online which aim to enhance sustainability in communities and strengthen social bonds in urban contexts. Yet while the models for online participation for commercial purposes are now relatively clear,18 the ways in which designers either lead projects or build capacity by increasing networks and engaging with ‘‘crowd-sourcing’’ remains limited. Crowd-sourcing is a new practice of distributed problem-solving which has risen as a significant mechanism for encouraging online participation (Howe 2006). Crowd-sourcing

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harnesses the creativity of an online community to collect, evolve, and rank ideas and contributions in a public forum. This results in changes to the ways in which audiences connect with organizations and has tremendous ramifications for organizational trust and the ways in which participants are considered within the design process. For instance, in 2011, the global design and innovation company IDEO launched an online facility entitled OpenIDEO19 to connect designers and creative thinkers in order to achieve design solutions together for social good. The site uses the popular crowd-sourced ‘‘Challenges’’ idea—suggesting challenging problems to which participants then offer solutions. An example is the recent collaboration between OpenIDEO and the Queensland Government, which launched a local food challenge, driving sustainable food production and consumption.20 This type of online collaborative design process creates a platform for exploring significant global challenges. Yet while designers may wish to contribute to OpenIDEO challenges, there is an implicit understanding that the ‘‘challenges’’ offered are not dissimilar to the types of design projects for which IDEO is contracted to produce in the commercial environment. The lack of differentiation between IDEO’s commercial practice and its online forum for design innovation is problematic; it remains to be seen whether designers will participate in the site in significant ways. Unlike the commercial undertones of OpenIDEO, the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum (CHNDM) created an innovative exhibition entitled Design for the Other 90 Percent21 which was conceived as a forum to provoke discussions around the ways organizations and individuals address the underpinnings of poverty through design innovations. The objects selected for the exhibition were exam-

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ples of technologies that could be re-considered to achieve design solutions that could provide low-cost effective solutions to benefit poor and marginalized communities. Design for the Other 90 Percent offered a window into how design communities could use their practice to engage with broader social issues for a national and international benefit. The exhibition was embedded into the online educational programs at CHNDM, offering a way for educators to connect their programs with ‘‘big issues’’ and to share their lesson plans with a large educator community supported and facilitated by the museum. What did Design for the Other 90 Percent teach us about the connection between museums and design communities? What innovations were produced through partnerships between individuals and designers? How were these supported by social media to achieve new models for co-creation and collaboration? Design for the Other 90 Percent presented a unique example of how museums could use second generation Web or the ‘‘participative Web’’22 to connect communities and individuals to achieve a ‘‘greater good’’ through innovative design solutions. Yet it also demonstrated what Nielson describes as a ‘‘participation inequality’’ (2006). Research showed that while social networks rely on users to contribute content or build services, most users don’t participate much, with a tiny minority accounting for a disproportionately large amount of the content and other system activity (Zimmer 2007). This finding is in keeping with research suggesting that the skills required for participation in the network of user-generated content are often beyond those of most audience members (Russo and Watkins 2006). Collecting organizations are in a unique position to address this participation inequality by exploring new models for connecting design

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communities with museums while emphasizing collaborative relations as a source of both content creation and competitive advantage. For this to occur, designers require specific skills in collaborative networking and strategic environments where they can test this interaction without being exposed to high commercial risk. Museums can provide these environments for the following reasons: 1) they have a demonstrated commitment to local issues and expertise; 2) they offer their cultural authority to explore issues relevant to broader communities; 3) they have extensive networks through which to promote online participation; 4) a large proportion of national museums now have a welldeveloped track record of using social media to connect with communities. RECONSIDERING THE ROLE OF COLLECTING ORGANIZATIONS IN SUPPORTING DESIGN INNOVATION

While it is widely recognized that innovation is an important contributor to economic growth, the specific mechanisms by which organizations innovate is still the subject of much study and debate (Potts and Morrison 2008). So-called participatory media technologies, such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, photo and video sharing, virtual environments, tagging and other tools aim to facilitate new forms of innovation through co-creative and interactive experiences. In 2007, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) characterized the participative Web as driven by increased participation and interaction (OECD 2007b, 8). O’Reilly, in an earlier attempt to clarify the distinctive features of the participative Web, suggested that the key feature of Web 2.0 (social media) was its exploitation of collective intelligence (O’Reilly 2005). The capabilities described by O’Reilly and the


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programming practices and infrastructure built upon them provided the foundations and the impetus for Web 2.0’s ‘‘architecture of participation.’’ An example of the collaborative relations O’Reilly describes can be seen in the creation of new online design services which embed broader networked interactions and are poised to transform innovation in the design sector. For example, co-creation, multiple user-participation design sites such as redesignme23, 99designs24, designbay25, and Kluster26 link designers with external partners and potential clients in public forums. Such systems recognize the value of co-creative collaborative networks in the further development of products or services. Despite this, there is little guidance as to how designers and design communities can develop or deploy this ability to achieve innovation while maintaining agency within the design process. Just as traditional ‘‘free pitching’’ is considered to undermine the value of design services and is denounced by the Australian Design Institute as unprofessional,27 designers who contribute to crowd-sourcing sites such as 99designs run the risk of contributing designs to a collective pool without realizing any specific monetary or social benefit. Such commercial online design services do not offer trusted and authoritative environments through which design communities can explore the social aspects of their practice, build capacity through online networking, and contribute to the growing phenomena of online collaboration. Unlike these commercial online design services, museums offer appropriate test beds for exploring these issues, for example: Each year, the Australian Museum holds the Fashion Less Waste28 design competition, which aims to encourage a more sustainable

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fashion industry. Through this exhibition, the museum promotes its research in biodiversity and introduces young designers to cultural collections. The Smithsonian, Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum has a long and successful partnership with Etsy,29 an online forum for selling handmade goods. Etsy uses social media networks to both sell products and provide training and resources to their community. By linking with the museum, Etsy has achieved a level of authority and trust—not just as a platform for sales—but as a leader in the dissemination and ethics of contemporary consumption.30 The link between commodity and culture is in keeping with Kopytoff’s description of commoditization as process, where he suggests that the production of commodities is both cultural and cognitive; commodities must not only be produced as objects but also culturally marked as being a certain kind of thing (2007, 64). It is these cultural markers that differentiate objects and activities, legitimizing them as the product of culturally valuable processes (handmade) or essentially trade-able and expendable commodities. An example of Kopytoff’s commoditization as process is the Powerhouse Museum’s Lace exhibition that launches in July 2011. Based on an international competition held by the Powerhouse Museum in 2010 to ‘‘encourage contemporary design and challenge conventional notions of lace and its application in the areas of fashion, the built environment and digital multimedia,’’31 the competition attracted hundreds of designers from around the world who offered their contemporary interpretations of this traditional handmade skill. This collaboration between designers and the museum will showcase innovation in design, material, and techniques while demonstrating how museums can broker relations between design communities

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while extending their education and outreach programs. Such relations begin to emerge alongside traditional curatorial and educational uses of museum and gallery Web space, thus contributing to discourses surrounding the impact of social media, co-creation, and the legitimization of crowd-sourced design processes. Another example is the collaboration between University of Edinburgh, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, National Museums Scotland, and the National Galleries of Scotland. This collaboration, formed through a pilot research project, seeks to discover how collecting organizations can use social media to connect with their communities in order to achieve innovation. Each of these examples demonstrates the breadth of collaborations possible between design communities and museums. Yet there is little which binds them together as transferable, repeatable processes that can both engage new audiences and create sustainable long term partnerships. Importantly, while each example illustrates an innovation in its own right, none are embedded within cultural programs as mechanisms by which museums can be seen to become laboratories for innovative online design services. DESIGN COMMUNITIES: WHY CONNECT?

While commercial design practices increasingly engage with social issues, it remains difficult to achieve innovation within the traditional remits of practice. Therefore, this paper posits that the practices of four distinct design communities, listed below, have the greatest potential to benefit from connecting with museums to build capacity and achieve innovative outcomes. The four design communities are:

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Social Design

Social Designers32 believe their practice has the potential to improve life by considering how design decisions impact on all users throughout the product or service lifecycle. Essentially, social design is a result of informed ideas, greater awareness, larger conversations, and the desire to contribute valuable design solutions to society. UNESCO supports the efforts of social design through its online platform DESIGN 21: Social Design Network,33 which brings designers together to explore issues associated with delivering innovative solutions that have significant impact on the lives of marginalized communities. The field of social design offers a unique design community through which to explore the connections between social innovation, design communities, and museums. Crafting Communities

Crafting Communities34 explore the relationship between handmade design as a space of social production and one of participation in DIY citizenship supported by online engagement. Social media has enabled crafting communities to promote and legitimize the value of handmade design, shifting this sector from a ‘‘medieval marketplace’’ (Walker 2007) to a viable and sustainable form of cultural production. In doing so, social media has helped to promote the notion that ‘‘making’’ is a critical process. This design community is an appropriate space through which to explore how designers can contribute to global economies and the impact of this collaboration on local design industries. Additionally, crafting communities offer a forum through which to explore the sustainability of design—the underlying opportunities for


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empowerment and inclusion, intergenerational learning (Maindment and MacFarlane 2011), and design innovation. Design as Activism

Design as Activism35 explores inclusive innovation, culturally informed product use, underserved populations, and co-creation as mechanisms through which to empower individuals to create and connect with others in knowledge exchange. Design as activism differs from social design in that it brings together multiple disciplines—journalists, entrepreneurs, product designers, social innovators, and policy makers—to discuss the issues that impact on our lives (Bell, Wakeford, and Fischer 2008), to illustrate the ways design can address issues of social justice, and to allow individuals and communities to plan and improve their own lives. An example is EXPOSED: A Design Research Exchange36 which hosts collaborative workshops, panels, and discussions with leading design thinkers and researchers. Designas-activism communities are appropriate for exploring collaborations with museums because the breadth of environmental, civic, and social issues they address are often manifest and illustrated through cultural collections. Service Design

Service Design37 is a convergent area of practice in which design services are in themselves consumer products. Innovations such as Quirky38 and Elancers39 are challenging the ways in which traditional design practice is undertaken by offering platforms where designers can connect with broader audiences in the development of their products and services. Designers in these forums are confronting issues of sustainability, social inclusion, and

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accessibility in order to create systems and services. Service Design often straddles commercial and social sectors to develop and strengthen the knowledge and expertise in the science and practice of innovation; it offers an intriguing community through which to explore how museums can host and support online collaborative design services. Creating connections between collecting organizations and design communities could offer important new connections for project initiators, policy makers, and knowledge institutions exploring the convergence of innovation, design, and social networking. Projects could explore current practices in the sustainability and optimization of these systems through focusing on how to creatively engage collaborative networks in the development of new products, services, and experiences in public and social innovation sectors. Such an approach would anticipate the challenges which Gann and Dodgson propose will result by breaking down barriers between organizations, disciplines, professionals, and the public domains. It seeks to establish new models in what they term ‘‘an entirely new environment for innovation’’ (2007). The outcomes could inform the design of future design-driven collaborative initiatives between cultural organizations and design communities by providing models for future end-user engagement in product and service development. Difficult issues often require innovative perspectives. The opportunities for collecting organizations to draw together increased demand for design with the development of sustainable communities of participants responds to multiple studies of innovation which identify the power of collaboration and communities as one of the major forces driving innovation (Prahalad and Krishnan 2008; Chesbrough 2005; 2006; Dawson 2008). As the practice of

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design is increasingly sought out by government agencies as a mechanism through which to enable innovation,40 such collaborations could provide demonstrations of how to bridge the gap between traditional design practice and a growing demand for transferable design methods which can produce innovative outcomes through new online partnerships. If we are seeking to explore transformations in cultural communication, then approaches which integrate conceptual clarification, empirical investigation of best practice, and the generation of new models that embed social networking to support design communities to partner with museums, present a unique opportunity to explore the types of support, systems, and mechanisms required to achieve networks of design practitioners. The result could be a portable and pluralistic model of inclusive participation and collaboration which would enable designers and museums to generate a more informed and practical approach to online design participation. ACHIEVING CREATIVE CONNECTIONS

Currently, many collecting organizations have established informal relationships between their institutions and designers who are interested in achieving products and services for social good. Museums are unique laboratories for such partnerships, since they have global reach; extensive public, outreach and education projects; and existing networks which offer further collaborations and relationships. Extending these relationships and formalizing networks of design communities could encourage users to co-create new products and services in ways meaningful to them. In doing so, such connections could capture the social value of the participative Web and explore ways of empowering audiences in a publicly engaged society.

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Both designers and collecting organizations face serious challenges in the ways they are viewed by publics and funding agencies. Design is increasingly identified as a significant contributor to the innovation of products and services (BERR 2008). Government investment41 into the role of design as a mechanism for achieving innovation has been inhibited by restrictions inherent in small and medium enterprises which in turn often lack the experience or capacity to engage in large scale social programs. Small design firms have been slow to develop broader social inclusion into their practices and have been inhibited by lack of access to networks and the cost of infrastructure. Public policy has favored design services that can demonstrate a return on investment.42 As a result, the design environment has not been conducive to social innovation. Uptake of online design services has been slow as a result of a cautious regime change. However, the broadening of cultural programming in our institutions is now beginning to capture the Australian public’s attention; partnerships that achieve innovation are being identified and profiled on some museum websites.43 State and federal governments nationally and internationally are developing programs which seek to increase capacity through innovative design programs. For instance, ‘‘Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy’’ (DCMS 2008) highlights the rising importance of innovation that takes place outside the ‘‘traditional’’ high-technology and manufacturing sectors, such as the contribution of design to innovative products and services. While a number of these programs are directed at increasing capacity within manufacturing industries in their constituencies, few are concerned with broader innovation programs that connect design communities and cultural networks.


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Connecting museums and design communities could address this gap and contribute to cultural advancement by: 1) offering an indepth understanding and recognition of the contribution which collaboration between cultural organizations and design communities can make to the innovation sector; 2) offering prototype and demonstrator projects to demonstrate the social and cultural value of burgeoning online social design practices; 3) achieving high level collaborations and introductions to new partners, which could influence and impact on understanding the ways in which museums can play a significant role in promoting the value of these design communities to a national and international audience; and 4) demonstrating international leadership by addressing the critical role that collaboration plays in enabling important fundamental research to be applied and consolidated to achieve innovative solutions. The development of sound models for connecting museums with design communities has the capacity to contribute to economic development in social and creative services. Embedding broad user-centered participation processes could contribute to the development of interaction based on design-driven methods, which in turn could provide a unique testing ground for the connection between participatory systems and traditional innovation practices. CONCLUSION

This paper is the result of six years of research undertaken with many cultural organizations around the world. During that period, the author (together with multiple collaborators) has explored a meta-research program which has been structured around digital content creation (digital storytelling production and training, participatory content creation,

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co-creation content, and active cultural participation); digital content capture (social media engagement and evaluation); digital content distribution (networked participation, barriers and rewards of participation, value networks); and digital content promotion (cultural exchange, impact of social media on changing communication practices). This paper represents the culmination of that research and offers thoughts and provocations for the future of innovation in the cultural sector as achieved through transformations in cultural communication. In the first example, it takes a single global event and describes how this could be used by national museums to reposition themselves as leaders in online cultural exchange. In the second example, it looks at a burgeoning practice of online networking in design and connects it to cultural organizations, considering how these organizations can act as laboratories to offer partnerships and collaborations in trusted and authoritative environments. Both examples anticipate the caution with which museums use social media to extend their networks to build capacity, and suggest partnerships which might explore potential innovations for social and economic growth. At the same time, both examples shift the focus of online participation away from marketing and promotion and towards developing agency and networking opportunities for individuals and communities in order to explore and plan future innovative outcomes. The paper recognizes the challenges which face cultural organizations, particularly in remaining relevant and being seen to contribute to a broader society. It builds on research undertaken over the past six years to offer insights and models for anticipated cultural exchanges, which are both timely and important to the future of both social media and END the public face of cultural organizations.

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NOTES 1. British Museum. A History of the World in 100 Objects. Accessed at http://www. britishmuseum.org/explore/a_history_of_the_ world.aspx. 2. BBC U.K. A History of the World in 100 Objects. Accessed at http://www.bbc.co.uk/ ahistoryoftheworld/. 3. For iTunes see http://store.apple.com/uk. 4. Interview with Janet Carding, director and CEO of the Royal Ontario Museum, Canada, Jan. 19, 2011. Accessed at Museum Identity Ltd., http://www.museum-id.com/ideas-detail. asp?newsID=202. 5. Who Do You Think You Are? Celebrities trace their family trees. Accessed at BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007t575. 6. Nova Science Now. Accessed at PBS, http:// www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/. 7. The Cultural Portal (http://www.cultureand recreation.gov.au/) was established to impart a vision of a national network providing wide electronic access to cultural material. It was the premier online access point for Australian culture. 8. The Collections Council of Australia (http:// www.collectionscouncil.com.au/) was established in 2004 with the aim of advancing the stability and the sustainability of the Australian collections sector, particularly in relation to the archive, gallery, library, and museum domains. 9. The Collections Australia Network (http:// www.collectionsaustralia.net/) funding ceased in early March 2011. 10. First World War Centenary Partners. Imperial War Museum. Accessed at http://www.iwm. org.uk/server/show/nav.24526. 11. ABC OPEN, accessed at http://open.abc. net.au/. 12. Smithsonian Web and New Media Strategy, accessed at http://smithsonian-webstrategy. wikispaces.com/. 13. Nick Poole. 2010. A difficult conversation. Blog at Collections Trust ⁄ OpenCulture. Accessed at http://openculture.collections

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14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20.

21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29. 30.

31.

32. 33.

trustblogs.org.uk/2010/12/30/a-difficultconversation/. See http://www.flickr.com. See http://www.youtube.com. See http://www.readymade.com/. See http://www.papress.com/other/designityourself/index.html. For instance, see sites such as eBay, which rely on maintaining a good reputation as a seller, or Amazon, where independent book reviews contribute both to the general knowledge surrounding products and to the sale of those products. See http://openideo.com/. See http://www.australiandesignreview.com/ news/21716-OpenIDEO-launches-local-foodchallenge. See http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/. ‘‘Participative Web’’ can be dated from shortly after 2000, although the term Web 2.0 was not coined by Tim O’Reilly and Dale Dougherty until 2004. See http://www.redesignme.com/. See http://99designs.com/. See http://www.designbay.com/. See http://www.kluster.com/buy/features. See http://www.design.org.au/index. cfm?id=245. Fashion Less Waste, accessed at http:// australianmuseum.net.au/event/FashionLess-Waste-2011-Birds-of-Paradise. See http://www.etsy.com. See Brotherhood of St. Laurence, ‘‘Submission to the Review of the Australian Textile Clothing and Footwear Industries,’’ which describes the processes by which garments are made and distributed in relation to ethical manufacture. Accessed at http://www.bsl. org.au/pdfs/BSL_subm_TCF_industries_ review_2008.pdf. Powerhouse Museum International Lace Award. Accessed at http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/lace/. See http://www.socialdesignsite.com. Design21 Social Design Network. Accessed at http://jump.dexigner.com/directory/9389.


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34. Examples include http://www.craftser.org, accessed at http://www.ravelry.com. 35. See http://designactivism.net/. 36. See http://exposed09.wordpress.com/. 37. See http://www.service-design-network.org/. 38. See http://www.quirky.com. 39. See http://www.elancers.com. 40. See for example http://www.nesta.org.uk/. NESTA is the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts U.K. 41. See for example Design Victoria, which drives design excellence and innovation, helping to improve the competitiveness of SME businesses and the efficiency and effectiveness. Accessed at http://www.designvic. com/. Also Creative Industries Skills Council, accessed at http://www.cisc.com.au/ and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, accessed at http:// www.cci.edu.au/. 42. See for example Queensland Design Strategy 2020, accessed at http://www.arts.qld.gov.au/ policy/design2020.html, and the New Zealand government’s Better by Design, accessed at http://www.betterbydesign.org.nz/ default.aspx. 43. The Australia Innovates project is a partnership between the Powerhouse Museum and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. The Academy is an independent body of engineers and technologists whose mission is to promote innovation and advancement in engineering and science for the benefit of Australia. The Powerhouse is Australia’s leading museum of science, technology, design, and industry. See http:// www.powerhousemuseum.com/australia_ innovates/?behaviour=view_articleandSection_ id=40. REFERENCES

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