How do you bring 'the web' in from the outside?

Okay, so there's something trying to emerge from the discussion in a couple of the sessions I've been to: the unconference session yesterday on talking with strangers, and then the all-too-brief-and-a-little-baffling-but-interesting session with Nina Simon talking about how can museums be more like the web (I think?).

It should be noted that the unconference session and Nina's workshop were linked: the unconference topic was proposed by Jason, a grad student of Nina's in Washington. So the central premise of each discussion was more or less the same:

How can the web inform the real world, and how can the real world be reflected on the web?

This is not about saying easy phrases like 'Museums should be more like Wikipedia'. It is about saying 'Wikipedia is interesting, and people are using it and engaging with it' (and you could say the same about many other examples of the social web), and then extending that thought into the why and the how.

Museums are all about engaging with people: just like social websites, it is the combination of people that makes them come alive - I don't think this really needs to be debated!

Consequently the next question after acknowledging that e.g. Wikipedia is interesting/engaging, is therefore: 'What happens on e.g. Wikipedia that could be translated into a real museum space?' (and by extension, what really should be left online where it belongs?).

Speaking of easy phrases, the new Director of my museum has recently indicated she is not keen on the oft-quoted-but-seldom-explored phrase saying 'our museum website should be the virtual branch', equivalent to one of the five physical sites that make up the Imperial War Museum across the UK.

Instead, she feels that the website should 'be the museum online'. Now, she's the big boss, so she hasn't specified what this might mean in practice - at this stage, she has that luxury!

However, the museum's mission statement has recently been redefined, by the Director and her senior management team. This is part of a big strategic review initiated by the new Director, which has yet to run its full course. But what we're starting to see is a powerful combination of a reinvigorated mission set with a broad, but equally fresh statement of intent about the role of web.

I guess what I'm doing here is reiterating one of Nina's sensible contentions, which is that new ideas/innovations in museum need to fit the museum's mission, otherwise what's the point? More practically, referencing the mission loudly and clearly is a way to get organisational buy-in to try new technologies, education programmes and interpretation methods in museums.

Soundbite: The mission statement should be a lever that anyone in the museum can grasp hold of and pull to start something.

That's the theory. Obviously the reason that our IWM mission is being redefined (or rather, refined... not actually changed out of all recognition) is that the new boss felt that the old mission wasn't a strong enough lever. Fair enough. Actually the changes to the mission wording are merely symbolic of the process of idenitfying those changes i.e. one new word should represent hours of thought and discussion.

So, what's the point of all this braindumping (check out the tags for this blog post - I never expected this would be coherent!)?

Museums are inherently non-digital, in that they exist to care for and make worthwhile use of the physical evidence of human societies. But this means they are social, they are about combinations and interactions of people, both people in the past and people now, as visitors/users/supporters/staff - so they should work with anything else that has this in mind.

Like the web (in case that needed stating!). The problem is, of course, that oftentimes people in charge don't see this link, they don't respond very strongly to the web, and frequently assume it is one kind of thing, very different from the non-digital world in which they chose to work...

Simply, the web just not strong or clear in their thoughts. 'Oh, yes, of course we must have a website...' and that's as far as many museum people go. So, how do you overcome this absence of thought, and bring the web in from the outside... not for 'the web' to take over the museum, but to properly contribute?

Honestly, there's no substitute for the boss saying 'make it so'. But we seem to be stepping down this road at the IWM, I wonder if I can at least set out some of the concepts that need to be absorbed...

1. Start with your museum's mission statement. Test it, make it strong.

2. Recognise that the web is not 'other, because nothing in your museum is 'other' - it's all got to be serving the mission. The web is as valid as collections or education or exhibitions or staff - it's a tool to deliver the mission.

3. Realise that this means the web holds clues to improve the real world experience, but equally that the web experience needs to complement the approaches in your galleries and displays.

4-ish. In other words, look at all parts of your museum's work, test them against the healthy mission, and identify those areas in which the mission is already being served. Maybe that's the education programme? Maybe it's the Personnel department? Maybe it's the groundskeeping of the surrounding park? What is happening that really WORKS?

5. (these numbers are really a bit of a mockery now...) Whether your museum is already red-hot online or not, use the web generally as a place to look for clues on how to deliver your mission. Your mission says you are a place of debate and discussion? Great - plenty of web examples... but why do things like forums work online? Anonymity? Focused discussion on a set topic? Opportunity to set the topic? Convenience?

(giving up totally on numbers now)

Unsurprisingly, I guess I'm just stating some really obvious stuff... but I find I do this a lot anyway, and it never seems to cease being useful, to me at least if no-one else! It may just be my long-winded way of saying: Look harder at what you think matters, to understand why it does. Here we all are at MW2009, so we think the web matters. We have to demonstrate how it already does, how it could do more, and how it can be made to matter even more by responding to other things.

Hmmm. Hardly the end of this thought process, but a start, of some kind...