Museopunks

Games are such a hot topic in museums, but the topic is a complex one. As blogger Kevin Bacon (no, not that one) points out, video games are expensive, are being made by many dedicated people outside museums, and can be a challenging vehicle for telling nuanced historical stories. So should museums invest in games? And if so, what should they be seeking to achieve?

In this episode, the Punks talk to Sharna Jackson, Tate Kids Editor and the woman behind Seahorse, a digital content agency for children, and Sophia George, co-founder of Swallowtail Games and the V&A’s first ever Game Designer in Residence, about all things games and gaming in the museum. What is the difference between a game and a toy? Why are women less likely to enter a career in gaming than men? And why is ‘gamification’ such a dirty word?

News and media organizations have been undergoing similar challenges to those facing museums in the digital age, with increased competition for attention, challenges to old models of authority, and the need to develop new kinds of business models and modes of practice in response to changing technological, social, and economic conditions. So what can museums learn from news and media organizations in order to change and adapt their practices to work effectively in an increasingly online and social media context?

In this episode, the Punks dig into these questions with a little help from Paul Schmelzer, Web Editor at the Walker Art Center, and Sree Sreenivasan, new Chief Digital Officer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Both Schmelzer and Sreenivasan come to the museum sector with backgrounds in the media and significant experience in journalism, and their insights reflect the importance of these skills in the contemporary museum. Does the responsiveness of social media change the pace at which museums must work, and what opportunities does it open up for new kinds of practice?

In 2012, Collections Trust CEO Nick Poole did a short analysis of 40 mission statements of leading UK museums and galleries, and discovered that the word “Future” was the third most common word used to describe the missions of the museums, double that of the word “past”. With such an eye to the future, it is little surprise to discover that museums spend some time thinking about the shape of things to come.

During recent museum conferences, there have been a number of sessions that consider museum futures and how cultural institutions can prepare for likely economic, social, and technological scenarios. At Museums Australia 2013 in May 2013, Dr Stefan Hajkowicz: Leader, CSIRO Futures gave a talk on the Our Future Worlds report, which outlines six megatrends facing the world – and the arts – in the coming twenty years. At MuseumNext, also in May, Bridget McKenzie from Flow Associates examined ways in which museums might engage with communities to maintain relevance in the coming decade and the key technologies that may be influential in future planning.

In this episode of Museopunks, your Punks will delve deep into the future to ask how museums can use future scanning techniques to better plan for the future, and meet their missions. As the OECD notes, ‘A solid ‘scan of the horizon’ can provide the background to develop strategies for anticipating future developments and thereby gain lead time. It can also be a way to assess trends to feed into a scenario development process.’

What role does design and design thinking play in museum innovation? In this episode, the Punks dig into one of the “secret themes” that emerged out of Museums and the Web 2013: design. They talk to web strategy consultant and design thinking facilitator Dana Mitroff Silvers and Scott Gillam, Manager, Web Presence of Canadian Museum for Human Rights, about just how museums can think about design, and what role empathy plays in this process.

In this, the inaugural episode of the Museopunks podcast, the Punks chat to Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy at the Smithsonian Institution, and Paul Rowe, CEO of Vernon Systems, about museums in the Age of Scale. How can museums rethink their practices to work at web scale, from the smallest institutions up to the biggest?