MW07 - Web 2.0 Afterthoughts

I don’t want to reiterate Nate’s post about the Web 2.0 session but I felt I should share my comments on it as well.

Jeff Gates’ session about Eye Level was one I’ve heard bits and pieces of before. It’s a great look into how their institution is set up and run with regards to blogging. The thing I found most interesting is the amount of layers set up before a blog post gets out. Jeff showed a 6 or 7 step process that happens, starting with a blog post and then various itterations, reviews, editing, etc, that goes on before they decide to finally publish it (assuming the post makes it that far).

I’ve always found Eye Level very well written, almost more “article-like” than blog-like. It stands in stark contrast to our blog process which is literally “blog post > publish”. It’s the only way I know how to blog, and the way I personally prefer. If I had to go through many levels of review before I was able to get a blog post out, I most likely wouldn’t blog. And you wouldn’t be reading this post.

Shelley Bernstein and Nicole Caruth at the Brooklyn Museum rock. Simple as that. The amount of social structure they have built into their website is very inspiring. I loved their thought that they didn’t want a distinction between their website and their museum, they wanted them to all feel as one. This goes down to letting a user leave comments on a computer both in the galleries and online (in fact it’s the same form). These are things I’ve thought about as well. Their use of Flickr, Youtube, etc is amazing. Simply put I think they are our benchmark of where I feel we should be in the future. Thankfully we’re already moving in that direction.

Lastly, Mike Ellis of The Science Museum, UK, gave everyone there the kick in the bottom I’ve been waiting someone to do for a while now. His words of “just do it” ring true, especially to us. Research it, prototype it, try it, and don’t be afraid to fail. He touched into a lot of the phobias many people have about technology and change in general. I can understand concerns people have in this regard, but Mike is right, if many of us don’t adapt and move past them, we’ll be left behind and become largely irrelevant. Technology moves too fast for us to sit on our hands.