This issue speaks to an interesting point (that someone else has
recently also mentioned on this thread) of museums having a web
presence. There was a panel discussion of this at a recent Historical
Administration Symposium sponsored through Eastern Illinois University.
The basic end message was, as an earlier posting mentioned, that whether
you realized it or not, your museum DOES have a web presence. You may
already have a web presence through a website, or social networking site
such as Myspace, or Facebook, blogs, or other means (there was a recent
discussion of Second Life on the list) however that doesn't mean that
you aren't floating around out there in cyberspace at another site.
As a point, one panelist discussed the idea of typing your museum name
in to the search feature at youtube.com to see what comes up. It can be
surprising to say the least. The panelist brought up the example of
trying this at her museum, and one of the videos showed a child eating
an ice cream cone at the museum cafe. Not what one thinks of when you
think of a museum, but obviously the family in that case thought to use
the museum as a tagline in their youtube search terms. That's an
innocuous example, but that's certainly not something that staff at that
particular institution thought that they would see!
It speaks, I suppose to brand ownership and identity, and ways to
guerrilla market your institution. (Using such things to your advantage,
and making sure that the identity you want is getting out to the broader
internet audience. Plus realizing that people may think of you in
different terms than you THINK they do...) It certainly means that it is
up to you to manage your presence, because whether you know it or not,
you're being represented.
As an aside, I heard a story on National Public Radio that spoke to
this issue as well. In the upcoming Presidential race, candidates are
now making sure that google searches on them bring up the sites managed
by the candidates political operations FIRST. This is to help them
better manage and control rumors, and unsubstantiated reports about each
candidate rather than having someone's blog, or editorial come up as the
initial weblinks seen. (The point was also raised, that most people stop
looking at google hits, after the first few pages, they usually find
what they need on the first few hits, not on page 47, and hit number
345.987,234.
That brings up the interesting and obvious question of: What is the
first hit that comes up on a google search of your museum? How about at
youtube?
Just some thoughts on a Monday.
Dan
Dan Schoeneberg
Experience Research Manager
Conner Prairie
13400 Allisonville Road
Fishers, Indiana
46038
[log in to unmask]
www.connerprairie.org
Discover all the fun and excitement of Conner Prairie. Visit
www.connerprairie.org for details!
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