Paul,
nice post and I agree with everything you say.
Nick,
to pick up on a couple of things...
There is a danger that your use of the phrase "killer app" implies PLT
(portal-like thinking) and that you've got the funnel the wrong way
round - closed funnelling into a single place (the killer app), rather
than open-ended funnelling out to the wider world. I appreciate that
you may not have meant it like that, in which case this can just serve
as a reminder that we need to be very clear about what we mean when we
use that phrase or phrases like it because the rhetoric and approach
needs to be very different depending on which way round one is holding
the funnel. As Paul says, there doesn't seem to be much emphasis on
open content and APIs in the current approach but maybe that is just
because that aspect of the work hasn't had a chance to surface yet?
Your question, "During what part of a person's day does their behaviour
correspond to the kind of activity which Creative Spaces makes
possible?" sounds slightly cart-before-horse to me. Again, I appreciate
that you are asking the question from outside the project team and that
they, presumably, do have the answers to that question. But looking at
an area I'm more involved with, open access scholarly repositories,
there has tended to be a "we have built it, now how do we make people
come?" type of attitude which strikes me as not very healthy.
All of which brings us quite nicely back to the original "why?".
To answer your question, "What is our 'sell' (a simple unique value
proposition ...", the answer seems to me to be "museum content", which
is why it is so important that it is made as openly available as
possible.
More positively, I do think that this activity is interesting and has
the potential to encourage some very positive changes. At the very
least, it has initiated a healthy debate here and elsewhere.
Andy
--
Research Programme Director, Eduserv
http://www.eduserv.org.uk/research
http://efoundations.typepad.com
http://twitter.com/andypowe11
+44 (0)1225 474319
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Paul Walk
> Sent: 05 March 2009 09:10
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: 'Creative Spaces'
>
> So, this thread was started by Frankie Roberto asking the
> question, "Why?". His approach, a simple one-word question,
> was criticised - unfairly I think. Implicit in Frankie's
> question is a challenge - it invites someone to explain, very
> succinctly and convincingly what it is that that Creative
> Spaces (in its guise as a user-facing
> application) is for. I think this challenge is well made, and
> deserves to be answered.
>
> Nick, I appreciate your desire to be diplomatic - this
> discussion has been fraught at times. However, I think there
> is something important being contested here, and Frankie's
> question is still not really answered. In the spirit of
> continuing this line of inquiry, I'll respond to some of the
> points you make here with some points of my own.
>
> When you describe Creative Spaces as:
> "a beautiful piece of work and quite an achievement - not
> least for the effort of will and human and political
> wrangling that has gone into bringing it to life (I'm hoping
> someone will write that case study some day...)."
>
> It seems to me that you tend to support an assertion which
> was made earlier in the discussion, that the real value of
> Creative Spaces is the effect that *engaging with the
> project* has had on the organisations involved - their
> politics, culture, licensing regimes.
> Thus the project's actual output, a user-facing site, is of
> secondary importance. I really would like to pin this aspect
> down, because the cynics among us would suggest that this is
> an easy 'get-out clause'
> from having to deliver something which is demonstrably
> successful ("Oh, it was never about the website, don't you
> know, it was about getting the people involved together in
> the same room....").
>
> Now, if you believe, as I do in fact, that getting the
> organisations together, sorting through licensing issues,
> aligning architectures...
> whatever it takes, to offer better straightforward access to
> these resources should be the *primary* objectives of the
> project, then why cannot this be stated up front? Of course,
> such work has to deliver something - but an increasing number
> of us believe that this something should be an API. In my
> role on the steering group for an entirely different project
> recently, I was told that the 'portal' being developed was
> not the most important thing - it was the 'plumbing'
> underneath which really mattered. The whole of the meeting
> was then concerned with the portal, what it was for, who
> might use it, what icons it should use.....
>
> You suggest that attractive sites like Creative Spaces move
> us closer to some sort of event horizon where the 'public
> consciousness' will recognise the value in participation. Yet
> I look at the output from the Creative Spaces project and it
> seems to me, an interested outsider, to be a portal. It has a
> few nods towards asking users for content, and it is
> attractive enough in the sense of graphic design and use of
> CSS, but it is, nonetheless, a *destination* web-site. I
> cannot see, on the face of it, how this is nothing other than
> a tremendous gamble that the team assembled by the nine
> institutions could build the most compelling portal - the
> 'killer application'. If I follow your logic, I have to
> conclude that you believe that the "Why" which Frankie asked
> so pertinently, is that we need to keep gambling like this,
> that you believe that Creative Spaces might well be a
> 'beautiful failure' which is nonetheless a necessary step to
> take us towards some breakthrough moment.
>
> You invoke Flickr as a comparison. I think this is a bogus
> comparison for several reasons. Flickr actually arose out of
> a last gasp attempt to return on the investment that some
> high-risk venture capitalists had made in a start-up games
> company - all of the original ideas failed but the 'object'
> sharing framework they had developed as part of this failed
> venture turned out to be just what the world wanted for
> hosting and sharing their photos. I'm sure that you are not
> suggesting that public money be invested in the style of
> venture capital....?
> Also, Flickr works because licensing is relatively simple.
> The content is owned by the users. It does one or two things
> really well and leaves the rest to others to develop by
> offering an easy to use API.
>
> Here's an entirely different model: Spend this money sorting
> out a licensing model which can actually work. Consider every
> penny spent on building a portal to be money which could, and
> should have been spent on the 'plumbing'. Offer an API at the
> earliest opportunity. Offer incentives, prizes, whatever it
> takes for the developers to build the applications they they
> want to build on top of your API. Showcase the best. This has
> worked for the BBC. It has worked for Flickr. It's still a
> gamble, but a more controlled and risk-managed one, where
> some of the risk is born by third-parties.
>
> Now I realise that both you and I have speculated about the
> motives behind Creative Spaces and we may have been wide of
> the mark. I welcome any response to this because, like you, I
> also believe we are approaching a tipping point. But I
> suspect that this tipping point may be rather more like the
> one which the music industry is currently experiencing, which
> has been painful for some.
>
> Let's keep this debate going - it has been too interesting
> and revealing so far to leave it at that, don't you think?
>
> Cheers,
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
> On 4 Mar 2009, at 23:55, Nick Poole wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > 'Interesting' chat today. For what it's worth, I think
> Creative Spaces
> > is a beautiful piece of work and quite an achievement - not
> least for
> > the effort of will and human and political wrangling that has gone
> > into bringing it to life (I'm hoping someone will write that case
> > study some day...). I registered and really enjoyed using the very
> > well thought-through interface, even though I did find it a
> bit hard
> > to find stuff to put in my notebook.
> >
> > My real question, though, is 'now that it exists, how would
> you bring
> > it to market?'. In other words, how do we market a social
> web/ online
> > collections hybrid to the general public in a way which
> both locates
> > it within and differentiates it from other mass-market offerings?
> >
> > Some of the 'social' functionality depends on critical mass, and
> > critical mass depends on market share. We have seen how the current
> > crop of high-footfall services (Flickr, YouTube, eBay etc) are
> > increasingly turning to traditional print and broadcast media,
> > ironically enough, to give their brands the kind of solidity and
> > credibility which the Internet still finds it hard to establish.
> >
> > I have seen it said that the nationals need only divert a
> fraction of
> > their millions of hits into this for it to be a success,
> but even then
> > we are talking relatively low numbers in comparison to other
> > consumer-facing services, and certainly in comparison to
> other social
> > media platforms.
> >
> > I don't know what proportion of the Creative Spaces project
> is given
> > over to marketing, but it will be interesting to see whether it is
> > sufficient (a) to break into the mainstream media and (b)
> to keep it
> > there. What I believe we are really looking for here is our
> 'breakout'
> > moment - the killer app which enables digital cultural content to
> > cross over into the mainstream and appeal to a whole new
> cross-section
> > of society who may or may not be interested in crossing the
> threshold
> > of the museum itself.
> >
> > Forgetting about us museum professionals for a moment and thinking
> > about 'real' people - I think Creative Spaces enables us to start
> > asking some interesting questions. During what part of a
> person's day
> > does their behaviour correspond to the kind of activity
> which Creative
> > Spaces makes possible? And how are we going to make sure that a
> > reasonable proportion of the many millions of Internet
> users know that
> > it is there to be used? What is our 'sell' (a simple unique value
> > proposition which makes this unique and uniquely relevant
> to a clear
> > user need) and how are we going to exploit every opportunity to
> > communicate it to consumers? And how are we going to keep
> them coming
> > back?
> >
> > Answers on a postcard, but what seems certain is that in Creative
> > Spaces and the few other examples of next-generation museum-based
> > online services we have an offering that is at or near the standard
> > where we can start to make some real inroads into the popular
> > consciousness, and really start to test what until this point seem
> > largely to have been assumptions about consumers and their needs. I
> > applaud the Creative Spaces team for moving us that much further
> > towards our breakout moment.
> >
> > All best,
> >
> > Nick
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of
> > Frankie Roberto
> > Sent: 04 March 2009 15:11
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: Re: 'Creative Spaces'
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 10:07 AM, Jeremy wrote:
> >
> > Very constructive, Frankie. Care to elaborate on the question?
> >
> >
> > Okay, so I'll admit I was being a bit provocative opening
> with such a
> > short question. What I hoped to be alluding to was that I'm
> not sure
> > what the purpose of the site is, or what user need it's fulfilling.
> >
> > I'm not sure I can agree with Jeremy that the home page has a clear
> > call to action - I think Tony's observation that it doesn't explain
> > anything feels more accurate.
> >
> > "Connecting with your favourite museums" seems both vague
> (what does
> > 'connect' mean?) and presumptuous (some of my favourite museums are
> > included, but lots of them aren't).
> >
> > Let's look at the next line:
> >
> > "...allowing you to explore their *collections*, find like-minded
> > *people*and create your own *content*."
> >
> > I can already explore collections. 'like-minded' is pretty
> unspecific,
> > and finding people is what social networks are for.
> 'Creating your own
> > content'
> > is about as generic as it comes. This isn't communicating
> any 'USP',
> > and doesn't really tell you much about what the website offers.
> >
> > The next 3 calls-to-actions are a little more specific at least:
> >
> > "Get creative", "Create a notebook"
> >
> > It's telling here that there's a "what is a notebook?" link
> straight
> > underneath. 'Notebook' feels like a functional thing to me, rather
> > than a creative thing. But I can guess at what the feature
> might be.
> > The issue though is whether this fulfils any need. I don't think
> > anyone starts out by saying "I want to do something
> creative". It'd be
> > better to provide something to stimulate people and let creativity
> > arise naturally (nowhere on Flickr does it say "be creative", yet
> > creativity happens). The next issue is that even if I do want to be
> > creative, and do this through collecting images, links,
> notes, etc in
> > a notebook, do I really need a new online tool to enable this? Why
> > don't I just use an application on my computer, which I'm more
> > familiar with, and which gives me more control?
> >
> > "Inspire someone", "Start a group"
> >
> > Group functionality is pretty common now across all sorts of social
> > networks and services. Yet it's rarely a key feature. Google Groups
> > aside, I don't think people go to Upcoming / Flickr / et al
> with the
> > aim of creating a group. Rather, groups become a way of organising
> > content and people that's useful when the number of contacts and
> > content you have starts to become unmanagable. For me
> they're a kind
> > of secondary feature, so I'd shy away from putting them on your
> > homepage.
> >
> > "Be inspired", "Watch a video"
> >
> > At least this one doesn't need a "what is a video?" link :)
> This one
> > needs to give you a bit more of a clue as to what the videos are,
> > who's created them, and why they might be inspirational. Why not
> > mention that you've got videos with well-known people in them? Or
> > better still, list a few videos directly on the homepage.
> >
> > Those are some specific comments on the individual features on the
> > homepage, but I can't end without coming back to the
> question of what
> > connects them all together? They read a bit like a list of random
> > features, each of which is familiar from other sites (groups,
> > notebooks, videos, links) but no overraching purpose or need which
> > links them all together. 'Being creative'
> > is too vague a topic for any site to cover. The only unique
> thing here
> > seems to be the museum content, which doesn't even seem to feature
> > that prominently.
> >
> > I appreciate that this might be for schools, or educational
> groups, or
> > something, but from the perspective of someone who just stumbles
> > across the site... I think there's still work to do! :)
> >
> > I've been spending the last 3 days giving 'mentoring' advice to a
> > bunch of TV types who are pitching web ideas. Something I've been
> > constantly repeating is "do one thing, and do it well".
> Think that'd
> > be good advice for this project too.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Frankie
> >
> > --
> > Frankie Roberto
> > Experience Designer, Rattle
> > 0114 2706977
> > http://www.rattlecentral.com
> >
> > Sent from: Byker Newcastle Upon Tyne United Kingdom.
> >
> > **************************************************
> > For mcg information and to manage your subscription to the
> list, visit
> > the website at http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk
> > **************************************************
>
> --------------------------------------------
> Paul Walk
> Technical Manager
> UKOLN (University of Bath)
> http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
> [log in to unmask]
> +44(0)1225383933
> --------------------------------------------
>
> **************************************************
> For mcg information and to manage your subscription to the
> list, visit the website at http://www.museumscomputergroup.org.uk
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>
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