TechStyle

Rachel on 2 way comms

Rachel on 2 way comms
Originally uploaded by TechStyle.

Breakfast brainstorming the ways that blogs can be used in museums, from curators posts to weblogs tracking exhibition development. Then Gail Durbin led a workshop on way to make your site communicate in two-ways, with lots of examples from the old favourites like iCan and some new ones like Mr Picasso Head.

STIM SSN

I spent yesterday with a lively group  in Birmingham at the Museum's Collection Centre (MCC) on an industrial estate that could have been anywhere in Britain. The aim of the day was to explore what a Subject Specialist Network (SSN) could do for the Science and Industry Museum sector as a whole.

Conversations during the day got me thinking about the form and structure of a 'formal' network (like an SSN) and 'informal' networks such as the socio-technical networks explored by Thomas Hughes in his Networks of Power.  Hughes looked at the role of networks and relevant social groups in creating consensus and stability around technological artefacts. In STS and Actor Network Theory it became vital to create symmetry by reinstating the role of the technological artefact as an actor in the system; it could also be useful to look at how an artefact - either physical or non-physical - functions as a component in a formal network with agreed rules and consensus.

Hughes shows that the role of systems builders, such as Edison, is to strive to increase the size of the system under their control and reduce the size of the environment that is not. These technical and organisational networks acquire goals, direction and momentum - something that is vital for any project or network that it is its initial stages and hopes to encompass the needs of a variety of actors - museums, repositories, objects, archives.

Recovering from Doors

We are back from Doors 8 and its taken us this long to recover.  Not so much of a conference as an experience to be savoured.  (You can see the conference schedule here and the speaker listing here.)  I thought we made a lot of good friends at Doors 5 but this conference took being social one step further as we were all in the crazy mayhem that is Delhi.

The highlights are too many to mention, but include:

Usman Haque's Skyear - where were we when it was realeased into the atmosphere in Cally Park?

Bus journey - cross country to get to Apeejay Media Gallery. Cameron went pale as we headed off towards a the thoroughly modern space (in  contrast to the surrounding streets) containing video art.

Margrit Kennedy - never has the world's economic system seemed so simple

Tony Salvador - Five stories of ethnography from around the world

Used in India - how the use, reuse, recycling, repurposing and repairing of technology and media products in India has a lot to teach us.

Holi party - Wikipedia, Nokia, Nesta and even the British Council get messy

We've returned. We shouild be exhausted but we are refreshed and invigorated.