In late 2009, the Musée de la Poste decided to take a radical ste p in its
digital and online strategy, moving from one institutional and aging website to
an aggregative and collaborative space hosted by an entirely free software
created by French webdesigners Netvibes. Laurent Albaret, who spearheaded the project
at a museum dedicated to philately and the history of the French post,
willingly acknowledges the potentially provocative nature of this initiative
but has been able to respond to the mission statement of the entire Museum.
Laurent Albaret shared his thoughts on this, and here for French speakers only.
How does a Museum give up on its website?
« There was no real conscious effort within the museum to develop our presence
online. It was more a question of context. When we changed the museum’s visual
identity in October 2009, the museum’s institutional website was already 6
years old, rigid and far from user-friendly. It was basically impossible to
offer real-time info about the museum and its events » Laurent Albaret recalls.
« With this problem in mind, a Facebook group was created with a very positive
feedback, earning us more than 500 friends within a few weeks. This was my
initiative and was essentially led by the « History and prospective studies »
department. This got us thinking at the museum. But the actual implementation
of the Musée de la Poste Netvibes came from a well-structured initiative in
partnership with an agency called rfcpatrimoine.
« Their idea was to place the museum at the center of an intelligent internet
environment, creating an aggregator to ultimately get more people to come to
the museum ».
« Other new networks came about quite naturally too: a Wordpress blog, a
Twitter page with 414 followers, a Flickr account and a Facebook
fanpage were added to the already existing tools. »
« The decision to use Netvibes, an open-source software, was made with the
interests of the museum management in mind: why not use a free tool which could
help us to promote our museum? »
Netvibes - how it works and keeping it alive.
« Netvibes is an aggregator which allows us to add entries to our main digital
tools in a single portal, be it our website, our blog, or a
database on philately, as well as the main social networks.The idea was to keep
an institutional website hosted by the global group La Poste which would remain
the museum’s official showcase and adding a blog and using Netvibes to develop
flexibility and reactivity thus allowing the users to take a direct look at all
the social networks while offering an unusually large scope for interaction,
such as through smartphones. »
« Keeping all of this up and running is no mean feat because these many different ‘sources’ have to be updated quite regularly’
« We have resorted to
internet users, mostly philately lovers, who suggest websites and blogs that
they themselves use, which in turn enriches our content and makes the Netvibes
a reference portal for all
« Internally speaking, we have a monthly calendar available to all members
of the publishing committee which allows us to manage information and
deadlines.
Teamwork
« Last January, two months after the portal was launched, I came to realise
that I could not manage all this on my own because a tool like this requires an
input from all the Museums’ teams.Whilst continuing the collaboration with rfcpatrimoine, we set up a monthly publishing committee. We were then able to
assign the information-gathering and writing tasks to each committee member.
Our main task is to build up content within the museum as well as being in touch
with recent events, for example the going on sale of a special stamp in solidarity
with Haiti on January 19th which we published on our networks just one hour
after the official press conference.
Aggregator Vs Website
« Going for Netvibes is a risk we wanted to take and which caused some apprehension among…. The museum staff ! The previous website was seen as safer territory
because the information was not so layered and there were fears that the new project
would require some further specialised knowledge brought about by a new form of
internal dialogue.
« We have had valuable feedback from our internet users’ side of things. In
the majority of cases, they were not confused but somewhat pleasantly surprised
and curious about our new online image, which is something they were not
expecting from us.
Visitor’s feedback
« We made a survey of our audiences as early as December 2009 on their online
practices as well as asking them to share their thoughts on the museum’s
digital evolution. The returns we had were mostly very positive, notably
as regards to our modern approach, which was seen as refreshing in contrast to
the old-fashioned and outdated ways of your typical middle-size Parisian
museum. 77% of the users said the content was ‘rich’, providing them with information
to improve their understanding of the museum (55%). 67% considered that our new
online services sparked their interest to come and visit the museum.
« I think that the ‘transition period’ is now over and our new online environment
seems to be quickly growing on our internet users. We have also started
attracting a new type of audience, the 18-25 age group, who are of course very
much in touch with the latest technology.
Small Museums Vs Big Museums?
« Middle-size museums like
ours who are seeking more visibility have also gone for this online strategy
which is, to be honest, very cost-effective. When the big museums get on
board, the weight of their staff and financial means will assure them a seat at
the foreground. But I hope that institutions like ours will retain their status as
web 2.0 pioneers and be able to engage in other innovative initiatives. We already have a loyal audience that is growing by the day »
My main task is to build the content of the museum and be in touch with recent events with the help of special stamp in solidarity.
Posted by: עמדת עבודה | November 01, 2011 at 08:14 PM