Instead of the typical museum approach of hiring a “world class architect, hiring a ”world class
exhibit designer”, the “Hub Museum” approach, is:
• A “Hub of content” for the museum
• Open Source content, the museum’s content and programs are shared and available for teachers and parents
• Collaborative, the exhibits, exhibit content and programs are shared by several institutions
• Exhibit spaces are easily changeable
• Dynamic, the visitor spaces change every three months
• Transparent, the planning of the institution is shared and available to the community
• The California Discovery Museum will be an amalgam of museums a; Children’s Museum, Science Center, Natural History and Art Museum
• Shared Curriculum

http://www.imls.gov/about/21stCSkills.shtm

Institute of Museum and Library Services has published the  Museums, Libraries, and 21st Century Skills report.

“The report outlines a vision for the role of libraries and museums in the national dialogue around learning and 21st century skills and includes case studies of innovative audience engagement and 21st century skills practices from across the country.”

As a follow up to my Predictions for the future of Museums,  I have been thinking about the future of museums.  What if there was a place where parents, teachers, scientists,museum professionals, artists, students and experts could all share ideas both on the internet and in person. The “Hub Museum” is such a place!

Hub Museum is not one museum but a new model of a partnership of connected museums. Instead of a children’s museum, natural history museum, an Art Museum, a Science Center, the Hub Museum is all of them! Museum live through attendance and attendance is driven by new programs and exhibitions, the Hub Museum, changes every three months, into a new place and the exhibitions are rotated through all of the fellow hub museums.

Teachers, parents, scientists,museum professionals, artists, students and experts all gather online at “The Hub” portal. Teachers can share lesson plans and review science standards and curriculum, parents can view lesson plans and curriculum. Scientists can answer questions of students, “citizen scientists” can earn “expert” points by answering questions. Students can ask questions and learn from one another and experts. The online presence is fun and relaxed, although the content is in line with California Science Standards and National Curriculum. Same as the sharing of exhibitions the Hub portal is a shared online community amongst museums, parents, teachers, scientists, experts and most importantly students.

Museums become the hub for in person activities, instead of museums trying to individually create exhibitions, they are created through a network of museums all working to the same educational standards and curriculum. Instead of each museum working to separate standards and curriculum, the curriculum of the schools is shared by the museums and museums work in partnership with one another to design and build exhibitions.

Exhibitions are then shared amongst museums, so museums are always changing. Superintendents of schools, teachers and students are aware of the educational content before they visit the museum.

Still the museum is serving a different role than the school, the museum is an informal place for exploration and discovery of the formal education at school.

Mark teaching Art in Ho Chi Minh City

I am often asked “why would you go and spend seven months in Asia?”

As the middle class of China and India develop there will be a demand for cultural institutions.

On my trip I visited over 100 museums (still need to upload the videos), I was consistently impressed by the level of innovation.  Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea already have some of the best museums in the world, but the exciting part is going to be in developing India, Indonesia, Malaysia and China!  I want to be a part of it so needed to learn the landscape.Seven

“Across the online environment, there is growing engagement with user-generated content which impacts on designers as they move from sole author and producer to facilitators of the design process. User-driven and open innovation models of collaboration are impacting on the design and development of services and while there is a growing body of theory exploring the basis of this innovation, there are few models for the way in which designers will practice within this environment.

We are currently witnessing transformations in the ways in which clients engage designers and the ways in which designers participate in the development of products, services and experiences. These transformations in design practice are closely aligned to changing audience expectation and a growing demand for user participation in the design process. This is in keeping with a shift from the development of a service to an experience economy. (Gilmore & Pine 1999, Rivkin 2000)

The notion of experience enterprises has been coined in response to the experience economy. It encompasses those enterprises, both commercial and publicly funded, which have at their heart, the mandate to attract new audiences/ consumers/ producers through the development of integrated, multiplatform experiences. For example, both Nike, with its hugely successful Nike + social networking campaign which facilitates the development of communities of runners worldwide and Flickr Commons, the photo-sharing facility developed for cultural organisations to share archival imagery focus on adding value to existing services by creating and sharing in memorable experiences.

In the museum environment, it is sometimes suggested that audiences/creators and producers are willing to pay more for products and services if these are provided in an atmosphere that generates ‘memorable’ experiences. If this is the case and designers have yet to explore the impact of the user/creator on their practice, what will it mean for the development of future museum communication programs?

This posting is a starting point for problematising a broader shift in consumption and production, recognising the profound impacts that these shifts will have on future design practices and in turn, the ways in which they will affect museum programs.

Some of the questions it seeks to explore include:
How will social networking affect design as an enterprise?
What will this mean to organisations which engage designers?
Will services and experiences converge?
Who will drive new models of design innovation?
How will innovation drive new audiences/clients?”

Great post! Reprinted from Social Media and Cultural Communication:

http://nlablog.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/the-museum-of-the-21st-century/

“LSE Arts and Thames and Hudson 60th anniversay discussion