Open Forum

Hello wise museum folk, I am wondering if anyone is using crowd-sourcing techniques to develop content, share content, make content selections (which exhibits to run, exhibit naming), or serve back-of-house needs (translation), etc?  Love to hear what you've done and if there was any tension with crowd-sourcing vs. curation of content.

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Melissa Felder
Chief Marketing Officer
California Academy of Sciences
San Francisco CA
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Hi Melissa,

The Frye Art Museum in Seattle currently has a show up called "#SocialMedium."  They posted all of the paintings in their founding collection online and let people vote for which ones they wanted in the show, and encouraged them to leave comments.

It was so incredibly enjoyable as a patron to walk through and see which works had been picked and what people said about it.  The Frye team did a superb job of selecting what comments to display in the exhibit. Some of the comments absolutely sound like they were written by a curator.  Others were lovely, silly things (like the one that just said "Duckies!" about a painting of ducks).  Some comments were in different languages.  One comment ended up being from a friend of mine, about which was her favorite painting in the museum and why.

They really gave the public ownership of the exhibit, and continue to encourage people to engage in the conversation by leaving comments online and posting pictures. I've seen many of these paintings before at the Frye, but this exhibit made me see many of them in a totally new light.  I'd encourage you to check it out online or in-person if you get the chance.

Best,

Trystan

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Trystan Popish
Aerospace Education Coordinator
Museum of Flight
Seattle WA
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