Web 2.0 at the Museum of Life and Science: Final Report for the Take Two Institutional Research Study at the University of Washington

The Take Two Institutional Research Study was an ethnographic case study of the contributions of Web 2.0 philosophy and technologies to museum practice and staff development at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, North Carolina. It used a naturalistic methodology to investigate staff members' relationships with each other and their publics as the Museum developed and embraced a philosophy of Web 2.0 experimentation, shared authority, and co-creation. An important element in developing Web 2.0 culture at the Museum of Life and Science was leadership that encouraged experimentation and risk-taking. As part of that supportive leadership, a key position was the Director of Innovation and Digital Engagement, who was both a source of technological knowledge and a leader in staff development. This individual also worked to build a sense of community among Museum staff. A core group of early Web 2.0 adopters expanded as other staff became deeply involved with new experiments, and a larger community of practice emerged, encompassing both professional and personal lives. While embraced by most staff, this overlap between professional and personal lives created some tensions within some departments. The Museum strove to create a culture of observation, documentation, and sharing by acknowledging the wide range of people staff, non-staff, and visitors who had authority to speak for and about the Museum. The criteria for the success of Web 2.0 experiments included numbers served and whether adult audiences were engaged. Short-term planning for and implementation of Web 2.0 experiments was constant and rather informal, but longer-range planning was a challenge. The model for Web 2.0 development at the Museum was as much about defining and developing an organizational culture as it was about applying Web 2.0 technologies. A key characteristic of this culture was the use of Web 2.0 technologies to listen rather than to promote a particular idea. This required a willingness to give voice to others, to embrace widely shared authority, to experiment, and, when necessary, to tolerate failure. This study focused on a single institution. It did not compare the efficacy or advantages and disadvantages of this particular approach with other models currently in existence.