If we had our druthers, we’d be in Indianapolis this week. Not for the Pacers-Broncos game or to see Art Garfunkel with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (though we’ll admit to being tempted by a play called “References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot”), but for the 13th annual Museums and the Web conference — “the largest international conference devoted to the exploration of art, science, natural and cultural heritage on-line”.

Today’s schedule was made up of full- and half-day workshops, introducing museum staff to, for example, RSS/Geo-RSS tools and using Drupal as part of integrating remote data — like, perhaps, those tags users add to Commons photos. We probably would have ended up choosing the two workshops offered by the Powerhouse Museum’s Seb Chan: one on social media, leading to greater interaction in user communities, the other on how to know if what you’re doing online is actually doing anything.

But since we’re not there, it’s a good thing Twitter is popular in the museums 2.0 world!

Interested in hearing what Museums & the Web 2009 attendees are learning (along with where they’re gathering for drinks after, and where the good wifi is)? You can follow along with the Twitter hashtag #mw2009.

Here are a few of today’s highlights:

@Auckland_Museum: It appears that geo-linked RSS feeds are more promising than ones based on passive cultural subjects, at #mw2009

@kevinvonappen: Last year , it was what social media tools were cool . This year, we’re asking each other WHY we’re using them. Progress! #mw2009

@smannion: @frankieroberto on levels of user engagement. Various models exist. Commonly spouted ‘rule’ is only 1% of users will contribute. #mw2009

There are photos, too! Check out the conference photo pool on Flickr. More highlights here tomorrow, from the keynote speaker on!

Tags: conferences, museums, Museums and the Web, mw2009

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 16th, 2009 at 12:08 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.