This week, Trendwatching reflects on the usefulness of virtual anthropology to market researchers. Trendwatching describes virtual anthropology as the process of collecting data, and especially visual artifacts, posted to the web by consumers. The author explains:
As consumers around the world pro-actively post, stream if not lead parts of their lives online, you (or your trend team) can now vicariously ‘live’ amongst them, at home, at work, out on the streets. From reading minute-by-minute online diaries or watching live webcam feeds, to diving into tens of millions of tagged pictures uploaded by Flickr-fueled members of GENERATION C in Mexico, Mauritius, Malaysia and dozens of other countries.Why now? Look no further than many of the consumer trends we’ve been discussing for the last two years, with at the core a massive shift from consumers being members of the audience to active participants. Consumer generated content and rampant collaboration have created a web of insanely valuable content and context. There is now the web of organizations, and the web of people.
*snip!*
For the first time in the history of our still evolving consumer societies, tens of millions of consumers are pro-actively telling and showing each other, and you, what they’re feeling and doing in the broadest sense of the word, all in a centralized online arena, in real time (it has never been easier to upload your LIFE CACHE), whether it’s on (mo)blogs or on picture and video sites. They want to connect, to share, to create, to show off. Add to that a slew of new search engines helping you navigate through Web 2.0 (there, we said it), and the ability to link postings to personal profiles (TWINSUMERS) to put things in perspective, and what you end up with is a completely new way of observing, of keeping a finger on the global pulse, of inspiring yourself. Regardless of whether you’re a CEO, a researcher, a planner, an entrepreneur, a designer, an MBA or MFA student, or a fellow member of GENERATION C.
Check out the article for some excellent examples of how virtual anthropology works.
Museums and other repositories can also use these cyber-artifacts to their advantage. Three uses that come immediately to mind:
1. Gauging initial interest in a potential exhibit or program topic. Thinking about doing an exhibit on toys? There might be some interest in it, considering there are 44,000 photos tagged with “toy” on Flickr (and more than 184,000 if you search tags, titles, and descriptions) and more than 3,500 Yahoo! groups related to toys, including ones specializing in wooden toys and girls’ toys from the 1980s.
Members of these groups, of course, also may serve as excellent resources in locating artifacts and other resources for your exhibition. Yahoo! groups are free of cost, and most of them allow anyone to join and listen in on conversations among aficionados of this or that.
2. Incorporating into an exhibit a slide slow of related virtual artifacts, updated frequently. Take, for example, an exhibition of children’s toys from the 19th or 20th centuries.
Such an exhibit could be accompanied by a stream of toy photos. (You can search Flickr here. Better yet, search at FlickrLilli to ensure you’re only using photos licensed under the appropriate Creative Commons license. Be sure to give credit where it’s due through appropriate attribution.)
3. Encourage visitors to your museum’s physical site and to your website to share their photos related to your current exhibit. Simply ask them to use a Flickr tag unique to your institution, such as “Museum-Of-Anytown-Toys”–and then provide a direct link from your museum’s blog or site to this tag search. Flickr is neat because users can leave notes about their photos, even selecting sections of a photo to highlight and caption. In addition, other users may comment and start a conversation about the objects in the photo.
You should, of course, draw further attention to the exhibit by selecting the best of these photos and commentary to repost on your museum’s blog. Pair users’ photos with photos of related items in your exhibit.
I’ve used Flickr for my examples, but there are other Web 2.0 services that also may prove useful to museums. Check out the Trendwatching article to learn about other searchable user-generated content.
Thanks to Skillful Minds for bringing the Trendwatching article to our attention.