Monday, November 27, 2006
Web 2.0 and the Arts Challenge
THIS HAS BEEN CROSSPOSTED FROM IMAGESPACE--ARTS AND WEB 2.0
Most arts organizations are non-profits with limited resources. Some are public agencies like city or state run organizations—often low on the funding totem pole. What this means is that resources deployed carefully with little risk. Thoughtful dissemination of money, people, time are essential to protect any non-profit’s investments. While this behaviour can protect what an agency has, it does not encourage risky behaviour.
Ironically the agencies that can most use Web 2.0 are those least capable of deploying such systems.
Web 2.0 is in its infancy. The tools have consistently become better and better over the last three years. To best utilize the tools, you are best off using a variety of different tools as you can embed assets from one set of tools into another through the use of widgets. Widgets allow a user to generate a little chunk of code that can be placed on a page, in a block, on a blog, in a wiki that embed content onto that page.
The challenge of using widgets lies in the intimidation factor. To use them, you need to be confident enough to place code in locations that may or may not take it well. Several weeks ago, I placed code for a “tag cloud” on this blog. The widget was incompatible and it brought the site down leaving an unsettling php error.
This problem took using PHPMyAdmin to find the snippet of code in the database and manual removal of that code. Most agencies lack persons that are able to deal with this kind of issue. If it happens once, the intimidation factor increases further dissuading the average non-profit from wanting to invest the time.
Lastly, most non-profits won’t see the potential value of making use of Web 2.0 tools immediately. The benefits can be subtle. This means that an agency on it’s own needs to accept that any research that they do may not bear any fruit.
Between the intimidation and the potential of no return on the investment it is hardly surprising that the non-profit community has not embraced the tools.
For Web 2.0 to become common in the arts community, the tools must become slick and foolproof. The tools will need to be easy and simple. Cutting and pasting simply won’t do. Give it a few years and we will continue to see the tools become increasingly simple and complex at the same time.
Currently Web 2.0 remains the demesnes of the geeky and of zealots. Many start to use the tools, few embrace them.
Most arts organizations are non-profits with limited resources. Some are public agencies like city or state run organizations—often low on the funding totem pole. What this means is that resources deployed carefully with little risk. Thoughtful dissemination of money, people, time are essential to protect any non-profit’s investments. While this behaviour can protect what an agency has, it does not encourage risky behaviour.
Ironically the agencies that can most use Web 2.0 are those least capable of deploying such systems.
Web 2.0 is in its infancy. The tools have consistently become better and better over the last three years. To best utilize the tools, you are best off using a variety of different tools as you can embed assets from one set of tools into another through the use of widgets. Widgets allow a user to generate a little chunk of code that can be placed on a page, in a block, on a blog, in a wiki that embed content onto that page.
The challenge of using widgets lies in the intimidation factor. To use them, you need to be confident enough to place code in locations that may or may not take it well. Several weeks ago, I placed code for a “tag cloud” on this blog. The widget was incompatible and it brought the site down leaving an unsettling php error.
This problem took using PHPMyAdmin to find the snippet of code in the database and manual removal of that code. Most agencies lack persons that are able to deal with this kind of issue. If it happens once, the intimidation factor increases further dissuading the average non-profit from wanting to invest the time.
Lastly, most non-profits won’t see the potential value of making use of Web 2.0 tools immediately. The benefits can be subtle. This means that an agency on it’s own needs to accept that any research that they do may not bear any fruit.
Between the intimidation and the potential of no return on the investment it is hardly surprising that the non-profit community has not embraced the tools.
For Web 2.0 to become common in the arts community, the tools must become slick and foolproof. The tools will need to be easy and simple. Cutting and pasting simply won’t do. Give it a few years and we will continue to see the tools become increasingly simple and complex at the same time.
Currently Web 2.0 remains the demesnes of the geeky and of zealots. Many start to use the tools, few embrace them.
