The Heritage Jam: A Legal Process For Success

Transcription

1 THE HERITAGE JAM SOCIAL MEDIA PLAN Table of Contents Introduction to The Heritage Jam... 2 Introduction to this document: bringing people together to create better visualisations, and more visibility for heritage visualisation... 2 The need for collaboration, crowd-sourcing, and a more unified community in heritage visualisation... 2 The vision of The Heritage Jam... 3 Why use social media?... 3 Bringing people together: Three stage objectives... 3 Social media aims and objectives for the Heritage Jam... 4 Aims... 4 Objectives... 4 Target Audience... 4 Social Media Plan for The Heritage Jam... 5 Engaging target audiences with social Media: Twitter, Facebook, Blog, and Google... 5 Challenges and strategy... 5 AIM ONE: Advertise and attract participation in The Jam, in the lead-up... 7 AIM TWO: Social media as a collaborative and networking tool, during and after the event... 8 Evaluation... 9 General... 9 Objective One Objective Two Objective Three Bibliography

2 Introduction to The Heritage Jam Introduction to this document: bringing people together to create better visualisations, and more visibility for heritage visualisation One of the key aims of The Heritage Jam, and indeed the reason d etre for the project as a whole, is to use social media and other Web 2.0 media for the purpose of bringing people together, promoting collaborations and forming new working partnerships across the discipline. It is the founding tenet of The Heritage Jam, that the field of heritage visualisation has much to gain from the collaborative and crowdsourced environment that is facilitated by online social media platforms. We believe the combined effort in the grass-roots sharing of skills, technical expertise, solutions and ideas will not only aid individuals in creating better quality visualisations, but will also result in raising the profile and visibility of the discipline and those working within it, as well as increase the supply and demand for such work across the heritage, arts and culture sector as a whole. Key HJ ideals outlined in funding application Disparate entities come together in creative production Catalysing a series of related offline and online activities designed to draw more bodies into the heritage visualisation field, in the lead-up to, during the event, and also after This document will detail the social media strategy for The Heritage Jam in terms of two main aims/outcomes: firstly as a means to advertise and attract participation, secondly as a tool used for Jamming. This will be outlined for each phase of implementation for The Heritage Jam: in the lead-up, during and after the event. The social media that The Heritage Jam is applying include Facebook; Twitter; Google Groups, Hangouts and Communities; and a blog hosted by The Heritage Jam website (via Square Space). Figure one: The Heritage Jam visual branding The need for collaboration, crowd- sourcing, and a more unified community in heritage visualisation The field of heritage visualisation can be a volatile one, as testified to by various studies which demonstrate a lack of unification, lack of agreed standards, and lack of support and protection for visualisation professionals often freelancers, working in isolation and in competition with out-sourced third party companies (see Perry 2014). The discipline often suffers from this climate, its visual outputs compromised or otherwise complicated because of external and internal pressures. Those behind The Heritage Jam believe that resolutions to these problems can be achieved, in part, through greater union of stakeholders in heritage visualisation, thereby increasing the visibility, awareness, appreciation and opportunities for the professionals working within it. 2

3 The vision of The Heritage Jam Ultimately we aspire towards the union of people through showcase events and creative making sessions in order to: 1. Encourage greater awareness and appreciation of expertise in the field 2. Increase the supply of and demand for visual heritage products 3. Encourage better understanding about good visual practice, and encourage others to be more rigorous and ambitious in their methods 4. Inspire disciplines to be more accessible and approachable to one another, increasing people s professional networks and knowledge, through the sharing and co-teaching of skills, which will: a. Give heritage professionals ideas for how their area of expertise can be forwarded by the use of a certain media or techniques b. Give specialists working outside the heritage discipline greater cause to use their artistry/skills towards heritage interests 5. Inspire greater understanding of and respect for the trade and sharing of visual products both commercially and non-commercially Why use social media? The Heritage Jam seeks, by way of bringing people together, to create mutually beneficial relationships, and a climate in which people share their skills and knowledge to the overall benefit of visual practice. The online context is one that can be capitalised upon to bring together disparate people into communities to revolutionise a certain knowledge environment (in this case heritage presentation). Examples include the scientific community, which has fostered an online culture of sharing unpublished ideas, data through blogs and forums, liberating scientific research from the lengthy process of peer review, with the result in many cases that the development of research is accelerated, new ideas, methods and technologies come to fruition more quickly, all to the greater benefit of the public (Price 2010, 140; O Donnell 2006, 17). We are not naïve to the problems of such online production (e.g., see Shipley et al. forthcoming), but we believe that with rigorous moderation and monitoring, there is much to be gained from investing in it. Bringing people together: Three stage objectives So what does bringing people together mean, and how does it work? For The Heritage Jam, bringing people together means starting and enabling conversations. We will build a community, using forums through which people can communicate, and then give people cause to participate in conversations with one another, through the subject matter of the Jam. Feeding these conversations, it is our vision that people will continue to communicate and work together beyond the life of the Jam. It is at once both an offline and online community. Our strategy for fostering this outcome will be through a three-stage process, intended to capture people s attention, persuade them to be involved, and to encourage return visits to The Heritage Jam platforms. These stages will be enacted through both online and offline efforts, and are defined as: 1. LEAD-UP TO THE EVENT 2. DURING THE EVENT 3. AFTER THE EVENT and SELF-SUSTAINING DOWN-TIME ACTIVITY The people that will be involved will all be, at some point throughout any of these stages, separated by physical distance. We will try to get them to identify themselves with and participate as part of the heritage-visualisation community through one or more of the following: Physical attendance at the Heritage Jam live, and working with others through the course of the event Remote attendance, with collaborations occurring in the same manner as detailed above Actively participating in forum conversation through question and answer activity, or posting content 3

4 Following The Heritage Jam platforms, for the use of information and inspiration These three activities should be considered the spectrum for measuring the short-term impact for the Heritage Jam, with physical attendance and remote collaborations representing the most radical of outcomes, demonstrating a high level of investment and participation, and with following The Heritage Jam platforms, for the use of information and inspiration as the least radical of effects, with the lowest level of interaction and investment. The success of The Heritage Jam will also be measured by its longer-term effects, in its ability to foster sustained networks and long-term partnerships between individuals brought together in the Jam week. Social media aims and objectives for the Heritage Jam Aims Social media will be used primarily for two purposes for The Heritage Jam: - AIM ONE: As a means to advertise and attract participation in The Jam, in the lead-up - AIM TWO: As a tool throughout the event, to facilitate conversations, networking and collaborative projects both in the short-term during the event, and in the long-term, after the event This study (spanning the first iteration of the Heritage Jam at the University of York, th July 2014) aims to serve as a proof of concept for the use of social media as a means for drawing bodies and knowledge into the heritage visualisation discipline, and for the creation of meaningful online communities, dedicated to the common interest of heritage visualisation. Objectives In order to realise this, The Heritage Jam demands the following (spanning the lead-up, duration, and after the event): - OBJECTIVE ONE lead-up: Strong web-presence and plan for posting of content in the lead up to the event for Blog, Twitter, Facebook - OBJECTIVE TWO - during: Plan for how social media will be used during the event - OBJECTIVE THREE - after: A means of measuring the nature, extent, and impact of use of social media on registrants/viewers, and in turn, for heritage visualisation It is important to note that the authors recognise that this use of social media - to benefit the overall goal of improving heritage visualisation - may not be realised immediately, and in fact will only become clear over a course of iterations of The Heritage Jam, as has been the case with other Jam events that have grown in popularity and effect with each year, for example Global Game Jam, or Ludenum Dare. More immediate measures of success will include the number of participants, and participant satisfaction with the event, as well as success in forging new working partnerships. Target Audience The key target audiences of the Jam are as follows: Heritage visualisation professionals Visualisation specialists interested in heritage, arts and culture General heritage professionals university departments, academics and students, commercial units, institutions, organisations Academics interested in the study of death and burial 4

5 Social Media Plan for The Heritage Jam Engaging target audiences with social Media: Twitter, Facebook, Blog, and Google The following social media have been selected for the purposes of The Heritage Jam: Twitter, Facebook, a blog, and Google (Groups, Communities, Hangout). These have been selected first, as they represent the more popular platforms where our identified target audience members have an established presence, second for the collaborative functionalities they provide, and third for the high level of compatibility with other websites or web technologies that people may want to use through the course of The Heritage Jam. Much of the social media content will be posted across these platforms, so that they seamlessly feed into one another; however each will have its own specific use. Twitter Increasing awareness Used for broadcasting news about The Heritage Jam, and increasing general awareness through following others. It will direct feed into the Facebook and Blog where people may have more sustained conversations. Facebook Facilitating conversations, building community Similar broadcasting, tapping into large community of groups on Facebook, facilitating more sustained conversations relating to the event, that are more organic and informal than Twitter. Website & Blog Providing a resource that people want to invest in Offering interesting content relating to The Jam that will give people cause to register or comment publically. Other filesharing sites will be used to augment the content on the blog. E.g. YouTube. Google focused communication and a lasting resource Providing organisers with a means to communicate with registrants, and for registrants to communicate with one another. Challenges and strategy The biggest challenges for engaging individuals in social media surrounding The Heritage Jam will be cultivating return-visits and encouraging participants and readers to converse with each other through the social media forums. The following table (figure two) summarises the challenges involved in each objective stage, against our strategy for social media use over the course of The Jam. 5

6 STAGE CHALLENGE STRATEGY OBJECTIVE Create THJ following and return visits to keep up-to-date with the Jam: ONE: LEAD-UP Getting people interested in jamming giving people cause to Jam Providing articles, and interesting content through online forum which will encourage an online following/return visits to THJ website Targeting interested parties through mailing list and s Hosting a register/follow button, which updates people on new blog posts Setting s which give people reminders/updates for Heritage Jam information Create buzz : Showcase certain individuals to show how participation can boost the visibility of their work Call to individuals to provide content, in the same way Setting-up formation of online communities, prior to event Use of Twitter and Facebook to bring people to THJ content: Post material which serves as talking points for people to voice their opinions, and encourage dialogue Follow individuals, and encourage them to share OBJECTIVE TWO: DURING OBJECTIVE THREE: AFTER Getting people to collaborate Enabling remote collaboration Facilitating/encouraging participation - conversations and the sharing of information Balancing between the real-world event at the CDH, and the remote event to produce one cohesive event, which people feel connected to, and where they feel that their input is valued Supporting long-term partnerships between people beyond the Jam event Conveying the impact, to ensure positive experiences for those involved, and sustaining the buzz surrounding event Post regularly Clear instructions, guidelines on how-to-jam, clear instructions for how online tools work and how to register Setting up situations in which people can meet, get to know each other, form collaborations, and share Interim posting of work in which others offer constructive criticism and feedback Use of the Google Group forum Creating a live environment in which the real-world feels connected to the virtual-world, and vice-versa The use of streamed-content Live updates Integration of Twitter conversations Publishing of over-arching stories from the event both in formal arenas, and through social media Archiving of ways in which people collaborated demonstrating the benefits of collaboration Maintenance of online environments, for people to use afterwards Seek personal testimonies; posting of profiles through which participants can get in contact with one another after the event Design, distribute and analyse questionnaires Figure two: Challenges and strategies for the implementation of social media for The Heritage Jam 6

7 AIM ONE: Advertise and attract participation in The Jam, in the lead- up TOOLS REQUIRED: Blog, Twitter, Facebook OBJECTIVES INVOLVED: Objective one The Heritage Jam will use Twitter and Facebook as a means to broadcast key information about The Jam and interesting content to generate a buzz and excitement around the event, which appeals to and grabs the attention of the target audiences, inspires return-visits and a community of followers, with overall aim of enticing people to participate in the Jam. The strategies (see figure three) for achieving objective one are: 1. Build THJ following and return visits to keep up-to-date with the Jam - Providing articles, and interesting content through online forum which will encourage an online following/return visits to THJ website - Post regularly 2. Target interested parties through mailing list and s - Register/follow button, which updates people on new blog posts - Set s which give people reminders/updates for Heritage Jam information 3. Create buzz - Showcase certain individuals to show how participation can boost the visibility of their work - Call to individuals to provide content, in the same way - Video content shared via YouTube will be used to advertise details of the theme. 4. Cultivation of online communities, prior to event - Post provocative material which serves as talking points for people to voice their opinions, and encourage dialogue - Follow individuals, and encourage them to share Website & Blog The primary means of achieving this aim will be to set up the Website and Blog as a resource that people are interested by, and appreciate reading. Blog subjects should balance the diverse audiences of THJ and reinforce clearly why people should participate in it. The Squarespace site will direct, by way of hyperlinks, signposts to participate on Facebook and Twitter. Our expectations as is the norm with blogs, is a lowlevel of reader interaction, with perhaps a few comments. Key messages for the site: Value of heritage visualisation Why people should participate What is the value of contributing to The Heritage Jam How Jamming works Twitter The primary use of Twitter will be to promote the visibility of The Heritage Jam to a broad community, to encourage click-through rates to the Jam website in order to feed participant registration and build up a community of followers. The aim will be to Tweet every 1-2 days, just enough to foster an active presence. The team will work together to broadcast the hashtag and user account through their own professional accounts, as well as using The Heritage Jam account to follow individuals, respond to Tweets, and to hold active conversations. The user account will follow people who sign up through mailing list. Tweet subjects: Key updates Advertising Blog and Facebook posts Short provocative ideas 7

8 Facebook Tweeting and re-tweeting visualisations particularly by those who we expect attendance from confirmed Jammers The primary use of Facebook is to foster community conversations. Subject of Facebook posts will be: Advertising blog posts to encourage the click-through rate to website and registration Key information and updates Posting provocative content What is provocative content? The emphasis in Facebook content will be the posting of provocative content, in order to prompt comments, and for people to identify themselves in common interest with The Heritage Jam. This will include the following: Predominantly image-based so as to be eye catching Question-led/devil s advocate/contentious, in order to provoke commentary Showcasing individuals in heritage visualisation, in order to demonstrate how participation in The Heritage Jam will positively benefit practitioners, through increasing their visibility Facebook will target the following audiences: General interest audience Academics working in the fields of heritage, data visualisation, death landscapes (historians, archaeologist, social sciences, etc.) University of York affiliates Heritage Jam Registrants Posts will be aimed at overlapping audiences. AIM TWO: Social media as a collaborative and networking tool, during and after the event TOOLS REQUIRED: Twitter, Blog, Facebook, Google OBJECTIVES INVOLVED: Objective one, two, three Twitter Twitter will be used as a primary platform for communicating results from the day as they are happening. Asynchronous posting of group outputs by team members will be encouraged by advertising the use of Heritage Jam team hashtags. Links to specific datasets for use during the event will be shared at the start of the day by the team via twitter. These are hosted in Google Docs. A visualisation of the tweets will be shared part way through the event to encourage participation. Post-event, twitter will be used to promote the results of the team challenges and as a way to maintain communications with participants (virtual and at event). Blog Curating Multimedia Content: The blog will be used to share stories about the day, on the day, by Heritage Jam organisers, who will aim to live-blog if possible. Participants will be encouraged to upload multimedia content during the event to share work in progress. In particular, YouTube and Flickr will be suggested for image and video sharing, with suggested tags for content discovery. Participants will most likely wish to use their own social networking accounts for content sharing. Therefore, during the event if 8

9 necessary helpers will curate online content using a publishing platform, such as Storify, to pull all content into one space. Post-event, the blog will be the major online presence of the event, showcasing by means of the Gallery, content produced for the event, but also as a place to reflect on lessons learned. Major themes will be addressed, such as Collaboration and Identifying Visualisation Tools. Participants will be invited to submit a future blog post to the Heritage Jam site, and this invitation will be extended to all registrants post event in a follow up . Facebook Intended as a temporary space to broadcast the event, the Facebook page will be updated throughout the event, and post event with team outputs and virtual attendee submissions. It is anticipated that, as the tone of the Facebook page is more suited to a general audience, that the page may be appropriate for the dissemination of general posting of related content post-event. This will be maintained for one month after the event on a trial basis. If the reach is maintained, then the page could become a part of the more permanent outputs of the Heritage Jam. Google Heritage Jam team members and participants will be encouraged to maintain their membership to the Google Group. Post-event, updates on online publications to the blog and elsewhere will be advertised in the group. Publications The team will co-produce a short series of blog posts for the academic community to be published over July-August-September on the LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog. This will ensure large readership. The blog posts will refer back to the Heritage Jam blog and social media accounts. Evaluation General Evaluation will be both quantitative and qualitative. General Learning Outcomes will be measured through a post-event survey to be advertised via all social media accounts. The survey will evaluate the use and anticipated use of the various platforms for communication used for the Heritage Jam event. Twitter Twitter user account and hashtag mentions are being monitored. These will be reported as part of the evaluation. Blog SquareSpace monitoring is in place, and Google Analytics will provide user statistics. Of particular interest will be the referrals to and from the social media accounts. Facebook Facebook page analytics are provided via Facebook s own algorithms. These provide information about reach, according to Facebook Insights. Although this is not directly comparable to Twitter or the Blog, these figures will provide useful information about reach and popularity of different kinds of content shared over the course of the event. Google Google Group membership will be reported. Levels of participation will be analysed and will make up part of the evaluation. 9

10 Objective One Giving people cause to Jam. The evaluation survey will ask participants whether they were influenced by the social media campaign to participate in the Jam. Objective Two Getting people to collaborate; Enabling remote collaboration; Facilitating/encouraging participation - conversations and the sharing of information; The balancing between the real-world event at the CDH, and the remote event to produce one cohesive event, in which people feel connected to, and that their input is valued. Evaluation survey, and monitoring of participant figures during and after event, looking for peaks in online activity and tying these to real-world actions at the Heritage Jam. Collaboration will be measured using the survey and the participant figures. Comparing attendees with social media sign ups. Objective Three Supporting long-term partnerships between people beyond the Jam event; Conveying the impact, to ensure positive experience for those involved, and sustain buzz surrounding event Measuring blog visits, and dwell time. Evaluation survey will ask participants for responses to communications before, during and after the event. Count levels of visits, followers, likes pre-, during, and post-event. Reflective posts and monitoring of contributors /onlookers posts to other forums. Bibliography O Donnell, M. (2006). Blogging as pedagogic practice: artefact and ecology. Asia Pacific Media Educator, 17. Price, D. H. (2010). Blogging anthropology: Savage minds, zero anthropology, and AAA blogs. American Anthropologist, 112, 1, 140. Shipley, L, Perry, S., and Osborne, J. (forthcoming). The online archaeologist: digital media and archaeological practice. 10