Debate 4Chair: Lee Rotbart (Reading Room, UK) Four speakers will participate in this debate. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Lee’s experience ranges from print through to mobile communications. At Reading Room she works with our cultural clients in order to ensure that the focus of their digital strategies is user-centric, and that they benchmark their assumptions through testing and research. This is all done while understanding the sensitive nature of cultural budgets; with innovation coming predominantly through capitalising on the opportunities offered by social networking sites, and open source software.
Lee is a fierce advocate of digital within this traditional world, and is passionate about ensuring that one drives the development of the other.
Debater: Peter Mechant Over the last years a momentum has grown to improve the quality and effectiveness of the use of information and communication technologies for cultural heritage. Lots of heritage organizations nowadays attempt to make their multimedia material, such as pictures, audio or/and video collections accessible online. Often, social media or Web 2.0 sites are used as they provide visitors with technological and social affordances to interact with online heritage, other website visitors or with the heritage websites themselves.
Web 2.0 refers to a newer or better version of the World Wide Web as web 2.0 sites emphasize interactivity, co-creation and the
active role of users on the website. However, despite the optimistic discourse on participation and user-generated contributions,
several studies have shown that only a small minority of web visitors interacts or actively participates on websites, while the majority does not interact or contribute at all. This phenomenon is called the participation gap.
In this presentation we explore how heritage organizations can close this gap in the involvement of the visitors of their websites.
Using insights from social psychology (collective effort model, goal setting theory), sociology (social capital, reciprocity, gift giving) and communication sciences (social dilemmas, group-generalized exchange or network-generalized exchange) we suggest strategies to create more online user involvement.
We will show that individuals’ online communication behaviour is in part a function of the various ways the website or the interaction system is organized. We will also try to illustrate the various strategies to improve user involvement with real-life examples from cultural or heritage websites.
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 Peter Mechant holds a M.A. in Communication Sciences. Peter studied several scripting and programming languages during and after his university studies at Gent University, Belgium. Until June 2005 Peter was an ICT project coordinator at an e-business company. Since he joined the Media and ICT (MICT) research group at Gent University, Peter has mainly worked on IBBT research projects. His projects focus on how social media en Web 2.0 services can benefit different domains such as e-culture, heritage, digital literacy and group collaboration. In addition Peter works on a Phd thesis centered around the question how and why people use Web 2.0 and social media. In his Phd research Peter pays special attention to the interaction processes between Web 2.0 users an digital documents and to interaction between Web 2.0 users and Web 2.0 websites and services.Debater: Hilde Smetsers
Crossmedia is about storytelling. This means that a story or message is told on various moments through the unique features of
different media types. For museums this story focuses on content such as audio, photo, text and video of a collection. This content is published on media such as printmedia, websites, mobile, (interactive) guided tours and narrowcasting. The communication to and with customers can be divided in three phases: before, during and after the visit.
In short, content is the central component in the crossmedia mix and is about those things that museums offer their customers. This content can be collected by the museum itself, the artists or visitors and professionals.
In this paper presentation we focus on how to add value to content by visitors through interaction in different phases. In this
interaction between organization and visitor new data is gathered.
This data can be used in two ways. First, value can be added by visitors to the data of a collection by adding metadata, background information or personal stories. Due to this, museums can increase the data and knowledge about their collection. Secondly, this data reflects the interests of (potential) visitors, as they can show appreciation and recommendations to friends.
When this data is saved and added to the contactperson, you create the opportunity to provide relevant and personal information the next time. This results in visitors that are more loyal and ultimately a higher number of visitors.
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 Hilde Smetsers is co-owner of We Cross. We Cross is a young company that develops crossmedia concepts for the creative sector, combining online media such as websites, social media and video with offline media such as event, print, radio and television. Hein Hofman is co-owner of We Cross. We Cross is a young company that develops crossmedia concepts for the creative sector, combining online media such as websites, social media and video with offline media such as event, print, radio and television. In addition Hein is co-owner of Crosscast and co-founder of Next Best Band.
Fries Museum / Princessehof, the Netherlands Debater: Wilbert Helmus ------------------------------------------------------
 Wilbert Helmus is head of Collection and Knowledge management at the Fries Museum and the Princessehof - museum for ceramics. Wilbert is the initiator of the FrieseMusea2.0 (friesemusea20.blogspot.com/) project. The project is concerned with the development from a ‘traditional’ museum to museum 2.0 In addition he has created the www.spectrumstandard.ning.com community, a platform for discussion for collection managers in musea. Previously Wilbert worked at the Rijksmuseum, Reekx consultancy and the Cultural Heritage Insprectorate. Regionaal Archief Tilburg Debater: Luud de Brouwer ----------------------------------------------------------------
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Lee has been working with cultural organisations for over 10 years, focusing on maximising cost-effective tools in order to engage with current audiences, meet the needs of new ones, and foster a culture of audience development. The organisations Lee has worked closely with include the South Bank Centre, the Royal National Theatre, the Tate Galleries, and the British Museum. Her MBA thesis asked whether social inclusion policies in the UK helped or hindered audience development, and the results were surprising in that they suggested that social inclusion policies forced arts organisations to challenge their assumptions, push the boundaries of their communications, and encourage them to engage with new audiences in new ways. 
Since 1989 Luud works at the Tilburg Regional Archive. As a webmaster he was responsible for the content and technology development of the website from September 1996 until March 2009. In addition in 2003 the website of the Audax Textile Museum in Tilburg and the Citymuseum (Stadsmuseum) in Tilburg became his responsibility. Luud published in the Dutch Archive Magazine on the use of internet by archives. Since 2007 Luud is an active participant in the online archive community Archief 2.0 (
