How well 2.0 Project Presentation to Museum Staff went

Yes, it went well! I was so prepared to face some strong resistances, some questioning why we should waste time on that when we have so many important tasks to do and things of the sort, that I was surprised none of these were uttered (I twittered it but I haven’t had time for blogging until today, Sunday). I guess I was sort of relieved. But I’m very realistic too: first, people in meetings usually are cautious when they don’t really know much about the matter. Secondly, it’s true that no opposition was expressed, but it’s also true that no real commitment of collaboration was made either (it will be badly needed for blogging, mainly). Main fear is museum team won’t have time to contribute, monitor, comment (we are a small team and almost everyone is overworked). Thirdly, the presentation of the museum project was preceded by a quick overview of what other art museums around the world are doing in Social Media, and good 2.0 examples of MoMA, Brooklyn, Met, IMA, V&A, Tate, Guggenheim Bilbao and others were displayed on screen (clever, wasn’t it?). So, it was difficult after that, to question if our museum should be entering 2.0… Between that and that the museum director stressed from the beginning the importance of being present and interact in social web, no conceptual opposition arised. Just the normal worries about the seriousness, not falling into “triviality”, etc.  At the end of the day, great news for me was that not only the meeting went smoothly, but afterwards, and for some days, several colleagues approached to comment positively either on the written report I delivered or on some aspects that could be developed by our museum. More good news is that several colleagues have begun to explore museums presence on Facebook, Flickr, etc. and are being greatly attracted by what they discover there. So, dear mw friends, after all, looks like “evangelizing” some times bears its fruits. Future posts will explain further development of the project and how (well) we are doing at the Museu Picasso, I hope! I try to read the combination of the following factors: no strong resistance + support of the director + expectation + not real commitment (yet) + curiosity as an opportunity to get the involvement first of a few, later on of the whole. Am I being too optimistic?