Web 2.0: How to Stop Thinking and Start Doing: Addressing Organisational Barriers

The phrase "Web 2.0", now so well known as to be generally considered "mainstream", has taken hold online, first as a catch phrase and now as a way of life to many of the bigger, content rich providers. No longer are users content to just consume content; instead they want to take a part in it, to personalise it and to share experiences with others. In the museum sector, however, uptake has typically been low. Some notable exceptions exist, of course, but the key question remains: why has deployment of this "new" approach to content been slow? What barriers exist in museums and how can we go about addressing these? This paper attempts firstly to identify why Web 2.0 is of particular importance to our sector, then to examine common barriers in our particular context and finally the ways in which practitioners might go about addressing these barriers in their organisations.