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Museums, universities, archives, and libraries are all slowly waking up to the need to “have some sort of presence online,” to engage with the public on the internet, at least in the abstract.

Social media is key to such efforts for two reasons: one, it’s something most people understand to be important. Even the most tech-backward administrator would have to admit that there can be no down side to your institution having more fans on Facebook.

But it’s also key to creating and maintaining a significant community of users, which is essential to the success of any new media project. Whether they’re contributing crowdsourced data, downloading your app, or simply hits on your new online exhibit or finding aid, you need users to be successful in a new media project.

Unfortunately, the way we have run these institutions for centuries is not conducive to using these social media to their fullest. We know that the most successful users are fast-paced, engaged and engaging, transparent, fun, and produce a rich flow of content on a regular basis.

Not only does this does not sound like most museums’ or libraries’ online presence, but these things are often made far more difficult by the very structure of these institutions. The silos of departmentalism can slow down or even stop this flow of information. One example that comes to mind how uncommon it apparently is for museum curators to have access to the CMS for online exhibits.

But new media projects are good PR, they engage more people, they’re sexy to the press, and they can create new revenue streams. All of this, I would argue, can be leveraged. If success in new media requires the sort of openness and radical trust that departmental silos inhibit, is that an opportunity to try to rethink the whole nature of how we organize our museums, libraries, etc?

I don’t really know the answer to these questions, and I don’t even know if it’s necessarily a good idea, to be honest. But in my limited experience, I do feel like there’s an opportunity there. What I’d like to propose is a session where people discuss the pros and cons of such a radical proposal, and maybe even do a little strategizing.

• Can we reprogram the backend of cultural institutions to make them more engaging?
• Are there workarounds that can create an environment where interdepartmental communication and cooperation happens at the speed of modern communication?
• Are new media projects important enough to the powers that be that they represent a significant opportunity to get people to rethink these structures?
• What would a cultural institution without departments look like? What kind of structure could hybridize departments or provide strong incentive to work more closely?