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Team

Constantine Dranganas
Angela Quintero
Angelo Croes

Commissioner:

Description

By angelaquintero November 12th, 2015

Meet THE HIVE!

Hello dear readers! 

We are happy, proud and really excited than we can share these feelings with you all!

After spending a lot of time on research, conceptualization, prototyping and discussion our work is rewarded. For two months now, we managed to put all the different parts of our project together, set our goals and priorities and most important use various insights and feedback efficiently. All this resulted, to the creation of our new and final (almost) product , which comes by the name THE HIVE.

 

Welcome THE HIVE!

We like to think of museums as bunnies, who live underground. They eat there, sleep there  and in general do everything “secretely” without being visible to the rest of the forest community. Likewise, museum professionals and especially curators, design, display, research (before an exhibition becomes available to the public) inside their offices “secretely” , whereas it is almost impossible for the public/community to see this processes. In particular, what the public (visitors) observe is just an “end product” exhibition.

Museum bunnies

A museum rabbit

According to us, the solution to that, comes again from mother nature and in particular from bees. The way a beehive works is splendid, especially in terms of collaboration. Every single bee is important, when it comes to the production of their beehives, which appear as the result of a co-creation process. Having this in mind, we decided that this paradigm, could probably work also for museums nowadays, in order for them to involve the members of their community in the formulation of co-creative exhibitions (collective intelligence).

Hives

A Beehive

first logo

The Hive Official Logo (First Look)

Therefore, we gave to our co-creation concept the name THE HIVE. We strongly support and hope that through the co-creation workshops, with the use of our toolkit method cards, the activities and website, we can help and trigger museums to open their doors to the public in a different way, not just as visitors but as creators who are filled with various relevant ideas and opinions.

 

What is THE HIVE?

The Hive constitutes of two main products.  These are: 1) The Hive toolkit (includes the activities and add on cards, the instruction manual and the game like tablecloth 2) The Hive website.
When and Where is going to be used? 

The Hive, is meant for co-creation workshops, with the aim to facilitate co-creation practises between museum

professioals (curators) and the public (participants), during a workshop (co-creation workshop) for the design of upcoming museum exhibitions.  In fact, The Hive can be used throughout the development process of an upcoming exhibition, during the decission making of the theme, artists and artworks/objects that will be displayed in an

upcoming exhibition, before that or after that. It is clearly a museums decision of when they would like to use it.

Likewise, place is also a museums decision.  A co-creation workshop, where The Hive will be used, can take place

everywhere, suach as a place inside a museum, like an office or somewhere outside of it, like a library, an artist’s studio or even at a cafeteria.
Who is going to use The Hive?
Co-creation workshops (where The Hive will be used) are open to anyone who is interested to participate. However, in order to facilitate collaboration, engagement and ultimately good results, we suggest the participantion of eight to twelve participants for each workshop and at least one facilitator provided by your museum.
Why to use The Hive?

As noted before, The Hive is designed with the aim to invite the public to create and share their ideas, concepts,

opinions and feelings surrounding a new museum exhibition. Through the process of a co-creation workshop, community members can feel engaged with the museum in a different way and gain an important and contributory role on the design of upcoming exhibitions. Museums on the other hand, can create a new relationship with their community, one which can lead to a new social standing and a new identity on the light of their future.
What exactly is a co-creation workshop?
A co-creation workshop is one of the most common types used to facilitate co-creation processes. The rest are namely: Open Source, User-Generated Content, Crowd Sourcing and Mass Customization. During a co-creation workshop specific users are involved in brainstorm sessions to generate ideas or are being involved in concept workshops to enhance ideas. The model of a co-creation workshop was chosen among the rest, because these type of workshops are especially suitable when there is a need to gain more insights in your customers needs (museum visitors) or in order to find new ideas that are relatively easy to implement on short, middle or long term projects
(upcoming museum exhibitions). According to our research, these workshops have the potentials for museum curators to really dive into the needs of their potential visitors, understand them better through the activities that will take place and ideally get inspired and benefit from their ideas and creativity.
The model of a co-creation workshop was chosen among the rest, because these type of workshops are especially suitable when there is a need to gain more insights in your customers needs (museum visitors) or in order to find new ideas that are relatively easy to implement on short, middle or long term projects (upcoming museum exhibitions). According to our research, these workshops have the potentials for museum curators to really dive into the needs of their potential visitors, understand them better through the activities that will take place and ideally get inspired and benefit from their ideas and creativity.
How The Hive products function?
The Hive Toolkit (Activities and Add on Cards)
During the co-creation workshops, participants will make use of specifically designed toolkit cards (activity cards) in order to conduct particular activities, leading to certain outputs.   The add-on cards, are different from the activity cards and are used for different purpose. These cards represent different media, analogue or digital, which participants can use in combination to their activities, by providing them valuable information about their functionality and possible benefits. Some of these cards are about Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Video Games and more. Both type of cards have QR codes which users can scan in order to learn more information about them through text, image or video.
All the cards, that will be used, appear as an outcome of an intensive two months research that team D.T.E conducted and a first testing with possible users. The cards are divided into four main categories namely: Design, Experience, Enrichment and Social. 
However, these cards are not complete yet, while there is need for more testing and evaluation and possible incorporation of new categories.Thus, we are open to feedback and suggestions.
Cards
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Cards
Acitivy Card
add on
Add on Card
The Instruction Manual 
The instruction manual, includes all the information about the cards, but also additional information including tips, methods, ideas for the curators/facilitators, on how to prepare a good co-creation workshop.
manual
The Hive Website
Our website will have multiple functionalities.  First, it will be used as a database for curators to log in with their personal account during a co-creation workshop in order to keep track of the activities taking place. Second, participants can use it to upload text and images related to specific activities during the workshop. Further, curators can use it after the workshop to analyse all the information gathered, use insights and ideas that they find relevant. In short, the main goal is for the website to work as a database for people to exchange ideas, open also for non participants ( see results of the workshops without log in) like museums interested to start with co-creation.  We aim to create a virtual community which can be transformed into a real one as time passes.
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pick an
The Meeting 
Some hours ago, we presented The Hive to different stakeholders of the cultural sector, including a representative of Amsterdam Museum who invited us to test our product within the museum.  They were all interested to our creation, providing us with valuable suggestions for the future. We are really happy for this first step of The Hive and we will try our best for many more.
AM-logo_small
Even if The Hive is not complete yet,  we have a strong basis that we can work and move forward with. Let us know what you think about it!
Check our very first user scene video!
Till next time Hivers!
Angela, Constantine, Angelo

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