Contributor of the Month February 2008
Lynda Kelly
Career Background:
Lynda has always worked for the public sector and began her career
in human resources. She worked for various government departments,
ending up at the Australian Museum. In 1994 her career took a new
direction: after one of those notorious Museum Boardroom parties, she
moved into audience research and evaluation and is now Head of Audience Research and runs the popular audience research in museums blog and wiki.
For the last eight months she has been acting as manager of the team behind the museum’s current site and leading the development of the new site. Her passion for the web grew while she was working on her doctorate in museum learning, when she became interested in the theories behind informal learning and how the web mirrored those principles. She has two children – a 15-year-old daughter and a twelve-year-old son.
Motivation:
Lynda is passionate about how Web 2.0 tools can generate two-way conversations and enable citizens and users to have their say. When she started working in museums communication was primarily one-way: museums generally told visitors what to think about both content and exhibitions, as well as what to do during their visit. Now she finds it fascinating to explore the ways in which visitors can have their say and take more control. She sees this as a great opportunity to engage people and make them real advocates both for the museum as an institution and for the issues it champions such as climate change and cultural heritage.
Frustrations:
Like anyone interested in change, Lynda has encountered plenty of resistance – people who are scared, frightened of losing control and not open to any new ideas. She understands the reaction but finds it frustrating when people focus on fears, threats and risks without recognising that there are also great opportunities.
Favourite sites:
Lynda is a self-confessed Facebook addict and finds that, as well as enabling her to keep up with friends and family, it also contributes to her professional life. There is a huge museum presence on Facebook and she has met people (particularly younger colleagues) and together they have developed quite a few new ideas. She also likes del.icio.us as a way of keeping track of any interesting sites she comes across (so of course she uses the delicious plug-in in Facebook). She enjoys writing her blog and frequent visits the Pew Internet Research site and think-tank Demos, as well as Extratasty - as an example of a great use of Web 2.0 tools of course!
Pet Passions:
her blog, Facebook; audience research; Web 2.0; teenage use of the web; eating; drinking, playing netball and soccer; reading, and “crap” TV such as neighbours and Australian Idol.
Pet Hates:
negative people who see only the worst and don’t want to move on
Magic Wand:
if Lynda had a magic wand, she would abolish Australia’s state governments because she thinks the country is over-governed with too much red tape and bureaucracy holding back good people and good ideas.
Personal Motto:
“Life is too short to drink good wine out of a bad glass”