The DAISSy research group of the Hellenic Open University (http://daissy.eap.gr/en/ ) participates in the activities of the project “MU.SA International Community Activators – MICA”, which is co-funded by the Erasmus+ 2021-2027 programme.  The MICA project (12 months duration) aims to create a practical community of self-lifelong learning for Cultural Heritage and Museums professionals. Up to now, have been successfully completed the first three out of the five Work Cafés within the MICA project, which were conducted online and were live streamed on project’s Facebook page.

On March 28^th 2022, the 1st Work Café on “Digital Environment for the Mu.SA Community” was held with the keynote speaker Myriam Hadnes, who shared with her experience of digital platforms as a behavioral economist and host of the podcast “Workshops Work” with the participants. The second guest was Sherif Abaza, Chief Growth Officer of Withlocals, a company specializing in affordable and sustainable tourism promoted by locals and an expert on the Slack platform. The speakers answered the questions and then, in the second part of the Work Café, participants explored the Welo platform and discussed, in small groups, the topics of the talks and how a community could be not only attractive but also sustainable.

On April 4^th 2022, MICA project hosted the 2nd Work Café on “Best practices in cultural communities” where examples of successful cultural communities were presented and questions were raised about their potentials and weaknesses and how the MICA community can develop its own potentials. The first speaker, Maria Ann McNair, museum educator at History Colorado Museum, described how storytelling can be the strongest tool to create empathy, connection and networking in the process of building a community. Also, hosted Harikleia Haris, architect, urban planner and Mu.SA course successful learner from Greece, who described to participants how different digital platforms are used by different digital communities around the world, how to measure their impacts and the importance of balancing online and offline cultural community’s elements. In the second part of the Work Café, on the Welo platform, the speakers’ contributions deepened and discussed ways of building and feeding a digital or even physical (face-to-face) community which is open to the exchange of knowledge and experiences but also to critiques based on trust and respect.

The 3rd Work Café was dedicated to “Best practices in non-cultural communities” and took place on April 11^th 2022. The main focus of the discussion was the participation of community members in the community and how to keep it active. The first speaker was Stella Tsala, head of the Cookpad Greek community, who described the three groups into which a digital community can be divided, the role that each group has and finally, how these groups can contribute to the development and maintenance of the community. Then, Susana Gomes da Silva, Head of education of the Gulbekian Museum in Lisbon, Portugal explained to the participants how museums keep in touch with their communities. The last speaker was Lana Jelenjev, author and “alchemist” of communities, who highlighted the importance of different ways of reaching out to members of a community. Participants, in the second part of the Work Café, were again moved to Welo platform where they exchanged views on the speakers’ key topics and discussed new strategies.

On May 2^nd 2022 will be organized the 4^th Work Café, entitled “Crowdfunding strategies and tools” with keynote speaker Zoe Akrivouli, Economist and researcher of the DAISSy group of the Hellenic Open University.

View the next work cafés livestreamed in Facebook of MICA project!

For more information about the MICA project and the activities of the DAISSy research group:

• Websites: https://micaproject.eu/ – http://daissy.eap.gr/en,
• Facebook: @micaproject –  @DAISSyResearchGroup
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/m-i-c-a-mu-sa-international-community-activators – https://www.linkedin.com/in/daissyresearchgroup/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/daissy_research
• Instagram: @daissy_researchgroup
• Email: info@daissy.eap.gr

The DAISSy research group of the Hellenic Open University (http://daissy.eap.gr/en/) participates in the activities of the new project entitled “MU.SA International Community Activators – MICA”, which is co-funded by the Erasmus + Programme 2021-2027.

The small-scale MICA project (with a duration of 12 months) aims at creating a practical community of self professional education and self lifelong learning for Heritage professionals. The primary target group includes participants and partners of eCult Skills and Mu.SA Museum Sector Alliance projects.

The main goals of MICA are to guarantee a wider age range in participants to activities, to give a wider and multicultural approach to professional experience, to fight cultural field isolation, to avoid social, age, sex, economic barrier to access high level professional training and to increase digital skills and new technologies access for participants.

MICA project capitalizes the results of the Mu.SA project and addresses especially the learners of the four Specialisation Courses (in 4 emerging role – profiles: Digital Strategy Manager, Digital Collections Curator, Digital Interactive Experience Developer and Online Community Manager) in Mu.SA course, coming from Greece, Italy and Portugal. The focus of the activities will be “How to manage and engage an active community for Cultural Institutions”. The partners Melting Pro, Hellenic Open University and University of Porto have collaborated closely in Mu.SA project.

On January 28^th, 2022, the kick-off meeting of the MICA project was delivered online, hosted by Cultura REPublic from Italy, Coordinator of the project. In the meeting participated also the partners Melting Pro, from Italy and Hellenic Open University – DAISSy, from Greece.

The first project meeting was dedicated to an overview on the MICA project, the proposal submitted and previous agreements among partners. In the first part of the meeting the topic “Tools and Communication” was discussed, and proposals were made concerning MICA’s next steps. The discussion focused on the WORK CAFÉs and on how they can be translated from a live format to a digital one. More specifically, five WORK CAFÉs on subjects of Heritage field will be organized: Wc1 Tools, Wc2 Cultural best practices, Wc3 other fields best practices, Wc4 Crowdfunding, Wc5 Guests. Young experts from different fields (e.g., Gaming, Comics, online entertainment etc.) will be invited to each session, in which engaging an active community through digital means is already a consolidated reality.

Another issue in the agenda was the communication strategy, the community of participants created through an online digital platform, the project work activity and the crowdfunding campaign on a specific activity per community at country level.

The second part began with a summary of proposals on shared tools to be used for the collaboration of partnership and communication with the target groups. The last part of the meeting was about work packages, tasks, time –plan, financial & administrative issues.