Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

How Do You Get To Carnegie Hall? Upload Upload Upload

 

That's an old joke from my music school days. A guy gets into a cab in New York City and asks the cab driver, "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" and the cab driver replies, "practice, practice, practice."

And if you graduated with a classical performance degree, that's what you had to do 8 hours a day - and then audition. You had to audition in person - sometimes behind a screen. You'd be one of hundred(s) or thousands to play for the jury making the decision - and if you were lucky you'd get call back for the finals.

The YouTube Symphony Orchestra released the first performance, a premiere of the Tan Dun composition "Internet Symphony, Eroica"  The performers were selected from thousands of video auditions from around the globe.   The finalists winnowed down by a jury of professional musicians, not unlike a traditional audition, but the winners were crowdsourced by YouTube users via online voting.  The resulting "mashed up" symphony orchestra, had more than 90 players representing over 30 countries.

They performed live at Carnegie Hall last under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas, San Francisco Sympony, who has used technology innovately throughout his career.

Was this just a clever publicity stunt or could this be the auditioning process of the future?  Does represent a possible new business model in the light of crumbling arts nonprofits?  And wondering why Michael Tilson Thomas doesn't have his own Twitter account?

See Marc van Bree's Orchestras and New Media E-Book and Presentation

Update:  CoolCat Teacher Blog, Vicky Davis, wrote about the YouTube Symphony quoted the title of this blog post.  What's funny is that Conductor Tilson Thomas says it in this video - that I didn't see.  Alan Levine suggested on Twitter 

that she give linktribution. As a music student - everyone knew that joke (and whole bunch other stupid music school jokes) - and so it was the first thing I thought of when I heard about this story. Little did I know that the PR people used it in the press release!

Here's the origin of that joke

Here's more remixes of the joke

Okay, here's a sample of some of those other stupid classical music jokes:

"What happens when a piano falls down a mine shaft on a miner?   A flat minor"

Fighting Arts Cuts in Bad Economy With Social Media

Over the years, I remember some very devastating and painful US government arts funding cuts - from the National Endowment for the Arts to Massachusetts State Arts Council. Arts advocates have always fought back.

Here's a social media infused campaign to fight 100% arts budget cut in Ottawa, Canada. You can learn more here.

Arts Summit 2008: The Alliance of New York State Arts Organizations - Reflections

I just got back from doing a plenary session at the Arts Summit organized by the Alliance of New York State Arts Organizations.  It's gathering of arts leader from throughout New York State.   I spoke about social media and future leadership in the arts - and also did a workshop.   I had the pleasure of sharing the podium with Susan Chun who spoke about the Steve project.  (Since we shared my laptop, she kindly gave me permission to upload her slides)

I have a long history with the arts community in New York.  For 12 years, I worked on arts and technology projects with the New York Foundation for the Arts, beginning with its Arts Wire program in 1992.   I've worked with Judith Weiner at the Alliance in many different capacities since 1994 - I built their first web site. I was a circuit rider for their Rurals Program where I drove all over New York state working with Rural Arts administrators - teaching them anything and everything from how to set up an excel spreadsheet to using email to powerpoint - to plugging in modems.  (I don't crawl under desks anymore, I'm too old).   As Phil Morris noted in his blog, it feels like home to be with this crowd.)

It was great to see many familiar faces - many folks who I haven't seen in at least five years, including Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer, an artist and the director of the Arts Council in Queens,  Andrew Salgado who runs Reader's Theatre Workshop, Phil Morris (the visionary behind Proctor's Theatre where the conference took place), Martha Strodel, Rural Arts Director, Robert Zuckerman from NYSCA, Elaine Giguere,  Anne Ackerson, Caroline Thompson, Kay Stamer, Judith Levine, and many others.  Some of my creative work in technology training was done during my decade plus two years working with the New York Arts community.  Many, many memories ..

The plenary and workshop took place in the black box theatre with a huge projection screen.  See the photos here.   I took a few minutes to check out the gorgeous mainstage theatre, a historic theater renovated to perfect. 

 

 

There was some excellent questions during the plenary from this very smart crowd.   One that stuck with me was: "I'm an older babyboomer.  I'm comfortable with computers and the Internet.  But, I just haven't paid much attention to the Web 2.0 stuff.   I realize that I should get my hands on it to understand it better - so I can manage my staff better. My head is spinning (in a good way) but where and how should I get started. "

I have to caution people that when I share the results of my experiments and learnings - that it is a culmination of 6 plus years of daily exploration of Web 2.0.    That's not where I began my learning journey.  I tell folks that my recent experiences are like playing a Paganini Violin piece.  But, I started with Twinkle, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star Suziki lessons 5-6 years ago. 

When my son, Harry, was three years old.  He used to watch the Mark Morris and Yo Yo Ma Failing Down Stairs dance video. He really wanted to play the cello.  So, we rented a 1/10 size cello and started on some lessons.  He sawed, sawed away at all.  But after a week, he said, "I don't want to play the cello anymore!"  I asked him why. "Because it doesn't sound like Yo Yo Ma!"  I had to explain to him that Yo Yo Ma didn't sound that way after he had played for week either - and that it takes practice.

So back to the question ... I offered some places to start and told her to live in that one thing for a couple of months.  Once you master it, take on the next thing.  I suggested a sequence of steps.

I had planned to do the social media game workshop, but after using a spectragraph to see if we had newcomers to social media and hear their burning questions, I decided to do some q/a and show them some basic getting started steps.  (Similar to what I've done here - except adding a live Twitter demo)

One of the most important things you need to do as a trainer - is to listen and adjust on the spot.  You have to be willing to toss out the lesson plan too -- ramp up or ramp down - and watch out if you're speaking in jargon.   I've been keeping an inner ear for that and when I spew jargon - I mock myself in front of the group and translate.  It gets a good laugh.

You can find the slides and resources at my Arts and Social Media wiki. 

A Crash Course in Social Media for Arts People in Philadelphia

Yesterday, I presented a workshop called "A Crash Course in Social Media for Arts People" hosted by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.  The workshop was part of a professional development series organized by the very capable Kendra Lawton, with help from Melissa Cooper.  I also got a chance to spend some time with Thomas Taylor, the Alliance's nonprofit technology in-house guru and social media whiz who turned me to twitpic.

Crash Course: Social Media for Arts People

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: arts)

This workshop was advertised as a crash course and I think packed enough content in there for 3 full days. Immersion for a day is a good thing, although people will naturally feel a little overwhelmed by the end of the day.  That's why I incorporated a number of reflection techniques throughout the day - to help with the digestion and application.  I also tested out a couple of instructional techniques for the first time and learned something myself.  I have also fully integrated the use of a wiki as "electronic flip chart," and leave behind resource as well as use of networked learning (Skype and twitter open to shoot out questions to people I could get richer answers to)

The morning agenda was the full group - presentation and demonstration with lots of opportunity for discussion.   The first half hour was spent in introduction and teasing out burning questions.  Right away, I introduce them to Twitter as a resource - the collaborative brain.  Then I tell the essence of using twitter is to learn the art of being succinct.  Next, I asked them to work in pairs to come up with their burning questions in 140 characters or less.  You have to emphasize to people not to get hung up on the 140 character limit, but to more to boil  down their learning question.   

Then, I asked people to report out the burning questions and add them to the wiki page set up for this.  This gives the you -as the trainer an idea of how well the content matches people's questions and to let people know.  With using a wiki, you can add resources or answers to the questions throughout the day - so people feel like they got their question answered without taking up too much time in the whole room discussion or getting to far off track in the agenda.

The topics covered included:

• Should Your Organization Embrace Social Media or Not?
• Why It is Important
• Cute Dog Theory: Thinking Strategically about Social Media

I do the interactive lecture technique - and invite other voices into the mix as much as possible and encourage questions.  Also, don't answer all the questions and ask for others to answer it. 

In between sections, I asked people to do a standing poll.  First you ask people to stand up.  Then ask people to sit down if they got an answer to their burning question.  Next, ask them to sit down if they learned something new that will be useful.   Then you ask them to write it down.   I also encouraged people to tell me during the break if the pace was too fast or too slow - or level was too advanced or basic.  (I would have addressed this with some differentiated instruction in the small groups in the afternoon.)

I did a full-room reflection exercise before the break in the morning called "Let's Walk the Line."  I used a ribbon asked for a volunteer to hold it at one end of the room who felt their organization was ready for social media - no question about it.  Then asked for another volunteer felt their organization was not ready for social media - and also told that if they know that it was a good thing - not a bad thing.   Each volunteer held the ribbon at opposites end of the room.  Then I asked people to line up according to how ready they felt their organization was to implement a social media project.  Then I asked people to share why -- first from the extremes and then from the middle.

After a break, we had a full-room session looking at the tools in the context of strategy and amount of time.  This is time slot before when the energy starts to drop, but you have get through some content. There were about 40 cultural organizations from Philadelphia that participated, from large established institutions to smaller groups and all with different levels of experience using social media.   So, I made the audience a part of the curriculum.  Here's how.

I spent quite a bit of preparation time visiting each organization's web presence and searching for any social media presence.  Here's the research I did.  Next,  I added screen captures of their social media presence or tactic in the slide show.   I told them before I started that I done this and hope that if the person was in the room they would share a little bit about their work.    When I got to an example where the person was in the room or if I asked how many of you use google alerts,  I let them share.  I also asked them questions to get at experiential learning.   

While it required a significant amount of preparation work, I think it worked out.  The workshop participants with experience shared a lot of valuable wisdom. 

The afternoon was spent playing the social media game. I need to scaffold the process better and have it connect to different groups of cards. I tried to incorporate the concept of POST - but need to use the same labels on the cards.  I also need written instructions for the steps.  I got some ideas while observing the groups at work and try to implement for next time I use the cards.   During the report out, I showed some additional resources or techniques and asked for advice in the room.

At the end of the day, I had participants quietly fill out a reflection form:

• One thing I learned
• One thing I will put into practice
• Questions I still have
• What still isn't clear

I also handed out 3x5 cards and asked people to give email address and one thing they make a habit in the next month.  I also asked for ideas for future blog posts.

I have some tweaking to do - and of course this helps inform the WeAreMedia face workshop syllabus.

Arts 2.0: Brooklyn Museum Click Exhibit Results: It's not a contest, it's a study in curation of the crowds ...

In April, I taught a social media workshop for artists and arts nonprofits and did some research on how different arts organizations using social media effectively.  The Brooklyn Museum kept coming up as a stellar example, particularly its Click Exhibition, an experiment in crowd-sourced exhibits.   

This compelling experiment in the wisdom of the crowds started off with an open call for works through the museum's various Web 2.0 networks.  The next phase was crowd-sourced rating process - where anyone could be a curator evaluating the aesthetic quality and relevance to the exhibition theme.   And finally, the top 20% of the 389 images are now in a physical exhibition space at the museum and on display until August.  (If you click through the exhibition, you'll notice that images are different sizes - the larger the image the higher the rating it got).  Here's a summary of the impressive participation stats for each phase.

As Shelly Bernstein, staff member at the museum, writes on the project blog, Click is not a contest, it's a study of crowds.  You can click through and see how the 389 images were evaluated by 3,344 evaluators who submitted 410,089 evaluations. (View the Evaluation Statistics.)It will be interesting to read the resulting paper and lessons learned from this experiment.  I'm curious about how the final results may have differed or not from what a curator might have selected?  I'm curious about how or if Click was gamed.

I'm also interested about how the museum approach the issue of moderating or not.   For example, the screen capture represents the top most discussed submissions to the Brooklyn Museum's Click Exhibition.   
One of the photos in the top 10 most discussed is         Tubby  Lambergini. Full Moon Over the East River.   Read the artist statement and then read the discussion.  Quite an interesting thread on gentrification, race, and class.  The photo isn't in the final exhibition - perhaps because it a wide range of evaluations or divergence of opinion. 

One of my favorite photos is Etienne Frossard. 9:15pm, 2005 also making a statement about the changing face in Brooklyn neighborhoods -which is in the exhibition.   It's in the top 10%

Nina Simon wrote an analysis of the project when it launched here.  I also had a chance to interview Shelly Bernstein, the Museum's staff person responsible for the project.  For more about the exhibit, check out this screencast.

 

My Day at the Powerhouse Museum

 

During my time in Sydney,  I spent a day with meeting with the staff at the Powerhouse Museum and Seb Chan who writes the Museum's blog, Fresh + New(er) and who I have had many virtual conversations with via our blogs but have not met face-to-face.   I got to meet the entire web team who I interviewed using QIK (see above), got a whirlwind tour of the museum (the Lost in Space Robot is in their collection!) and have an informal workshop with members of the marketing staff and curators.  Seb Chan has a good write up here.

The Powerhouse has done ground breaking in integrating social media into their communications and web strategies (most recently they've joined the Flickr Commons) but are also in the process of embracing the groundswell concept and making social media part of their organizational culture.   The afternoon workshop was another opportunity for education and discussion about social media and the museum's mission as well as a great example of how you create social change behind the firewall. 

I also met and interviewed Dr. Lynda Kelly, Head of Research, Australian Museum who shared some of her recent research on museum participation and online social activities.  She took excellent notes about our session and blogged it here.

My flickr photos are here

 

What is a Museum without YouTube?

What is a Museum without YouTube? sounds like a riddle.  I couldn't think of a punch line can, you?   This was a response from a Twitter follower, Hans de Kraker who pointed me to this blog post (in Dutch). Looks like reviewed the YouTube channels for museums. I like Moma's Channel. The videos include short promotions, almost like movie trailers promoting an exhibit.  The one above is Richard Serra's Torqued Ellipse IV (1998) and Intersection II (1992) being installed in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden at The Museum of Modern Art in preparation for Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years (June 3 - September 10, 2007).   

The videos that give a peek behind the scenes at the museum have the most views, like this one of another sculpture installation.  Interesting commentary by viewers too.   The IMA has a YouTube Channel too that uses a slightly different approach.

Update:  From MCN List and J Trant

Beyond launch: Museum videos on YouTube
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2008/papers/hart/hart.html

David Hart, The Museum of Modern Art, USA
Allegra Burnette, The Museum of Modern Art, USA
Chris Alexander, San Jose Museum of Art, USA
Dan Dark, Indianapolis Museum of Art, USA
Jennifer Rossi, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, USA
Nicole Minor, Exploratorium, USA

I wonder how effective placing videos like these on YouTube is as a strategy to get people to visit the museum?  I wonder what the crossover is between YouTube viewers and museum attendance?    Have you come across a museum channel that you think is really good. Why? 

Social Media Time Investment = You put in is what you get out? The Time Scale

From Museum2.0 Blog, Nina Simon

Nina Simon has an excellent post looking at time investment and types of projects.  There are three approaches:

• Participant:  1-5 Hours per week (See 10 Web2.0 things you can do in ten minutes to be a better nonprofit - suggested by nptechers)
• Content Creator:  5-10 Hours per week
• Community Organizer: 10-20 hours per week

But as Alison K notes in an article she wrote about social media and nonprofits, you get out what you put in.

Arts 2.0: Examples of Arts Organizations Social Media Strategies

| View | Upload your own

The above slide show was created based on all the information I gathered from my network below.

 

I'm prepping for a workshop on Social Media and wanted do a round up of recent compelling examples of arts organizations using social media strategies and tools.   I've covered arts organizations and social media here and there over the past three years and last winter co-wrote a cover story article with Rebecca Krause-Hardie for ArtsReach.   So, thought I'd take an opportunity to query my network via Twitter and Facebook and see what's new.   

I was particularly interested in examples using blogs, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, and Facebook.

Everyone is a Curator

One of the best projects that illustrates the basic idea of Web2.0 - listening and conversation and stakeholders creating their own experience with your organization - comes from the Brooklyn Museum of Art. They're now running a compelling experiment in crowd-sourced exhibition creation and curation via the photography exhibition Click.

Here's how Nina Simon described it on her insightful post analyzing the tactics used.

1. The Museum solicited photographs from artists via an open call on their website, Facebook group, Flickr groups, and outreach to Brooklyn-based arts organizations.

2. On the web, anyone can evaluate the photographs in terms of aesthetic quality and relevance to the exhibition theme. All evaluations are private; all artists are unnamed. It's very easy to sign up and judge... and you can do so now by registering here.

3. The photographs will be installed in a physical exhibition running for six weeks this summer. The art will be displayed in order of the average juried scores. Visitors will be able to see how different subgroups (including art experts) ranked and responded to the art. The exhibition will coincide with programs about art theory, online communities, and crowd theory, providing a forum for public evaluation and discussion about the process.

Nina observes that the following makes this project really special:

• It is 100% community-based
• The internal team is led by a non-curator.
• They kept the interface simple
• They make it easy to evangelize
• They are sensitive to the artists who are being judged.
• They ask judges to self-define their art knowledge.

But as Nina notes, they are doing research from this experiment about the role of independence and influence in a participatory experience.  Note that this is a research/learning approach that is key to success of Web2.0 projects.

More at TechCrunch and Technology in the Arts Blog.

Another theme of web2.o is Transparency - and the best example of that is what the Indianapolis Art Museum has done with its pubic metrics on its web site.

Blogs

Elizabeth Perry, an artist in Pittsburgh and pioneer of "sketch blogging" reported that local arts organizations have been good at integrating social media without having to create or maintain anything new.  "They have begun inviting local bloggers as press to openings and events - usually they get in touch with Mike Woycheck or Cynthia Closkey, two of the co-founders of Pittsburgh Bloggers, who then re-blog the invitation and spread it via Facebook or their own Twitter streams. Lindsay Patross runs the blog, and people get hold of her, too.

Similar strategy to what the San Francisco Symphony did with its blogger outreach event.   ASOL gives a write up and some pointers for holding your own blogger outreach event.

What Should Artists and Arts Organization’s Blog about?  An excellent question posed by Beth Dunn of Small Dots.

Most people are fascinated by the interior life of artists. Many people are turned on by the chance to peek backstage at a theater. Almost everyone I know thinks they can curate an art exhibit. Are they right?

Artists: Write about your favorite kind of paintbrushes. Write about where you go shopping for paintbrushes. Write about how hard it is to find decent studio space. Write about why you ditched that banker job to see if you could make it selling art. Write about your crippling self-doubt and fears of failure. Write the truth. Not the press release.

Arts Organizations: Write about your insides — what goes on inside a theater, a museum, a historical home? Not the tedious soap opera that will get you fired if you share - the cool stuff we’re all dying to know! Where do your staff come from? What brought them here? How much fun did you have striking the set over the weekend? Can I help next time?

Artist Blogs

For individual artists, a blog can also help sell or promote their work.  Here's some artists personal blogs that support their gallery sites where they sell their work -- A Planet Named Janet,  Self VS Self, PaMdora's Box and Jen Lemen

Arts Organizations

Let's look at individual blogs.  Here was have the professional development or career blog like Museum2.0, and Im in Ur Museum Blogz that is written by an individual, not as part of the organization.  The content is focused on the professional area of expertise.   Blog helps deepened expertise.   Many early adopters in nonprofits got started this way - outside of the firewall.

Fresh + new(er) is an institutional blog from the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney Australia written by staff member Seb Chan.   Interesting that this blog has evolved into one that serves the sector of museum professionals.  (see for example the post about blogging policy).

The Academy of Vocal Arts has a blog written by Daniel Pantano.  According to Maryanne Devine, the staff member to go to for all the AVA gossip. "The writing is in his own voice, personal and authentic, and he's giving the patrons exactly what they crave: who won which competition, who just got engaged, where alums are singing, backstage snapshots. He doesn't get much in the way of comments, but when he misses a few days, he gets lots of complaints.   

Musematic is a group blog of museum technology professionals.  The description: "Rants and raves on the latest trends in the world of museum informatics and technology. An intrepid cast of experts from the Museum Computer Network and AAM's Media & Technology Committee share their insights, observations and tricks of the trade."

The Walker Blog was one of the first arts institution blogs.  The idea was to give an inside view of the inner workings of the Walker.  Different departments or individuals came on gradually.  (I wrote about this blog back in 2005)

The Brooklyn Museum's blog is another one that takes a group approach, also focuses a peak behind the scenes. As does Indianapolis Museum of Art blog.

Tate's Mobile Blog is collecting audience input on the new building design at the Tate - via mobile phones to blog - or mob blogging.   

Over the next six months we’ll be inviting all kinds of people, including designers, artists, young people, families, students and Tate staff, to share their ideas. Why not send us your own photos and join the discussion here at The Great Tate Mod Blog?

Finally, Rebecca Krause Hardie has some notes from a blogging workshop given at the Museums and the Web Conference earlier this month

Flickr

The Academy of Vocal Arts uses a flickr account to document organizational events/galas/benefits - good way to get started. Arts Northfield has well organized collections and sets of all organizational activities.

Brooklyn Museum of Art has a very active and successful group  - notice the  lively discussion board.  MOMA has a group for its graffiti project.

This example of using Flickr for exhibitions - both in Flickr and on the web site. The American Image: The Photographs of John Collier Jr. online exhibit developed by the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico and Ideum.

Here's the description of how they used flickr for the exhibition.

In designing and developing The American Image: The Photographs of John Collier Jr. website with The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology we’ve found ourselves spending a lot of time in Flickr. The Collection of photographs found on the site are pulled in from Flickr using a Flash-base mashup. The Shooting ScriptColonizing Social Spaces, looked more broadly at the benefits and drawbacks of museums utilzing social networking sites. In this post, I’m going to look exclusively at Flickr and our experience with the American Image site. activity works in similar way: pulling out John Collier Jr’s images as well as those of other Flickr members. An earlier post, Colonizing Social Spaces, looked more broadly at the benefits and drawbacks of museums utilzing social networking sites. In this post, I’m going to look exclusively at Flickr and our experience with the American Image site.

I interviewed Jim Spadaccini and he told me that initially more people had viewed the photos in flickr versus the exhibition web site.   He also mentioned that the commenting on the photos was fascinating and that they even got an email from someone who knew the Gagnon's family that the name was not correct! Read more of Jim Spadaccini's reflections

Finally the Library of Congress community tagging pilot project on flickr. (Launched in Jan. (follow up here)

A pilot project the Library of Congress is undertaking with Flickr, the enormously popular photo-sharing site that has been a Web 2.0 innovator. If all goes according to plan, the project will help address at least two major challenges: how to ensure better and better access to our collections, and how to ensure that we have the best possible information about those collections for the benefit of researchers and posterity. In many senses, we are looking to enhance our metadata (one of those Web 2.0 buzzwords that 90 percent of our readers could probably explain better than me).

The project is beginning somewhat modestly, but we hope to learn a lot from it. Out of some 14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials at the Library of Congress, more than 3,000 photos from two of our most popular collections are being made available on our new Flickr page, to include only images for which no copyright restrictions are known to exist.

 

Nina Simon has a good piece on why museums should use flickr.

Facebook

Individual profiles, groups, fan pages and applications.  There are many museum professionals active on Facebook - step one is to create an individual profile and then go find your colleagues. The group Museum Professionals Unite Across Facebook has about 2,000 members and 89 discussion threads, so there's definitely lots of places to talk shop on Facebook with peer professionals.    There are a number of museums with official group and fan pages, like this one from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

As Nina Simon points out, Brooklyn Museum of Art is the gold standard of Art Museums using social media and its projects on Facebook are no exception. (Be sure to check out Nina's Museum2.0 Blog for lots of great posts.

Brooklyn Museum of Art developed a Facebook application called Art Share.  It lets Facebook users share works art from Museums around the world on their profile.  Artists can upload and share their own work using this application.  Participating institutions include the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Brooklyn Museum, Canada Agriculture Museum, Corning Museum of Glass, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Powerhouse Museum, Royal Ontario Museum, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, V&A, Walker Art Center, Walters Art Museum.

The application launched in November according to this progress report the usage stats as of February were:

• 1000 people using ArtShare on Facebook.
• 174 artists are using ArtShare to share their own works.
• Institutions have uploaded 438 works from their collections and artists have uploaded 754.

Some more on the metrics from the progress report:

On Facebook,  the highest traffic comes from browsing profiles, so exposure to the images may be significantly higher. For instance, if each ArtShare user has 20 friends, a lot more people could be seeing the images from ArtShare being shuffled on that profile. In a nut shell, 1000 people may have installed it, but a lot more may be seeing it and while this is not the kind of traffic we can measure, it is interesting to think about.

I wanted to take a quick look at what the performing arts scene was like on Facebook. 

Doing a quick search on the word "symphony" on Facebook turned up more than 500 individuals.  A few of these are Symphony orchestras using their individual profiles (incorrectly and a violation of the TOS) for an organizational presence.   (There are quite a few individuals with the last or first name symphony.)

There were about 70 Fan Pages that turned up including a number of youth and college symphonies.   A couple of major symphony orchestras, like the Chicago Symphony with 1336 fans and the Boston Symphony. The fan pages are like mini-web pages with the ability to add applications.   The features on their Fan Pages include music player (filled with symphony selections), albums, photos, events, and videos.  There is also a discussion board and the ability to post notes.  The Boston Symphony has been doing ticket giveaway promotions.

While I focused on Facebook for social networking examples, there are examples on MySpace.  Even found an artist social network that is called Dripbook.

Twitter

Twittours has a list of museums using Twitter.  Looks like most are just learning how to use twitter and mostly tweeting about content on their sites.  Using it like a newswire similar to New York Times Arts Section

Brooklyn Museum of Art is using twitter - mostly to point to blog content or web site content.   Tate is also twitter, but hasn't really engaged yet  - probably in the Twitter is the dumbest thing I've ever seen stage?    But as the Field Museum notes on its MySpace page status - still trying to figure it out. 

Heard on Twitter a mobile poetry project on Twitter is in the works.  (Poets.Org is already mobile)

Still more arts organizations on twitter found at TwitTours - this post about  Alliance for Historic Hillsborough - tweeting about bites of information about its programs.

Beth Dunn has a great post on artists and twitter.  It points over the Cycling Artist's post about the benefit and value of Twitter for artists.

YouTube

Anaheim Ballet has a YouTube Channel with over 130,000 channel views.   Perhaps due to their MySpace presence? Another good example is Youth Speaks.

Thanks everyone for the leads .. any other comments or suggestions - leave them in the comments.  Now, off to finish the workshop curriculum ...

Better Blog Museum Metrics

Seb Chan

I just discovered that one of my blog colleagues in Australia, Seb Chan,  is writing about a topic of mutual interest - social media metrics (my blog ramblings here and my wiki/presentations here).  I am also prepping a panel on the topic for NTC (more about that later)  Seb Chan is focusing specifically on blog metrics for museums.

He is suggesting two metrics for museums (which are also recommended by the others talking about this topic in other disciplines):

In our paper Jim and I avoided site traffic and instead proposed that two better measures of success for museum blogs were citations/linkbacks and user comments. These captured the ‘interactivity’, the multidirectional communication, that most museums set up blogs to encourage and explore.

He thinks that Avanish Kaushik's model is particularly well-suited for museum blogs.  I am wondering about the "ripple index" as described by Kaushik:

Ok so you are talking, people are listening, and lo and behold they are talking to you on your blog as well. Hurray!!

But in a world of networks and connections what is your impact beyond your immediate blog?

A key validating factor for a blog, any blog, is that other people talk about what you are writing about. They reference back to you (with nice words or scathing critiques!). They link to you.

I call these Citations. People talk about you, discuss you point, throw up on you, praise you. Citations.

To measure Citations I use Technorati rank.

It Technorati the best measurement tool for measuring ripples or "influence"?  KD Paine notes why measuring blog influence isn't so easy with a pointer to Brendon Cooper titled "Which Metric is the Most Important" that discusses looks at different method to measure influence in the blogosphere.  (He is the originator of the PR Power Index) Take it all with a grain of salt.

Another explanation of influence can be seen in this illustration of ripples,  I came across this visual a few months back from David Armano.   

Ripples of Influence

Seb, I have a few questions .. Where is the paper you refer to located?  Is it here? It's on my reading list.

For your metrics/measurement for the new blog, what will that look like?  Do you have plan or logic model to share?

What is your impression of the flickr stats feature?

In your institution, what are some of the attitudes about evaluation metrics that you need to change or challenge when thinking about a social media measurement plan?  What easily connects to your existing practice of metrics/measurement for the Museum Web and what does not?

Indianapolis Museum of Art: Transparency

This came the "dashboard" for the Indianapolis Museum of Art , an ongoing effort to measure various aspects of the Museum's performance.  According to the web site, the goal is to seek to quantify and report out on areas of activity of general interest to museum studies specialists, colleagues, and patrons.

The Web section offers a sampling of numbers only data.    What is interesting is how the web metrics include a mix of traditional web analytics and social media metrics, in this case number of friends on myspace (454) and views (see above) on its youtube channel.  What it doesn't show me is any trends over time or analysis based on gathering data from several types of resources.  I would like to see some context.

The dashboard is one feature in he Indianapolis Museum of Art's new Website which launched in September with lots of social media features.  According to a blog post at the site, at least one staff person thinks the dashboard is cool:

For more than 5 years, I didn't think another dashboard could rival my Passat's for coolness. And while it may not be exactly the same thing, I think the IMA's new dashboard might just do it. So what's so cool about our dashboard? We're really the first museum in the world to use technology like this. The public now has access to statistics about attendance, the art collection and even our budget. For instance, folks can check to see how much we have spent so far this year and how it relates to what we projected in our 2007 budget. Visitors can also check to see how many people have visited Roman Art from the Louvre or shopped in the IMA Shop. For better or for worse, the IMA's dashboard let's you see the IMA from the inside.

Jim Spadaccini from Ideum Blog notes that dashboards are not new, in fact, there's a book about Dashboard Design. However, "This a great example of a museum presenting basic information about the institution in a dynamic and unconventional way."

There is some question as to who would be interested in this type of information - a somewhat out of context random set of numbers.  More commentary here.  What do you think?

UPDATE:   The Giving Blog writes about the Dashboard here

Greetings from Chicago and the Museum Computer Network Conference

I'm here in Chicago for a very brief trip on a panel about metrics and measurement for museums called "New Spaces, New Measures."   My slides and resources are here.

I came across two more excellent resources on this evolving topic of social media metrics and wanted to quickly summarize before I add to the link list in the wiki.

The New Metrics of Scholarly Authority by Michael Jensen published in the Chronicle in June, 2007 describes how scholarly authority is being influenced by Web 2.0.   He points out, "While those trends are enabled by digital technology, I'm not concerned with technology per se — I learned years ago that technology doesn't drive change as much as our cultural response to technology does."   He talks about the cultural shift from information scarcity to abundance.  He suggests this list of metrics:

• Prestige of the publisher (if any).
• Prestige of peer prereviewers (if any).
• Prestige of commenters and other participants.
• Percentage of a document quoted in other documents.
• Raw links to the document.
• Valued links, in which the values of the linker and all his or her other links are also considered.
• Obvious attention: discussions in blogspace, comments in posts, reclarification, and continued discussion.
• Nature of the language in comments: positive, negative, interconnective, expanded, clarified, reinterpreted.
• Quality of the context: What else is on the site that holds the document, and what's its authority status?
• Percentage of phrases that are valued by a disciplinary community.
• Quality of author's institutional affiliation(s).
• Significance of author's other work.
• Amount of author's participation in other valued projects, as commenter, editor, etc.
• Reference network: the significance rating of all the texts the author has touched, viewed, read.
• Length of time a document has existed.
• Inclusion of a document in lists of "best of," in syllabi, indexes, and other human-selected distillations.
• Types of tags assigned to it, the terms used, the authority of the taggers, the authority of the tagging system.

He also notes that change will be slow:

Many of the values of scholarship are not well served yet by the Web: contemplation, abstract synthesis, construction of argument. Traditional models of authority will probably hold sway in the scholarly arena for 10 to 15 years, while we work out the ways in which scholarly engagement and significance can be measured in new kinds of participatory spaces.

Via RSA Networks blog

Kami Hulse, who gave a small taste of her presentation on relational objectives has shared her presentation notes and slides on a post with the title "Let's Talk About The Bottom Line and Dreaded ROI"  I used a similar title in the presentation I gave at Podcamp last week called "Let's Talk About Social Media Metrics, Measurement, and ROI."  Geoff Livingston has started a conversation meme here.
Be sure to check out Kami's links on measurement.

 

 

A slidedeck from the recent Technology in the Arts Conference

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I was sad to miss the Technology in the Arts Conference this past week, but Maryann Devine whose blog I read was there.  She was kind enough to forward me a copy of her slides - and looks like I had a little bit of presence there!


Maryann can you tell me the story behind the Ann Landers image and the story of the dog with the bad name and RSS? 

Spam Trap

"Spamtrap" - watch the video

I'm still working my way through last week's email that I wasn't able to get at because I didn't have Internet access in my room.  There are several thousand emails.  Yikes!

There was a lot of spam too.     However, Bill Shackleford sent me a link to his conceptual art installation called Spamtrap.  Here's his description.

"Spamtrap" is an interactive installation piece the prints, shreds and blacklists spam email. It interacts with spammers by monitoring several email addresses I have created specifically to lure in spam. I do not use these email addresses for any other communication. I post individual email addresses on websites and online bulletin boards that cause them to be harvested by spambots and then to start receiving spam.

Because I know that all email sent to these email addresses are spam, I have set the installation to print and then shred each email as it arrives. Simultaneously the installation is feeding spam blacklists on the web with information gathered from all the received spam. This in turn helps to feed spam filtering systems across the web that are working to reduce the amount of spam we all receive.

The installation uses a Pentium II computer connected to a wireless network, personal printer, personal shredder, aluminum rails, Spamtrap email addresses, automatic printing software, email client software, antivirus software, and a SpamCop user account. The paper is recycled after the spam email has been shredded.

Now, if I could just get through my email backlog that fast!

Digital Archivists look to what? (Rhymes with corn, starts with P)

This came from a post to the Museum Computer Network and I had to quote - (carefully removing the word *orn - rhymes with corn, starts with P) that may attrack ugly trackback spam. 

For those of you who did not attend the New Media and Social Symposium about preserving digital art at the Berkeley Art Museum last week, CNet just released an article about it:
"Digital archivists look to *orn, Flash for tips"  The article is much more than its title.

Favorite quote from the list:

Of course, this was picked up by BoingBoing as "Web art archivists look to *orn for guidance." I would like to note that although the topic of looking to the porn industry as leaders in distributed archiving is a clever and interesting model (in my opinion), that particular suggestion was presented in *one or two* sentences near the end of a long day.

Perhaps the other lesson we could learn from the *ornography industry is that in order to increase the visibility of our work, we merely need to invoke the dreaded "P-word"

The Painting Journalist: Witness To Peace

I've had the great pleasure to meet many kindred spirits and interesting people via my blog who I did not know offline or may have never connected. 

One such person I've met is Ashely Cecil, a self-described "painting journalist" who describes the world with a paintbrush (and a scanner and a blog.)  I think of her work as a mashup between an extremely talented court room artist, journalist, social activist and philanthropist.

A few recent posts that I have enjoyed include her sketch and report about the grant preparation session held by a local foundation and her post/portrait of Braveheart, a dog available for adoption from the Human Society.  (I'm a dog person, so this one got my attention -- a portion of the portrait fee will be donated to the Humane Society, the dog might get a new home, and you can watch a time lapse video of her painting the portrait.

Ashely Cecil is fundraising on her blog for her upcoming to visit Venezuela this February with Witness for Peace where art will meet social activism.  She hopes to do the following:

• Meeting with labor organizers, scholars, professionals, business people, representatives of the media and activists to discuss the economic, social and political issues confronting Venezuelan society.
• Learning about grassroots resistance to unjust and devastating global economic trends.
• Discussing alternatives to current US policies and ways to advocate for more just policies towards Venezuela.

Here's the description from her blog:

The images I will gather from this trip will certainly yield excellent material for my paintings. I will be creating watercolors while I’m away and posting them (as well as my commentary) whenever an internet cafe is available.
So, here I am just one month from my departure, and $2,000 needs to be raised. I’ve added the badge above to the sidebar so my readers can contribute with donations.   If you’re not one to give without receiving, I am pre-selling paintings that will come as a result of this trip. 6″ x 9″ watercolors are $70, and 8″ x 10″ oils on canvas are $220. I encourage you to support my efforts in raising awareness about these issues and the organizations that are working to resolve them by clicking on the donation badge..."

Remember, if you support her trip with a pre-purchase of a painting, a portion of the proceeds goes to support organizations working to resolve these social issues.

Large Scale Art Event in Second Life on Feb. 11-13th - Call for Entries

In cooperation with Amoration AMO Studios, NMC Campus is hosting a large scale art event February 11-13, 2007.  Here's the email announcement from Alan Levine:

The NMConnect Visual Symposium will be the largest collaborative art event ever created in Second Life! Connect the Dots with hundreds of artists as we Illuminate and innovate together to weave new networks. Structures of artistic expression in every medium will be linked and combined to tell new stories on how we bond within our shared new worlds.  This will take place over multiple sims on some of NMC's new land.

There will be art on display, performances, discussion forums, guest speakers, and others modes of activity over the three days. Information on the event will be announced via the NMC Campus Observer (http://www.nmc.org/sl/) and posted to our Campus Wiki Guide (http://www.nmc.org/campus/NMConnect).

The schedule is still developing, but there is a call for Second Life Artists that will be open form now until the end of January. Interested artists should review the call and then enter their submissions via the web form at http://www.nmc.org/sl/nmconnect.php

Download NMConnectCallforArtists.pdf

Thoughts on Widgets and Community Building

From Mathew's flickr stream

I've known Matthew Saunders, an arts tech colleague, for many years.  He works for an arts agency and we've set on grant evaluation panels for arts and technology projects.  I remember having dinner with him and a colleague from the NEA about  4 years ago and I was bragging about having TiVo.  Matthew one-upped me big time: He told me he hooked up his local area network at home so he could access his TiVo remotely via the Internet and configure it to record programs.

I was delighted to discover his newly redesigned drupal blog and all the widgets he has installed.   He also wrote an excellent response to my query, "What do you think about widgets?"  I have to quote a few points here:

The Web’s holy grail has always been the creating of community. For the most part, it takes a group of zealots to create community on the Web.

Any time you have folks that are passionate about something, you will see community build around that thing/topic.  . . . Asking whether widgets will foster community is a tricky question. The predisposition for community will exist whether widgets are used or now. What a widget will do is make it easier for that community to embed interesting rich content into sites. This in turn attracts others to come participate.

I'd also add this it goes beyond embedding rich media content.  I think that widgets can facilitate social networking connections (check out the mybloglog widget on my sidebar) and enhanced the interaction or conversation already taking place on the blog.

He also relates my question to the arts sector specifically with the following points:

The arts are in a unique position to leverage these video, audio, and photo sites. The arts are all about sharing content. It makes sense for our art institutions to take advantage. Will they? It remains to be seen but I believe that in order for these organizations to remain relevant with today’s consumers, they are going to need to. Gen X and Y EXPECT interactivity. If you come to them with static sites, you’ve lost them right away.

This really speaks to participation in the arts and the shift in the way participation manifests itself. I believe that the industry needs to re-frame how participation is defined and work to be relevant in today’s consumers’ minds.

Is it time for a Social Reporter?

What does the Internet look like?

I've been trying to organize and clean up I don't know how many gigs of information, some dating back to 1992, the year I started working online full-time.    My first online community builder/facilitator job was with Arts Wire, an online network for artists, that used a unix-based, text-based online discussion software.  I facilitated online forums, provided technical support the 500 members, and training.   

Arts Wire, a project of NYFA, was originally intended to be a place for artists from all over the country to meet, exchange ideas, and talk about their work via the Internet.   As the Internet changed dramatically with the launch of the Web, the content of my work did too -- although the themes and concepts remained the same.   While in the early early 1990's I was helping people figure out which dipswitches on their modem to push or  write and send email using PINE, this later morphed into helping people learn how to build web pages or develop web literacy skills.  And, now mid-2000 this has changed again  ... into gaining web social (networking) skills.

The drawing is from one of the many, many technology training workshops I did in those early web1.0 and web .0 days ....  somewhere around 1996 or 1997.   I always started with a creative icebreaker activity -- this one was "What does the Internet look like?"  While many of the drawings were abstract, the showing connected people presages the social web. 

What sent me on a trip down memory lane was this excellent post by David Wilcox describing a new role for an online facilitator using social networking and media tools. 

It occurs to me that I should try calling myself a social reporter; it feels more comfortable for this purpose than knowledge activist or technology steward.

I like the role/label and think David is spot on.   I'm having a little bit of trouble with the word "reporter" - perhaps a play on citizen journalism?   Is an online facilitator of people using social networkings  -- are they a passive observer or an instigator?   Is "reporter" the right role?

I used to think a lot of what my role and use different labels.   Here's a few I played with from 1992-2002 during my time working with NYFA/Arts Wire.

• Electronic Bulletin Board Sysop
• Onlne Facilitator
• Online Community Builder
• Telecommuter
• Gophermaster
• Webmaster
• Webmistress
• Webster
• Web Manager
• Web Goddess
• Digital Creative Thinker
• Information designer
• Cybrarian
• Electronic Preservationist
• Telecollaborator
• Situated Trainer & Learner
• Nonprofit Technologist

As I found this list, I realized I'm adding something to the label Nonprofit Technologist.  I'm not sure quite what.  It goes beyond blogger and tagger.   Citizen instructional mediamaker?  Social media coach?   Who knows ...

Now matter what we call it - social reporter or something else, what are the skills and competencies to be one?  How are they different from web1.0 online facilitator?  And just as I write that sentence, I check David's blog and find that being GMT, he's already evolved his thinking along with other colleagues.  Let's catch up ..

 

David is thinking about this role in the context of using wikis, blogs, flickr and other tools for capturing knowledge for conferences, a thread we obsessed on collectively last month.  The Perfect Path blog muses about the social reporter role and rich records:

We have agreement that it's a "good thing" or at least a "nice thing" to have a richer record of a days proceedings and that blogs and wikis are a good way of producing that. What I agree we haven't done yet is get to the point where we're able to weave everything together to make it useful enough to participants that they want to do more than view the record.

But maybe that's not our responsibility...yet. I see a risk that we're pushing people too fast along a learning curve that we've taken a while to go along ourselves .... Maybe we should just let this aspect sink in for a little bit - if they want to interact as well, then that's fantastic and we should be ready for it when it happens, but in the meantime, perhaps we could be honing our reporting skills in this new environment.

Especially if we are also introducing more social aspects to the event, breaking down the distinction between presenter and audience - novelty fatigue might set in - I have to remember that not everyone gets bored as easily as I do!

Here's David response:

If the ethos of the social reporter is to promote collaboration by standing on the side of the  user/reader/viewer and helping them to contribute, we have to take this very seriously. Evangelising - come on in, it's wonderful - doesn't work any better than warnings - you'll be left behind if you don't.

Part of the answer is being clear about the purpose ... what real benefit will tech-supported collaboration bring - and aware of the prevailing culture which may not be receptive. I think it is also about respecting people's preferences. That's partly about personality, and partly about offering a choice of audio, video, text and so on.

All that means that social reporting, to be successful, requires a pretty full set of skills and tools.  As Lloyd says, instead of pushing too hard we could be honing our reporting skills in this new environment. If we can't get the gigs, maybe we need some simulated rehearsing ... a sort of emerging social reporting conference, where we all practise on some willing non-tech participants. Any sponsors up for that?

Hmm .. yes, the tools are easy, but skills probably take some time to develop and hone.   One skill is the ability to think through your fingers quickly - the ability to listen, photograph, record, and process it in a way that isn't simply the vacuum approach.   And, you have a high degree of comfort with the tools .. so you don't even have to think about it as you are capturing.

Last week or the weekend before I was at a conference, with wireless and live blogging and vlogging.  I've noticed now that I'm using the digital camera, the microphone, and text all together -- like a drum set.  And that has taken some time to master -- just practicing.

Jerry Coltin on Arts Organizations and Podcasting

Brad Stephenson and Jerry Coltin presented a session called "Attack of the Pod People."  They covered the why, what, and how to get started of podcasting in the arts sector.   They mostly focused on what I call the middle of the road approach.

Jerry Coltin gave an excellent overview which included listening to and showing some examples of arts podcasting and video podcasting.  These were mostly museums like MoMa (which I wrote about over a year ago here) and a few others.  (See resources below)   He also shared an interview from the 501c3Cast for Nonprofits.  He offered some pointers about how to think strategically about podcasting, when not to do it, and some advice to get started.  (See YouTube interview for more)

Brad Stephenson gave a very good overview of the process and the tools.  He asked for three volunteers from the audience to "make a podcast."   They made a 30 second recording to demonstrate how it works. (My Flickr photos here)  (He mentioned that he picked up the microphones in the CMU trash - boy I wish I could lurk in those trash cans!)

Brad Stephenson has been sharing his learning on the Technology in the Arts Blog about his podcasting efforts.   At the conference, Brad was recording interviews with the important (not me) and those will also be posted on the camt blog. There was a lot of interest from the audience so I suspect this means we may be hearing a few more arts organizations in the nonprofit podcasting space.  And, with Pittsburgh Podcamp coming up, maybe a few arts organization will check it out.

 

Some additional resources:

My various notes and resources:

Steve Berlind from ZDnet at PodCamp talking about gear and uses my flickr photo in his column!
Interview and session notes with Leesa Barnes Planning a Killer Podcast - pointers to marketing data and planning howtos.

I attended Boston Podcamp with 300 other podcasters, many of them rock stars in the podcasting world.  There was incredible knowledge sharing.  Here's my live blogging notes.  All my blog posts about nonprofits and podcasting can be found here.

My del.icio.us collection on how of podcasting, all of my podcasting resources including more tutorials, fact sheets, nonprofit oriented advice, examples of nonprofit podcasts, and podcasters who have interviewed me (here and here)

Museum Podcasting Resources

From 2006 Museums on the Web Conference:
Podcasting 101
Artcasting at SFMoma

Walker Art Center Blog:  Art Museum Audio Tours - the Santioned and Unauthorized
Netsquared Post:  Museums and Podcasting
Directory of Museum Podcasts

Faith Ringgold: More than

Faith Ringgold gave an inspiring and humorous lecture shared many human stories that illustrate her life's work as an artist, activist, author, teacher and parent through the evolution of a body of work that contains more than 100 paintings. I was struck by a project on her web site, a coloring book for kids about being color blind.   I did an interview with her where she explains the project and I captured a short clip of her reading the story as part of the lecture. Visit her site:

http://www.faithringgold.com
Flickr photo set has more of her images.

I took notes in a very strane way because I was learning how to use my new camera and the presentation was very visual.  So, I took down quotes that caught my attention and tried to link to the photos she was describing.   I was taking photos of powerpoint slides projected on the screen and do not so the work justice.  Go to her web site, go to the Guggenheim Museum where her work is displayed.  See her work live and in person.

Can't make art by anyone else's rules - flag

Power isn't something that people give you, you take it for yourself - black power stamp

Black is beautiful.  I changed my pallette.  I started using a black canvas.   Wanted you to be able to read it.  There's more to than "just a flag."  Read the words in the flag.

Musuems buy paintings and don't sell right away because if they buy early - make money.
The United States of Attica - she gave away for college kids to raise money.  Today they are worth a lot of money. 

In the 70's added sculpture.   You have to do different types of work.  Each type of work, brings a different audience.

In 1980, if painted on canvas and didn't stretch it, it became a quilt.   I could handle them.  I didn't need three guys and a truck.   I could do it myself.  Phillip Morris bought the collection of works.  First exhibiton of quilts.  What makes your work different?  What have you come up with that is new?

In the 60's, the question was what is black art?  In the 70s, what is women's art?  Why are women so important in visual art?   12 different artists - the collection was smart as hell.  They bought the works for $2,000 each - we want our quilts back.

A retrospective can be a funeral for the artists - you show your work and you don't know where to go.  I showed a quilt that was a storybook.  I thought it would be a book.   Tell stories from the images.   I wrote the story because I didn't want people to figure it out and I wasn't gonna be there to tell them.  Someone called it a "story quilt" and I was off and running.

1986 was my first autobiography quilt.  Declaration to loose 100 pounds.  I lost 80.

Sonny Rollins = Sonny's quilt.  She grew up with him.   Would play his music in his closet so he wouldn't disturb neighbors.  He was her inspiration.   He was on the edge blowing his horn - it was like women who need the fortitude to succeed.

Women on the Bridge - Did six in that series.  In 1988 - about the 30's because no ac.  Go on the roof to be cool.  Adults would tell stories and we would listen.  Play cards.  That what the quilt is about.  Asked her to donate to the Guggenheim Museum.   She didn't think the museum would accept it.  They did.  It gets loans out a lot.  On the walls of Guggenheim Museum, it is the most frequently requested work in their collection to loan to other institutions.   They've never given her a show!   They are so busy loaning it out.

Tar Beach - children's book.  It was about my life. 1991.  I had to write my story.  I started writing on my art.  They take a picture of the work, they take a photo of the words unedited.  Been writing my words since 1980, by 1991 - I got the book.  It takes a long time.  It takes a long time for everything.  It wasn't fast, but once it happens you forget how long it took.  When it doesn't happen, you don't forget.

To write and publish, you need a good editor and good agent.  They kept giving me suggestions.  I was inspired by the editors and the warm reception.   

You got to know what happened in order to know the future and where to go.  You don't want a future that inadvertantly repeat the past.  That's why she wrote about Harriet Tubman.  Kids aren't learning about slavery.

The hard part is the writing.  With kids books, you have to come to it and get it over.  Kids books read over and over again.  Bnjour Lonnie - only book out of print.

Subway Commisson - there's a lot of art in the subway.  It makes the subway look great.  Flying Home Series.  A lot of fun to do,  Will be there long after I'm gone and you too.  This was mosaic.  A great opportunity.

Copied European masterpieces in school.  Wasn't introduced to black artists.   Dancing at Louvre.  We were taught to copy them.  When I had an opportunity to go to Europe and stay for extended period of time.  I had a chance to do work.  I'm going to give back what I learned from masters.   A lot of black artists when to Europe in the 20's --- a visual artist like Josephine Baker.  She marries a french.  He dies. He leaves her everything.  An artist needs support.  I did 12 images

I went to Arles.  I looked at Van Gogh's yellow house.  I went to each place where I did the painting.  I went by Gertrude Stein's house.   She was a great art collector.  Lots of people like this series.  Cafe de Artistes -  made the painting.  Her husband left her the cafe - so it was a saloon that wasn't stuffy.

We came to America - not quite in this way.   They are on a slave ship and jump overboard.  The statue of liberty was originally was an African woman.  The sculptor copied the image from his mother.  In france, there are images of African woman.  The symbol of freedman.

Great great grandmother - Susie Shannon - been trying to tell her story.  Survived slavery and lived to over 100.

All moma's can't sing.  You can't kill people when they are singing.  You have to pay attention to that magic.

How the people became colorblind.   www.faithringgold.com

Interview with Donald Marinelli from CMU

 

Interview with Donald Marinelli - Parents and their kids - web2.0 advice

The keynote started off with a welcome from Cary Morrow and a brief awards ceremony.   Howard Wright and Phillip Horn received awards for their visionary efforts in forming CAMT, ArtsNet, and furthering the field of arts management and technology.

Wondeful quote from Dan Martin:

"Wouldn't it be great (1994), if applicants could submit their applications on a floppy disk."

The keynote speaker was Donald Marinelli, Ph.D,  and Executive Producer of the
Entertainment Technology Center at CMU.

It's obvious that his background was drama.  He gave an entertaining talk about how technology has made this generation very different, his center's work, and why it was important for arts people to get involved with technology.

Here's the main points:

New technologies have triggered a vertiable tectonic shift in global culture marked by:

1. Accelaration of generational change
2. Altered perception of time and plantary space
3. Desire for multiple points of view
4. Multi-sensorial state of being
5. Post literate experientially focused generation
6. Primacy of the marketplace and myriad other fundamental changes in societa comportment

He was hilarious .. so I took down some of the best jokes ..

"I have a work study student to turn on my computer.  The idea of founding something with technology was quite a leap for me.  If you approached me in 1981 when I first arrived and told me that I would head up technology center , I'd say pass the pipe."

"The technology has created a new generation that isn't like us - a new race of human beings that might not be humans."

"Digital natives, 21st Century Youth.  Warning they are not like us!  If you are in the business of education or arts, what degree do we know this future generation?  Do we know how much technology has transformed who they are?"

"This generation believes that Matrix was a documentary. Is their frame of reference to believe that Matrix is true. '

"The distinction between entertainment and education -- there isn't one.  He uses his drama background to teach.  It is about justifying your attention to me."

"You the students know more than I do the professor.   Until that confession is made we will be shackled by our ignorance and pride.  I say to my students, you know more about video than I do,  but  I know more about other things.  Education has to be a partnership. As an aging hippy, I like this."

"Have our brains changed or just our perception of time?  You can't do anything in seven minutes accept a little afternoon delight.  LIfe before the microwave.  Baked potatoes - don't have time.   Technology is enhancing this perception of lack of time."

"Kids don't find museums engaging.  We need to turn them into interactive educational centers they should be.  Why don't schools adopt musueums.  My dream is for first graders go out on strike.  With signs  that say "Hell no.  We won't just sit and listen.  We want to be interactive."

"I really don't know what I am doing and it feels great."

Technology in the Arts Conference:Funding Technology Projects

The session was called "Funding Technology Projects" and was moderated by Jeff Forster.  It includes two funders, Doreen E. Boyce from the Buhl Foundation and Christopher J.  Mackie from The Andrew Mellon Foundation.   I interviewed Christopher J. Mackie following the session.  Here's the first segment about how to keep up with learning about technology.

Some key points that resonated:

• Mackie spoke about the issue of nonprofits keeping up to speed in technology and how difficult it was.  He notes, "It isn't possible for one person to keep up. You need your peers.  You need a network.  Find your peers who are in a similar situation and it doesn't have to be another arts organization.  Find your peers and share knowledge."
• Be aware of vendor-driven solutions.  Get the vendors out of the picture and start with your strategic goals.
• We never bought you typewriters, so don't ask for computers.   What are you going to do with the technology?  The outcomes are important.
• Documentation of your project is important and get it disseminated so other people can benefit from your knowledge.
• What comes first, technology or change?  Chicken and egg.  Change for change sake is not good. You need educate people on your board/staff - there will be resistence. 
• Technology literacy is important --- and in order gain literacy you need get people to put fingers to keyboard.  They don't have to be experts, but comfortable.  It helps if there is a technology savvy person who can help in the crisis, but they must be someone who can speak to people in a engaging way about technology.
• Don't get captured by vendors. It is important that your needs don't get overlooked in the relationship.   That's why Open Source is a good way to go - you don't get locked in.
• Vendors are not evil.  Some of them are the best people we know - but it is about the relationship and your interests and needs first.
• Social costs of technology are vastly higher than the box.  The costs of training, replacement, keeping, staffing, etc.
• Business for Open source a.) Heiress or Patron  2.) Consortium.  Farmers Coop is the analogy

Jeff Forster mentioned that his survey of nonprofit technology benchmarks - comparable data from the last six years - the next segment comes out next week!

CAMT: Technology in the Arts Conference

Live    blogging today
Originally uploaded by cambodia4kidsorg.

I'm live blogging from Pittsburgh - Carnegie Mellon - Technology and the Arts Conference


It's a gathering of arts people from all over the country to discuss technology issues.  The wireless works!

Darn, I had a big accident with a leaky water bottle and I ended up leaving my power source in the hotel room (I think).   So, will conserve battery power and take notes with pen and paper ...

Cary McQueen Morrow: Arts and Technology Thought Leader

In two weeks, several hundred arts leaders from around the country will gather on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University to discuss the role of technology in the arts field at the Technology in the Arts Conference.   Cary McQueen Morrow, executive director of the Center for Arts Management and Technology, is the woman and visionary who organized this landmark event.

(Disclaimer:  I'm on the honorary committee because 13 years ago I worked on an online artist network with the New York Foundation for the Arts and CAMT was the partner.)

1.    Tell me a little bit about how you got into arts management?  Many of us started off as artists and then ended up managing arts organizations.  Was that your progression?

Actually, I’m one of those people who made a conscious decision to become an arts manager. In undergrad I earned a BFA in photography  as well as a BA in social thought and analysis. As I thought about my future, I knew I wanted to do something that would allow me to use my practical/analytical skills while still being involved in the arts and other creative pursuits. Arts management was the perfect combination, so I did my graduate work in arts management  and the rest is history!

2.    Right now you are the executive director of  CAMT.  Can you tell me a little bit about your work there?

CAMT lives at the intersection of the information technology and arts management fields. We work with arts organizations from around the country to help them find ways that technology can help them fulfill their missions, increase internal efficiencies, and facilitate communication with their constituents.

As an applied research center, we are also able to build software tools when there isn’t a viable option available from the commercial sector. For example, we’ve recently launched a new product, CueRate, which allows organizations to collect digital images and review them in a panel for fellowships, juried exhibitions, art school admissions, etc.

3.    Why are you organizing a technology and the arts conference?

The main reason is that we hear from arts managers all the time about their need for more information about how they can use technology to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively. There are such great tools available now, and the non-profit community has come such a long way in terms of our thinking about the role of technology in our organizations (thanks in large part to organizations like N-TEN), but the arts sector seems to lag behind. My experience shows that that most of our lagging is simply because we’re not aware of what’s out there. This conference is designed to fill in some of those knowledge gaps.

4.    I see that you have started a conference blog.   Why did you set up a blog?  Who is blogging on it?

We wanted an informal way to communicate with the folks who are interested in Technology in the Arts (the conference and the topic) on a day to day basis.

We have five main bloggers for the site: myself, CAMT’s director of projects and sales Brad Stephenson, and our three fabulously talented conference coordinator interns: Katie Guernsey, Annie Rosenthal and Laura Zamarripa.

5.    Is blogging a topic that is covered in any of the arts management courses? 

Blogging is definitely covered in one of the IT Management courses, and I believe it’s also addressed in a marketing class.

6.    You’ve worked in the arts and technology field for quite some time now.  What are you most excited about these days?

The rapidly expanding availability of Content Management Systems for Web sites. When we first started working with organizations to put up Web sites ten years ago, the only real option available for them was HTML content. Increased availability of WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver and FrontPage helped a lot, but managing content still typically fell to one person within the organization – there was no practical way to distribute content development and posting.

I am tremendously excited by the possibilities afforded by the growing number of commercial and open source content management systems out there, as well as the fact that the prices keep coming down and will soon be within range of any arts organization.

This also reminds me of your earlier question about our work at CAMT. One of the things I love most about my job is the ability we have at CAMT to respond to needs in a very dynamic way. When CAMT first opened our doors, we provided training and classes in HTML for arts managers. For several years we also built custom CMS for arts organizations because we could do so at a much lower cost than they could find elsewhere. Now, we work with organizations to help them identify their Web authoring needs and select one of the many CMS options available in the market.

7.    What worries you the most about the field?

The opinion that I come across from time to time among executive directors that they don’t need to learn about technology… that someone else can just handle this for them.

If arts organizations are going to remain relevant in this information age we simply must use technology strategically to connect with our audiences. We already compete with home entertainment, sports, movies and other leisure experiences… Handicapping ourselves further by not providing engaging, interactive content online and on site will eventually make us irrelevant.

8.    What advice would you offer someone who is interested in entering the arts management field – either as first career or changing careers?

I would start by identifying an organization in your community that does phenomenal work and go work with them on a volunteer basis. Get to know what’s involved in keeping the organization going from day to day and year to year, and discover what aspect of management resonates best with you… Is it education? Marketing? Development? Curating? Programming? Finance?

You might need additional training, depending on what you want to do. There are great resources out there to help. In addition to the wonderful degree programs available, most communities have arts councils that offer workshops and training.