Koven J. Smith Dot Com - Latest Comments

Re: On bravery, risk-aversion, and hand-slapping | Koven J. Smith

Douglas Hegley — Sat, 06 Apr 2019 14:56:20 -0000

Wanted to add just a bit of context.

The session was focused on innovation in museums. Co-panelist Chris Colbert (Managing Director, Harvard Innovation Labs) had just mentioned that all innovations carried risk - or essentially would not be truly innovative.

My comment was in response, acknowledging that our sector *in general* is risk averse, but often for reasons that are overblown. Because leadership is hesitant about risk, staff absorb (and may exaggerate) the concept, inflating in their minds the worst-case outcomes of taking risks. I said that *in my experience* taking risks, even when failed, usually lead to an actual outcome that isn't as bad as feared (thus, "hand slap").

When the tweet went out, it clearly touched a nerve. I *certainly* acknowledge that some people may work in such toxic environments that taking a risk might clearly be dangerous. The fact of that is a negative mark on any organization, in my opinion. So I never meant to indicate that any all risks are no big deal. I meant to be encouraging. With the tweets that followed, I learned more perspectives (thanks everyone) and I realize that I'd failed to acknowledge that my being a white male in a position of relative authority in my org *definitely* reduces risk for me personally. Point well taken.

Ultimately I wish that everyone who feels like their careers are scary-precarious (and that their jobs could be taken away for a single action) could work in an organization with a kinder and more supportive culture. I realize that could sound unrealistically utopian, especially to folks who feel very locked into their current situations.

Re: Is convenience eroding the values of museum technology? | Koven J. Smith

Mar Dixon — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 11:36:13 -0000

Very thought-provoking and something that needs to be discussed. There are pockets of this conversation happening (esp with FB, privacy and the intro to GDPR) but it really needs to be more open - and that includes getting the public invited to the table.

Re: Museum technology at cruising altitude | Koven J. Smith Dot Com

dave patten — Thu, 17 May 2018 00:47:16 -0000

I wish I’d been part of the conversation, I think you are right in saying Museums are in a very different place now than they were a few years ago but I think the really major shift is that we are all rightly focussed on the needs of our audiences. Audience first tech second but I don’t think we should give up all our pioneering ways the pace of change of technology shows no sign of slowing down we need to adapt and find ways to engage our audiences and explore new and emerging technologies together. From where I am it feels more like we have just jettisoned the first stage of the Saturn 5 and the second stage engines are just kicking in - there’s still away to go before we reach orbit.

Re: Is the museum technology sector shrinking? | Koven J. Smith Dot Com

Rachel Ropeik — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 12:35:51 -0000

Your middle section here (about designing for the future but not maintaining it) has been much on my mind in the past year or so. It's actually what motivated my session about slow change at last year's MCN. I don't think this is limited to musetech (or museums, generally), but I do think the tech industry is a big part of what models this "make changes boldly, quickly, and continuously" attitude (ABC... always be changin'), and that's not sustainable. Especially in museums.

Because that model of Heroic Change is so often seen in the Silicon Valley scene, I do think it has a tendency to permeate museums' digital staffing departments more readily than other departments, which feeds into the people who are leaving in frustration.

I wonder if there are more systemic ways we can prepare ourselves and our employees for the realities of making slow changes and seeing our roles as a higher degree of maintenance work (love me some Mierle Laderman Ukeles on this topic from the artistic POV). I'm still wrestling with how to make that a reality, but I do think we're doing ourselves a disservice (and hurting the longevity of people's careers in the field) by putting so much focus on designing and revolutionizing and... dare I say it... disrupting.

Re: Defining “digital”

Caitlin — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 11:54:45 -0000

Is it digital to take up this conversation months after your post?

While we may have use for a word that means "‘we accept the internet values of usability, needs focus and agility," I don't think digital fills the bill. It certainly carries an association with those values, but when I hear it spoken by colleagues and clients, it's somewhat less abstract. I think digital means actually "composed of digits," as in 0s and 1s, as in hey, we're interacting using this fabulously flexible and permeating mechanism! Even though we don't really know how it works, I think we've been using digital to mean how it really works. It encompasses all the types of machines and screens and software that museum folk get so excited about playing with and offering to their audiences.

Re: Have museums always been “authoritative?”

Sheila Brennan — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 14:46:47 -0000

Reading something else, and it occurred to me that if you weren't familiar with Michael Frisch's book, A Shared Authority, about oral history and public history from 1990, that you might find it useful. I know we are passed M&W14 but in case you're doing something further with your talk, here you go: http://www.sunypress.edu/p-...

Re: The museum as skeuomorph

Alice Rubin — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 14:15:28 -0000

Can you give some examples that work? Many of us our frustrated, but we need positive role models.

Re: Sorting out how I feel about Gallery One

Koven! — Wed, 07 May 2014 18:36:55 -0000

This is really interesting, Jasper. It would be interesting to see whether the 0s and 5s ended up in sustaining, committed relationships, or whether that was reserved more for the 3s and 4s. ;) Maybe that's what I'm interested in here. I'm not interested in pushing technology to the margins (quite the opposite, actually), but I am interested in using technology in a sustainable way that allows us to build on past successes and knowledge. Gallery One is a huge leap forward, but it's also one that would be easy for a museum less talented/thoughtful/resourced than the Cleveland Museum of Art to totally screw up were it to attempt to replicate it. This is in contrast to something like DMA's "Friends" program, which is certainly putting the technology right up front, but feels to me like something that another museum could attempt without an immense amount of risk. DMA Friends is a program that, in code parlance, would "degrade gracefully" when attempted by other institutions, whereas Gallery One wouldn't.

Re: Sorting out how I feel about Gallery One

Jasper Visser — Thu, 01 May 2014 08:26:41 -0000

Compelling thoughts Koven. Isn't Gallery One like using the colour orange for your brand: it's likely to fail unless you're really good at it (EasyJet, the Dutch).

I once read this research I'm now unable to Google, that had found that on a dating site the 'good' profiles didn't get most messages, but those that had the greatest variation in scores (lots of 0s and 5s instead of lots of 3s and 4s). When we push technology to the margins, we're doing what's wisest, maybe even safest. We're going for 'good' - which is OK as we need to fight for our budgets. When we place tech at the heart we're risking a 0, but might get a 5 (if we're really, really good at it.) Gallery One scores lots of 5s, and I'm sure some 0s as well. It's the quirky girl/boy on Tinder.

What surprises me most is that you say this is not a thing you would try to do yourself. You certainly could.

Re: Sorting out how I feel about Gallery One

bwyman — Thu, 01 May 2014 01:29:04 -0000

We push the tech to the margins in the same way that a drummer would his drumsticks. Yeah, he cares a lot about them and he's probably obsessed sweetly over his choice, but that's not for the rest of the world. What matters is what he plays. So it is with the use of tech and what we do with it.

Re: Have museums always been “authoritative?”

Sheila Brennan — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 21:31:35 -0000

You might want to search through back issues of Curator. I just tried this myself and found that I could do full-text searching, but don't have access to the articles through my institution's subscription. Perhaps a friend at a museum has access to the back issues.

One thing that will be interesting to parse out is when museum professionals and their audiences become aware of the idea of authority and using it to define work the work done, that had mots likely been passed down by practices w/in the profession. I do think there is probably something happening in the late 20th century that relates to changes in exhibition design and the moving away from cases of objects to narratives that are highlighted with exhibits (not in all genres of museums).

There are also most likely differences between the museum being seen as the authority and a curator being the authority on xx subject.

I did see references to "museum authorities" in UK publications and those related to governing bodies overseeing museums. That might also be something to explore.

I'm sure I can think of more ideas if you give me a night to think on it. ;-)

Re: Have museums always been “authoritative?”

Koven! — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 16:42:19 -0000

Thanks, Shelia! That's really interesting. I'm partially curious about this because I'm working with a group on a panel on Open Authority for MCN2014, and I realize that as we're attempting to define what an "open" version of authority would look like, we don't really (it seems to me, anyway) understand the concept of "authority" in a museum context. As someone who entered the field when this word was already being used all the time, it seemed to me like a concept that had been around for as long as museums themselves had been around, but it looks like that may not necessarily be the case.

Re: Have museums always been “authoritative?”

Sheila Brennan — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 13:47:16 -0000

From a very quick look at the ngram viewer and quickly reviewing those places where museum and authority are used together, it seems like the concept of a museum's authority is grounded in discussions about representation of stories, voices, and collections in the late 80s, early 90s. And isn't necessarily coming from within the museum profession itself talking about itself. That does make sense when we think about broader trends of cultural and post-modern criticism and theory of institutions and their construction taking place at this time. I agree that this is a good research project.

Re: Why are we so tired?

Koven! — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 21:54:58 -0000

Thanks, Tyler. I've been following Dan Pallotta's stuff for a while, though I have yet to actually read "Uncharitable." I'll check it out. I still wonder, though, if a lot of what I've been seeing in my travels is not so much a business model problem as it is a management model problem. And in that sense, I think museums, more than other non-profits (though I'm obviously generalizing wildly here), have historically had a hard time embracing management as a separate discipline.

Re: Why are we so tired?

Koven! — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 21:32:50 -0000

Thanks, Emily! I'd be careful about positing this as a technologist-only problem; the thing that has really struck me is how pervasive this problem seems to be--I'm hearing it from technologists, of course, but also from registrars, from exhibit(ion) designers, from curators, etc. So I think there's a problem with those carrying out the plans not being involved in high-level decision-making, but some of what I'm hearing makes me wonder whether part of the problem is that the high-level decision-making doesn't actually exist the way it does in popular imagination. Several people I have spoken with talk about things just "happening," without decisions actually having been made at all.

And I think you're getting at something with high-level technology integration (and yes, that is the post I'm planning on writing next ;). I keep thinking that part of the problem right now is that a lot of technology still requires an absurd amount of facilitation and hand-holding, which creates a bunch of overhead that we didn't have in the olden days.

Re: Why are we so tired?

Koven! — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 21:11:47 -0000

I think that's important, but I think that is a separate and only loosely coupled problem to what I'm describing here. I'm seeing the same patterns of burnout across both well-funded and not-so-well-funded institutions. Obviously, increased funding would help, but my concern is when I look at the patterns I'm seeing now, I'm not convinced that more funding would be spent in more efficient ways.

Re: Why are we so tired?

suse cairns — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 18:50:08 -0000

Hey K. Interesting timing. Only this week I had a similar conversation on the expectations of staff to churn through project after project, without any real time for reflection or that 'thinking time' that you're talking about.

If we're talking about this as being a structural problem, it would be useful to know where in the structure it originates from and what are the forces acting upon it. Is it institutional time management? Insufficient staffing? Is it an unrealistic sense of how long particular jobs should and do take, and no allowance for that time? Most tech folk I know have spoken at least a
few times about how someone in the organisation approaches them wanting a website in mere days, without taking into account how long such projects take. What seem to be the pressure points that lead to this strain?

Re: Why are we so tired?

Emily — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 16:30:10 -0000

Great post, Koven. For me, there is a lot of tension between being asked to do so much while simultaneously not being involved in ANY high-level decision making or planning. We are often handed down edicts then expected to somehow innovate within these poorly thought-out confines. Most days, it feels like running and going nowhere. Perhaps this is the future post you alluded to in P2?

I think this issue of exhaustion also points to continued difficulty integrating technology throughout the museum to share the burgeoning workload, instead of relegating to a small section of the staff deemed capable. Technology is a tool, we should all be responsible to test it with (some) impunity.

Re: Why are we so tired?

Tyler — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 15:00:17 -0000

Thank you for posting this. In my opinion, this is an issue with non profits as an institution. The current model is not sustainable and only brings frustration. I'd recommend reading Dan Pallotta's 'Uncharitable (Civil Society: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives)'. It does a good job explaining why we, as a society, limit the potential of what non profits could accomplish.

Re: Why are we so tired?

lafemmeartiste — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 13:08:55 -0000

VALUE THE ARTS. Funding priorities and our relationships to this process, reflecting clear, solid valuing of the arts is the heart of the problem.

Re: Why are we so tired?

lafemmeartiste — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 13:06:00 -0000

"A lot more to say about this…" More specificity about what the article purports to be highlighting in museums concerning burnout and fatigue, would be a great start.

Re: Why are we so tired?

Koven! — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 19:07:01 -0000

This is a great post, Jeffrey. I think you're probably right that the stresses we're feeling are probably more representative of a larger problem. I first started thinking about this issue, actually, when I read David Graeber's "On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs," which is not in any way sector-specific.

Where we (and I'll include Education in this as well) are a bit different is that one, we don't really share in the rewards of what we create except in a very abstract way (no stock options & low pay; most museum employees aren't even invited to the gala openings for exhibitions they work on), and our business model has proven rather resistant to the kind of change that might ease some of the pressure here (see Matt's comment and my response below). It's like we're being asked to work startup hours without any of the potential benefits that come with working at a startup.

I plan on writing a longer post about this in the near future, but I really feel that the fact that most technology initiatives have not migrated out of technology/digital departments and permeated staff activities elsewhere has caused museums to not realize the functional gains that the technology promised in the first place. I had an interesting conversation with James Forrest (former interactive designer at the Peabody-Essex Museum) today in which he talked about companies like Travelocity suddenly realizing that they were actually "tech" companies and needed to function that way. I think we may have a similar reckoning in our future.

Re: Why are we so tired?

Koven! — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 18:49:02 -0000

This is all so right on, Nate. I almost hesitated to post this, having recently jumped off the carousel myself, but it really does strike me that this is a sector-wide problem. It's not just technologists, and it's not just underfunded institutions. It's everywhere.

Re: Why are we so tired?

Koven! — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 18:45:35 -0000

I'd be really interested to know whether there are museums out there that are evading the burnout bullet, as well. My gut tells me that this is not solely an American thing, but I'll take that back if I hear evidence to the contrary.

I do think there's something to dig into there with this reluctance to apply real business analysis to current activities, or to seriously question current methods and models. It strikes me that museums haven't seen any real true innovation in their business models or their approaches to core activities (fundraising, collecting, preserving, etc.)--most of the innovations have been programmatic ones. And maybe these programmatic innovations (social media, participation, crowdsourcing, etc., etc., etc.) are now creating more expectation and stress than the old business model can handle.

Re: Why are we so tired?

Koven! — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 17:07:54 -0000

I think you're right Seb--the "brain drain" (to use a cliche) and, even more critically, the loss of domain knowledge in our sector is about to become rather a large problem. I'd also agree with Jeffrey's post (check it out) that this isn't a problem that plagues technologists alone. That was what has really struck me when talking with people--nearly everyone, across all areas of the museum, is feeling the burnout.