Koven J. Smith Dot Com - Latest Comments

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Darren Milligan — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:56:30 -0000

I have to agree with Rainer here. This issue is fundamentally more about the shifting definition of "museum" than the role of tech, or who is, or isn't talking to each other. The act of thinking of tech as "ordinary" as plumbing, means that conservatives have to acknowledge this shift, to admit to themselves that the picture of the world that they have known, or spent their careers developing, is not complete anymore.

Talked to a lot of people at MW this year about the need to get more curators, educators, etc., etc,. etc. involved in shaping this conversation.

Re: Online collections, hey! Online collections, what?

DavidDReeves — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:15:27 -0000

and yes, i have been to see the Mona Lisa and the picture I took was of hundreds of people taking photos of the backs of hundreds of peoples' heads and other cameras. The social experience was way more important than the brush-strokes.

Re: Online collections, hey! Online collections, what?

DavidDReeves — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:56:31 -0000

Hi Koven, Thanks for “un-chairing” a good session at MW2012. And well done for getting your thoughts out so quickly before the steam-roller of daily work took over. Can’t believe it’s a week back at my desk already.
The Facebook – Timeline thing came up the day before in the pre-conference workshop I attended, led by Jill Sterrett (SFMOMA) and others. Ostensibly about intra-museum collaboration, the conversation usefully moved into the sharing of collection data and more significantly the importance of finding ways to gather, store and share a wider range of collection information. More than the “tombstone” and collection management data most of us accept as the standard, what about the meanings, the relationships, the interviews, audience reactions, and the evolution of these things over time. I wondered out loud, if instead of running a Collection Management System what we really need is a Context Management System. What would it be like if each item in our collection had its own Facebook page? Works of art (or social history objects, or natural history specimens for that matter) could have photos, biography, relationships with each other and with people, friends, be “liked”, join groups, attend events …
There are of course one or two reasons that we might not use Facebook itself but conceptually a tool that allows organic growth and communication of contexts is important, with permeability between the institution and the crowd.
The breadth and depth question – how can we be useful and friendly to both scholars and casual visitors? It’s hard but few museums can afford to focus only on one end or the other, somehow we have to do both, and everyone in between. The trick might be in understanding the motivation and various purposes that different audiences bring to our online collections. It’s the after-market thing, a bit. What do people want to do with our online collections? - share with friends, include in wider research, get a general impression of what we are about, answer a specific query, purchase a copy, respond or re-use. If all of these are true for one segment of our users or another then the challenge is to provide a range of search and interaction options – which then relates to the point about making online collections (or at least some of them) actionable. Clearly understanding user motivation and purpose as always the best start I think.
Cheers, David

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Rainer Mack — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 12:47:24 -0000

Completely agree with you all, as you know. When I think about the "digital divide" in museums, on one hand I think the solution is potentially simple. We [can I say we?] just need to cultivate interest among individual colleagues, and slowly build tech-informed practice across our institutions. To the degree that one can convince dept. heads and other decision-makers, all the better. But at another level, I think the issue is much deeper or more fundamental - it's about a changing definition of what a museum is...and not everyone is ready yet to make that change. Everyone will have to eventually, but jeez you hate to just sit on your hands and wait for the Big Generational Shift. I guess that's where organizations like MW and MCN come in - to advocate, educate, and help move us forward.

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Suse Cairns — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 22:20:30 -0000

Yes, I think this is absolutely right. Museums and their involvement with/place on the web is now about much more than just those responsible for the "tech" side of things. So how do we get the rest of the people to become part of the conversation? How do we make it clear that we want them to contribute as well?

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Koven! — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 14:56:47 -0000

Yes. I think we talk a lot about the need for museum technologists to leave their "tech bubble" and engage more directly with other parties, but I think, as you're saying here, that we need to think of it the other way around. Those in our institutions who are not participating in the "new communication" or what have you need to be drawn out of their bubble, rather than the other way around...

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Nancy Proctor — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 23:15:45 -0000

Too right: I totally agree. I'm now thinking we need to emphasize that all those networks of "non-technical" museum people are as much part of the conversation and target audience at MW (& passim) as anyone who actually works directly with the "Web"...

Thanks for starting and guiding this important conversation!

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Koven! — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:45:50 -0000

Nancy, I think you're right (and, as you know, I do tend to hyperbole in my occasional blog posts ;). The argument is a bit of a straw man, and maybe "taking tech out of the conversation" isn't actually quite the right framing of the problem. My original concern stemmed from having heard many times that tech people need to learn to to "talk to curators" or whatever, but rarely hearing that curators need to learn to talk to technologists. But the more we discuss this, the more I'm feeling that the real issues are far more complex than that, even though we're touching on several of them in this discussion.

I think for me, I worry that museum technologists are still, by and large, solely responsible for the kind of education and literacy we're talking about here, and I just don't see that as a sustainable solution, particularly since it doesn't look to me that quote-unquote digital literacy is being built in to non-technology jobs as a core requirement. I certainly feel that external communication on the part of our content creators (and here I mean curators, scientists, educators, conservators, whatever) can and should be a major part of the job, but I'm not seeing that listed as a required part of most job descriptions out there. We still consider ourselves lucky if a content creator is good on-camera, or is able or willing to blog frequently, as opposed to simply expecting these qualities to be a part of what a content creator does.

And so this is where I feel the "tech in/out of the conversation" piece comes in--as I've commented elsewhere in this thread, the more we as technologists say that it's okay for you to not understand pervasive (and as Matt says, commonplace) tech like Wikipedia or whatever, versus expecting you to arrive with that knowledge, the more we continue to make digital literacy an add-on rather than a core function of the museum.

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Nancy Proctor — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 23:58:43 -0000

Bruce called it a "zero sum game"; the phrase that came to my mind is "straw man." I'm not sure who said "take tech out of the conversation" but I don't think anyone can be a serious - or at least effective - part of the conversation if they ignore technology and how it is shaping culture and museum discourse today. So while I wholeheartedly agree with you and Matt that a certain level of technology and media literacy can reasonably be expected at all levels of the museum, "leave tech in the conversation" feels a bit like the wrong fight - or tilting at straw men.

Perhaps more productively we can start to define what kinds of technology and skill museum staff need to understand, and how they can get to that understanding along with all the other training and activities they are responsible for in a 40+ hour work week. There's no point expecting staff to speak socialmediaese without having had access and encouragement to learn it, any more than they can speak German or Italian or whatever. Where museum technologists can do themselves a disservice is by mystifying what we do, or being "so cool" that the other kinds of nerds in the museum fear they'll never possibly be able to get it. I'd like the technology we work with to be as easy and intuitive for our colleagues to use as electricity and indoor plumbing, so there are truly no barriers to participation in the important work of creating the museum experience - for staff or everyone else.

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Rainer Mack — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 21:30:31 -0000

Great idea! It's like offering language classes for staff, only the language isn't Italian or German, it's socialmediaese

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Mairin Kerr — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 21:16:03 -0000

Suse maybe the public learning curve problem can be fixed by teaching the upper level managers some online etiquette (ex when do you reply to a tweet, do you have to comment every time someone mentions you on twitter or writes on your blog etc). If you could hold workshops or send out information about things like online etiquette I think that could help immensely. Or am I being naive thinking this could work?

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Matt Popke — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:53:41 -0000

@Suse: It's about risk and learning to accept some. Discussions on your blog have gone down this same path. We can't play it safe all the time anymore. We have to be willing to accept some risk and experiment out in the open. Luckily for us, people in general are getting more forgiving of failure if they see institutions trying something truly innovative and new (this is a generalization, I know. But in my experience, in my native culture it bears out. I hope it's true elsewhere too).

It's not about getting leadership to understand the value of blogging. It's about getting them to accept the risk of trying something new in public. Otherwise, they're not going to get on board with any new media initiative no matter who is doing the blogging. It's not tech-averse leadership that's the root of the problem, but risk-averse leadership. Once you remove fear from the equation, explaining the tech and its benefits becomes a relatively simple task.

I think the accelerated rate of change in recent years has started to get tiring for a lot of people. It's hard to keep up with sometimes. And confusion can cause fear. So it's a downward spiral, being confused makes them afraid which causes them to retreat further from that which is confusing them, confusing them even more, making them more afraid... etc.

Of course, the upside is that once you start to succeed in educating your stakeholders and reducing their fear it starts a virtuous cycle in the other direction.

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Bruce Wyman — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:45:57 -0000

"Sitting in endless meetings arguing about Whether We Should Have A Blog with staff who neither read nor write blogs is not" ... I'd agree with that in a heartbeat. I'd rather get the blog built and running and then when people question whether we need it to be in the position of pulling out the metrics of what's already working or not.

More things faster works pretty well and asking for apologies rather than permission. ;)

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Vickie Riley — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:22:36 -0000

I don't know how it works in other museums but in mine, the curator calls the shots. I don't . For me to expect that he's going to embrace what I do is a bit naive. The art comes first, how it's put together, and the idea it's communicating.

And while tech in museum is my job, it's what we do, I don't think it needs to permeate everything. Experiencing art on it's own can be a transformative experience. I see my job as enriching that experience, to support that experience and the mission of the museum which is largely to teach (we are on a college campus after all ).

In all honesty I wrongly assumed curators considered visitor experience. Its such an integral part of what I do of course it made sense that it was their mission as well. I found out today that was secondary.

The folks at the conference who had success with tech in galleries etc had support from the top. So Suse, I agree with you, it will otherwise be an uphill battle,which I think can be won by taking tech out of the conversation and taking a step back to assess the experience as Bruce suggests.

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Rainer Mack — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:40:13 -0000

The lesson I took from MW - and that I wanted to express in my post on the MW site - was that all of us non-media museum people need to get ourselves into the media conversation, not the other way around. So I completely agree with where you are headed, Koven and Suse. And would say that the real question is how to get tech INTO the curatorial/education/design/etc. conversation. For you all to try to figure out how to talk like curators (et al.) is a dead end. You are the ones transforming how information and culture is consumed/communicated, so it's up to the curators (et al.) to begin to learn your language.

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Suse Cairns — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:29:15 -0000

I just replied to a commenter on my original post about this same issue. If museum leadership isn't blogging/tweeting themselves (which they might not be... it requires both time, and learning in public), then they won't understand the value of the medium as greatly as someone who is. But if leadership doesn't understand the value, then the push to do these things will probably come more from the bottom up instead of the top down. And that's fine, but it means it's more likely to be an uphill battle.

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Koven! — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:22:41 -0000

And this is something we should talk in more depth about, but a big part of the problem is that many museum position descriptions haven't evolved with the times. There are exceptions to this, obviously, but I can't think of many curatorial job postings that begin with "please send a resume and link to your personal blog." I fear that until this changes, we continue to send the signal that it's okay to not speak this language.

(That said, if someone at my museum is having difficulty with Excel, I'm obviously going to help them out. That IS in my job description;)

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Koven! — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:18:42 -0000

I agree, Bruce. I don't see this as zero-sum, but I do want to be cautious that us trying to find common ground doesn't become an institution-stagnating justification of tech that doesn't need justifying.

Me working with a curator to find a workable solution to a problem that may or may not involve tech is something I'm happy to spend many hours on. Sitting in endless meetings arguing about Whether We Should Have A Blog with staff who neither read nor write blogs is not.

And I recognize that we're the new thing, which is why I'm far more gracious about this stuff in person than I am when I write about it ;) However, we're new, but we're also how the rest of the world works. The world won't slow down to work at museum speed, so I feel that a big part of my job is getting the museum to move at tech-speed.

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Suse Cairns — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:41:26 -0000

Great point about suggesting non-tech alternatives. In Rainer Mack's Interloper Report from MW2012, he talks about Erica Gangsei's ArtGameLab session, where "no one batted an eye at the fact that the Lab's games were all on paper, or "analog"". So it becomes about finding the right solution, and not necessarily the *tech* solution.

Meanwhile, I'm stuck on the other issues. One one hand, I fully believe that we need to be generous with our knowledge and bring others along for the ride. On the other hand, if someone in your institution didn't understand how to use Word or Excel, whose responsibility would it be to give them the skills to use it? Basic computer skills have become all pervasive and necessary, but the digital skills that have really become important are ones like search, maybe moreso than publish. Which are the right skills that people need to have to survive and thrive in the digital age?

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Bruce Wyman — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:31:09 -0000

I'll add:

- treat someone's suggestion as data points that hint at the experience that's possible.
- *always* question a suggested implementation, even if it's in your own mind, to make sure you understand intent
- feel free to suggest non-tech alternatives, especially if they're cheaper or more effective.
- take every opportunity to teach someone else more about the effectiveness or subtleties of a particular kind of technology, share knowledge and experience.
- recognize that people's suggestions are limited primarily what they've seen and experience. You've likely seen and considered a much broader universe.
- you shouldn't be creating something that satisfies a feature list, you should be creating an experience (that's the difference between an iPhone and an android phone)
- you're really building trust.

Re: Leave tech in the conversation

Bruce Wyman — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 18:25:12 -0000

You're treating it as a zero-sum game — you either talk about tech or not as absolutes — rather than seeing it as a way to find common ground.

Because tech is new, it becomes easy to confuse the message for the medium. I don't want someone coming to me telling me that they want to design an iPad app for the gallery. I want them to tell me that we want to find a way for visitors to explore detailed brush strokes.

If I come you, wanting to draw upon your expertise as a musician, should I tell you to make me a recording that uses three violins, an alto sax, and a laptop? Or would you prefer that I *trust* you as a musician and tell you that I'm doing a live show in a public space and I need help in creating something that feels upbeat to accompany an emo dance number and let you make a recommendation about the best execution.

I'm not saying to exclude or prevent the worlds from colliding, but it's easy for junior staff to focus on implementing what's been asked rather than stepping back for a moment and taking a critical look and offering an alternative. That, and you're the new thing — I think it's important to make the effort to find the common ground. It's going to be smart and gracious if the new thing makes the effort. That's the real underlying message.

Re: Online collections, hey! Online collections, what?

Monique — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 04:49:51 -0000

If you haven't already come across this there is a list of museum APIs being curated here:
http://museum-api.pbworks.com/...

Re: Online collections, hey! Online collections, what?

Chad Weinard — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 23:47:06 -0000

There are several great directions to go with this. I'm regretting not going to your unconference session (embarrassment of riches at MW2012!). Some quick thoughts:

Actionable collections: Yes! Art is a great social object. Go beyond making it shareable in the chiclet icon sense. Encourage visitors to embed items from the collection in blogs, on Tumblr, Wordpress, etc. (Thinking of Flickr, Vimeo, YouTube--those other popular collection sites--as models.)

And not just single items--let's embed small personal sub-sets of the collection--shown as galleries or slideshows. These might illustrate a point, or accompany an article, or just float in someone's sidebar, much like an rdio playlist, etc., saying "This is what I like/This is who I am" (See Suse's "Collection as identity formation" http://museumgeek.wordpress.co...

I love the idea of innovating on the presentation layer...while sharing the plumbing (I'm thinking of something like TAP, with a common spec as the foundation--and authoring tools to output to spec, if needed--but with freedom to build creatively on top.) Perhaps in addition to a common dataset, we structure an API, and we all work from that?

Maybe I'm just dreaming of a common museum tool that will turn collection/TMS data into a useful open API, and perhaps integrate tagging and personal collection-making. That would be swell...not to mention the benefit of a common API, which might get really interesting fast. (Was that the dream of the Steve project?)

Timelines: Fascinating...imagine automatically adding culture-specific historic events to add context, as well. (Thinking of ways to fill in the gaps in my collection history...)

Thanks for getting the juices flowing.

Re: Online collections, hey! Online collections, what?

Suse Cairns — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 20:45:22 -0000

I love Charlie's idea! I'm not sure how it would work in practice, particularly for objects that have little existing documentation, but I think it's got some interesting possibilities. Recently I had a guest blog on my post, looking at the idea of running a CMS more like Facebook (http://museumgeek.wordpress.co..., but this continues that discussion into an interesting new way.

The idea that you could have an interpretation timeline, which includes new information as it comes to life and shows/makes visible the process of interpretation is a really cool idea. It would radically open the museum/art industry in a way that might be quite confronting, but I think that only makes it more interesting.

Lots to think about here. I look forward to continuing this discussion. Thanks for posting this round up, since I had to miss your session in order to run my own.

Re: The Kinetic Museum

Sheila Brennan — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:56:46 -0000

There are some examples of best practices that are usually stuck (meaning not necessarily searchable from Google) in grant reports and white papers from places like NEH, IMLS, and NSF. When applying for any of those grants, you also need to do a survey of what is out there and usually the grant committees can tell whether folks have really done a good scan of what is out there as models or as something not to replicate. Those "environmental scans" if you will should also be available in grant applications.

NEH and IMLS are getting better about publishing this material but it is definitely a good place to start when thinking about big issues.

There are also folks in the digital humanities sector researching some of these issues as well, especially with regard to preservation and access--libraries and archives are really ahead of museums on this, as I'm sure you know. Preserving Virtual Worlds might have good advice on preserving digital art forms (was a big grant from Library of Congress and a few universities): http://pvw.illinois.edu/pvw/

Enough of my ramblings for now. You're asking good questions!