Hello, my name is Kate… and I’m a social media addict. I blog, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr…you name it. Whew. I feel better.

Lucky for me, social media has become an integral part of the way museums create an interactive experience for the museum visitor, especially here at the IMA.

That said, we at the IMA would like to invite all our blog readers and fellow bloggers to peel your eyes from the computer screens for one night, and put a face to the local blogs you love to read. (Don’t worry, we’ll have wi-fi so you can live-blog and tweet to your heart’s content!)

Come one, come all...

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Filed under: Current Events, New Media, Technology

I thought I would follow up Ed’s MW2009 preview with an after the fact look at the online remnants of the conference.

Brooklyn Museum flat out swept the Best of the Web awards and their main website won the overall award.  A huge congratulations from all of us at the IMA for a well-deserved recognition. (Be sure to watch their virtual thank you.)  As if that weren’t enough, I totally missed the news that Brooklyn released an API for their collection.  Even better, someone has already created an iPhone app for them using it.  Open developer access to the IMA’s collection just got a huge bump in priority for me.

We had a great meetup with some of the tech staff of NYPL.  Their group is of a scale and quality that we are quite envious of.  We are greatly looking forward to future collaborations with them. (They’re an ArtBabble partner.)

In the presentation realm the IMA had a cloud computing talk, an evaluation of online video for museums, a solicitation for feedback for the Steve in Action IMLS grant, and an ArtBabble demo.  Other favorites from outside the IMA include alternate reality games, a galaxy of pop stars, and a massive update coming soon to ArtsConnectEd.

Our own Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO gave the opening keynote which you can watch in full on ArtBabble or at the bottom of this post.  It even inspired a great series on transparency for the Museums and the Web conference itself.

Filed under: Current Events, Technology

Every good rally has a chant, right? There’s the infamous “Hell no, we won’t go!” Or how about, “Say it aint’ so, Joe.”

Although the Indy Culture Matters Rally in downtown Indianapolis Monday didn’t have a memorable chant, it had music, influential speakers and a crowd of about 2,000 with a whole lot of heart. I only wish IMA Director Max Anderson would’ve emailed us his post-rally thoughts earlier to use as a pre-rally chant – “Culture counts and we need to be counted!”

How this Movement got off the Ground
Here are the basics: A movement started with conversations among leaders of cultural organizations throughout Central Indiana. Not long after, the movement started popping up on the Web via Twitter, Facebook, eblasts and on the newly created Web site indyculturematters.org. A logo was designed and t-shirts were ordered (IMA members got one free). The rally on Monument Circle was an opportunity for Central Indiana’s cultural institutions, and anyone who believes that Indy culture matters, to make some noise! We demonstrated that Indy Culture matters in our lives, our economy and to the future of Indianapolis.

Speakers at the rally included:

• Superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools Dr. Eugene White
• Community member Pam Davidson
• CEO of Central Indiana Corporate Partnership Mark Miles
• President and CEO of WellPoint, Inc. Angela Braly
• CEO of Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association Don Welsh
• Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard
• Arts Patron Frank Basile

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Filed under: Art, Current Events, Education, Local, New Media

The Museums and the Web 2009 conference was here in Indianapolis last week and I came out of it with a bunch of web related scripts for my patient Monday patients. Here’s a few…

boxee.tv – This is the most incredible 10-foot HTPC interface I’ve ever seen. Windows Media Center and Front Row don’t hold a candle. If it had a PVR feature it would be perfect. And since it already lets you watch Hulu and YouTube as if they are just a normal television channel, MW2009 chats thinks there should be a channel for ArtBabble.

blurb.com – Free book making software. Best part is, you can print as few or as many as you want and the prices are super reasonable. There was a session at the conference where I got to actually check out a sample of their product and it looked just like something you would buy off the shelf at Borders. Oh, they make little flip books too that are super cute. I’m thinking limited edition ArtBabble something.

Mega Menus – In a website critique session at MW2009, I suggested that this slick new interface techniqe was about to be “hot right now.” Funny thing is, nobody had ever heard of a Mega Menu and thus my avant-garde status was confirmed. Oddly, my favorite implementation is on the State Farm Insurance website.

Twitterfall – Thanks to Twitterfall and a video projector, all the Twitter activity tagged with #MW2009 could be seen streaming by as the IMA’s Director, Max Anderson, gave the conference’s opening plenary address. A few months ago a display like this may have been distracting; however, during Max’s speech it was really interesting and helpful to see what people were thinking about as words were hitting their brains.

Monday Music – “Once We Were Strangers” by Peggy Sue. Third rainy Monday in a row.

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Filed under: Current Events, Local, Marketing, New Media

This week-end is Perennial Premiere at the IMA’s Madeline F. Elder Greenhouse. As some of you know, our retail shop is open year-round with houseplants and tropicals for sale. But the third week of April, we break out the perennials, woody plants, and my favorite: the summer annuals. Sue Nord Peiffer, Greenhouse Supervisor, maintains a good mix of cutting edge new plants and tried and true favorites.

Being the nature woman she is, there is also a wide variety of natives for sun and shade. For those more in to garden rooms than gardens, there’s a wide range of non-plant garden related items as well (I’m a big fan of the battery operated paper lanterns). But since I get to write this blog, I’m going to concentrate on plants-  particularly the ones I like best. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Current Events, Horticulture