Despi and I headed to Brooklyn to have lunch with Shelley at Juniors. [Quick side note: do you realize I ate cornbread, a fried chicken breast, mac and cheese, and mashed potatoes with gravy?] The food was absolutely delicious and it was a chance to catch up with Shelley about museums, technology and our projects. It’s rare to spend time with someone that is so honest and open and willing to collaborate or share experiences. That is what Shelley has done at Brooklyn and it’s that same spirit that we try to follow in Indianapolis.
This is not the first time the Brooklyn Museum has been mentioned in an IMA blog post. We routinely plug other institutions we admire, envy or _______. But in the world of museum technology and the visitor experience, Shelley and her team are simply brilliant, and I’m not ashamed to say that I really look up to them.

So – I’m not going to bore you with a complete transcription of our lunch conversation (although it actually would be pretty funny), but I will recap some of things we discussed and I really do want to highlight some of the Brooklyn projects. Yes, I am sending you away from our site – it’s very Web 3.0 of me. Here are few quick projects -

I tend to raise an eyebrow when people go nuts about Web 2.0 applications, etc. but flickr is a site I LOVE. And of course the Brooklyn Museum showed us (the museum us) how to successfully use it. So check out there page here or their Brooklyn Bridge group here. BTW, ours is here.

Facebook, Facebook, Facebook. What happens when you develop an application for Facebook that pretty much any museum can join? Well, ArtShare brings works of art from Brooklyn, IMA, the Met, the Walker and many more museums directly to your Facebook profile. Thank Brooklyn for that one.

When we were devising the IMA blog, guess who we looked to and called? Check out the Brooklyn blog. Multiple authors, lots of imagery, and frequent posts. It’s the only way to roll.

And finally, Shelley and others are organizing a community focused exhibition called Click! that is going to be a smash hit. Remember you heard it here second, so check it out here.

That’s the quick recap. We also talked about our IMA projects – but we always mention those in our blogs, so I’m taking a break today. I know this is a very surface level overview of our meeting, but sorry – I’m in New York, and in between meetings and shooting video, I’ve got to go find a cannoli. I’m sure Despi and Shelley will chime in.