So another month begins, the temperature a balmy 95 or 99 or 100 or whatever the hell it reaches today. I mean, it is freaking 92 at 8:30 at night as I write this. That is not acceptable, as my friend Avonell would say. And quite frankly it’s more than a bit irritating. But thankfully it is back down to the 70’s for highs by Monday. Nothing odd about that now is there, Kids?

Well, my last blog talked about the upcoming Garden Writers Association (GWA) annual symposium to be held here in Indianapolis. I’m sure you are all dying to know if I won the Gold in 2011. As a matter of fact, no, I did not. GWA did not award the Gold in my category this year. Both my competition and I had to settle for Silver. As my friend Scarlet once said, “As God as my witness, I’ll never go hungry again”. Now, what does that statement have to do with this blog? Frankly my dear, not a damn thing. It’s just what came into my head and I have to get those things out of my head right away sometimes. Anyways, I’m quite proud of my Silver Award in Electronic Media Writing.

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Filed under: Horticulture

Last week, I was lucky enough to spend a few days in London at the 2010 Tate Handheld Conference where a group of really smart folks were gathered to plan and brainstorm ways that museums can take advantage of new advances in mobile technology.

Planning the Future of Museum Mobile Experiences @ Tate

Many of you may know that the IMA has been really active in building mobile content for our main website, our special exhibitions, and 100 Acres.  One of the things I love about working at the IMA is that we always try to give a little love back to our museum buddies when we undertake new projects.  That’s why we’ve made all the software for these mobile experiences available for free to anyone who’d like to play around with them.

While I’m happy that many museums can pick these tools up and use them for their own content, it won’t be the right solution for everyone.  In fact, it only solves just part of the problem.

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Filed under: Technology

Wow, two action-packed weeks back to back… Since launching ArtBabble last week we’ve gained 1600 new registered users and served over 140,000 pages. This week Museums and the Web is coming to Indianapolis.

A Wordle generated by Jennifer Trant, via Flickr

Here’s a sampling of some of the things that our group is involved in at the conference:

• This morning’s whirlwind tour of tech at the IMA
• Presenting a paper on Cloud Computing
• Talking about social tagging and online video
• Cheering ArtBabble on for Best of the Web
• Hanging out with the cool cats in the Davis Lab during Friday’s reception
• Demoing ArtBabble for the early birds on Saturday (note to self: don’t party too hard on Friday)

And of course we’ll be looking forward to discovering tales of triumph and seeds of inspiration from the great work that everyone else at the conference will be sharing.

Filed under: Local, New Media, Technology

Yes, I was just in Washington DC, but this post isn’t going to be about national politics. A few of us recently returned from the Museum Computer Network conference – four days of workshops, presentations, and case studies on topics ranging from virtual machines to the semantic web. Since I totally forgot about having to blog upon our return, I’ll just share some of the bits I found interesting.

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Filed under: Technology, Travel

It took days to get here including 2 flight cancellations, roughly 12 hours of airport lounging, an almost trip to Boston and a 4:00am wake up call. Is SXSW in Austin worth it? You better believe it.

I love Texas. I always have. So it’s good to be in Austin for SXSW. It’s my first visit but honestly, I’ve never been a big conference fan. I’ve always appreciated the opportunity for professional development, the chance to meet new colleagues and of course learn something new, but I must admit, they can be boring. Is SXSW boring? No way. Keep SXSW weird.

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Filed under: New Media, Travel