Even though the show has only been over for a few days now, I thought it would be interesting and a little fun to recap some of the online stuff that happened around European Design.

As for interesting, turns out the European Design exhibition website was relatively successful in terms of traffic and Google PageRank. According to Google Analytics, through the run of the show, the site welcomed nearly 30k unique vistors and beat out our last two special exhibitions, Power and Glory and To Live Forever over similar time periods. For a young site with a short span of marketing relevance, European Design was able to muster a PR of 5 before the show ended. This is a little hard to believe but we also managed to keep the site’s bounce rate below 20%. That’s awesome. Good work.

As for fun, who remembers the European Design Facebook caption contest? I know I completely forgot about it until my trusted Facebook associate, Emily, reminded me about all the good ideas she’s had and how that was one of them. Below is a notable example.

It looks like that flower is "sponge worthy"... - Jake on Facebook

As for more fun, we also started up a Flickr group that fed into the EuroDesign exhibition site. Not only did group members get to see their designs streaming through our site but we also gave away a few tickets and some cool prizes like exhibition catalogs and Design Center gift certificates. Check out the Flickr group.

While I’m a little sad to see European Design leave, I’m super excited about what new interesting and fun online stuff is going to show up for Sacred Spain. While I’m not going to make any promises, expect some Facebook activity. And since it’s all the rage, my guess is that Twitter may make an appearance. As always, if you’ve got any ideas or suggestions, let me get ‘em in the comments.

But it’s not only individuals using these sites. Here at the IMA, as most of you know, we embrace social media as a useful tool in reaching our audiences and fulfilling our mission. And we’re not the only ones – LACMA, SFMoMa, and Walker Art Center are just a couple of our peers actively engaging online audiences. Even the Art Institution of Chicago recently announced here, that they’ll soon be launching a Twitter account.

But as museums and museum employees continue to grow their online activity – both personal and institutional – we’re faced with the challenge of exploring policies and guidelines online activity. Should there be employee policies in place for personal use of such sites? Should museums implement a clearly detailed policy for institutional use of such sites? And if so, what would either one of these policies look like and what purposes would they serve?

In researching the topic, I can tell you for sure that there are several people asking these questions, and I can also tell you that nobody really seems to know the answers.

So what are some of the issues to think about? Well, there are a lot of them. Museum 3.0 suggests the following issues are all important in considering your strategy to online networking: technical concerns, how to archive online museum activity, implementation planning, policy development, training, and a how/why to guide for media sites.

Museum 2.0 blogger Nina Simon discusses what might be included in a social media handbook. Her list includes things like rules on what should or should not be shared, how get a new initiative approved by your manager, what is considered appropriate for internal and external distribution, and a reference guide to social sites that would include recommendations, stylesheets, etc.

While I think these are all important items to consider, I can’t help but wonder if some topics should just be covered in ongoing discussions instead of binding them into a manual. Why? Well, by the time a policy or manual was organized, there’s a pretty good chance that the certain components (like a ‘how to guide’) would already be obsolete. In other words, the web changes so much that consistent updating might become a daunting task.

Three seemingly stagnant issues that I see as most important in policy making or strategic planning for social media include: information release, content quality & content control.

Information Release – A problem might arise here when someone inadvertently releases sensitive information about the museum. An example of this might be tweeting in excitement that a new acquisition has just arrived to the dock (which might jeopardize the safety of the work), or announcing an event on your facebook page before it’s been announced by your museum. This issue is one that might arise more frequently when an organization’s employee is using a personal account that wouldn’t be filtered by a colleague. The question to be asked here is: should museums tell their employees what they can and can’t discuss on their personal sites?

The release of certain information can also be a problem even on an institutionally controlled site. For example: Let’s say Daniel, our New Media Director, comes back from Spain next week and blogs about something regarding an artist in an upcoming exhibition that he interviewed. Let’s also say that the curatorial department was waiting to release that information for whatever reason – we might have ourselves one unhappy curator, or even worse, maybe an unhappy artist. (With effective communication amongst departments, this issue should not be as difficult to manage as the issue of personal Facebook, blog or Twitter accounts).

Content Control – With so many departments/individuals managing various sites and social network accounts for the institution, who’s the gatekeeper of information? For example, if multiple writers are contributing to a blog (as is the case here at the IMA) how do you filter or should you filter content? Is there someone that gets final say on what goes up where?

Content Quality – Because it’s so easy to post things on the internet and incredibly cost efficient how does an institution refrain from overloading their audiences? Even worse, how do we keep from putting up information (that might not be very good or insightful) just because we can? Here is a short post by Matt Yglesias that suggests that while non profits are increasingly enjoying the captivity of online audiences, the quality of information on the web is a growing problem.

Like most everyone I have come across, I do not have answers to all of these questions nor do I have a suggested policy or manual. But I will leave you with some additional links that I have found useful in the discussion of social media and museums.

IMA’s Blog Guidelines – which is posted directly on our blog.

Powerhouse Museum’s 2007 Blog Policy

BBC’s social media policy – this is a good example of a fairly extensive policy.

Brooklyn Museum’s Shelley Bernstein discussed various ways to use social media sites in Where Do We Go From Here? at the 2008 Museums & the Web conference. I would be shocked if the topic of social media policies were not discussed at M&W 2009, which is here in Indy, next week.

And finally – On the lighter side, this article entitled The 14 Types of Twitter Personalities might help you pinpoint some possible problems or areas of concern for your workplace.

Public Service Announcement – Conficker Computer Worm – A worm named “Conficker” is supposedly scheduled to do something devious on April 1. As your Pharmacist, I suggest checking into this bug. If you think you’re infected or want to protect yourself, Microsoft has set up this site to help you.

15 Major Brands Rebrand – What is it about a Global Economic Downturn (GED) that causes a flurry of rebranding? I could be wrong but I would guess that Ford isn’t going to suddenly see a major shift in sales because they’ve decided to drop “ord” from their mark. However, maybe dropping the “ord” is simply a clever cost saving measure. More on Ford here.

the Galactica – A “curated” blog that showcases artistic finds on Flickr. While I’m not sure about the credentials of the curator, I am sure that I like what he/she is finding.

Ghost in the Machine – Speaking of Flickr. Check out this amazing set of images created through the careful alignment of magnetically coated plastic tape. Inspiration includes the likes of Robert Smith, Ian Curtis, and Hendrix.

Monday Music – “Goro Goro Nyang” by Futomomo Satisfaction. Tubas, bikinis, and a guitar that weeps. Check it out.Download audio file (Futomomo_Satisfaction-Goro_Goro_Nyang.mp3)

Phil’s Pharmacy prescribes the following links to combat Monday online anemia.

I Has A Designz – is an IMA Flickr group that we created to see what kinds of cool designy stuff people see in their everyday lives. We’re also using it to give away tickets to European Design Since 1985. Check out the stream on the exhibition website. Oh, and the grand prize is a $100 gift certificate to the Design Center.

SXSW 2009 Music on BitTorrent – I’m missing SXSW so I’ll have to take what I can get. For those of you into music, a very nice person has bundled up all the free MP3s from the SXSW website and set up a page with links to some torrents. If you want the music but aren’t familiar with BitTorrent, know that you’ll need a little program to handle your torrents (a client) and that μTorrent is easy to set up and easy on your system.

SXSW on Twitter – There may be more, but I can confirm that at least one member of the IMA Blog team likes Twitter, Pepsi, and Visualizations. If you like any of these things you may like this interesting use of JavaScript that pulls in tweets about SXSW and displays them in a pretty way. I’m not sure how often the tweets coming through “overheard” are updated but the ones from this morning made me chuckle.

Make Something Cool Every Day – Someday I hope to have the time to make something cool every day. However, until that time in my life comes I’ve resolved to find something cool on the Internet every day. Behance does it again.

Monday Music – “Sweet Disposition” by The Temper Trap – Thanks to WeAllWantSomeone.org for the link.Download audio file (the-temper-trap-sweet-disposition.mp3)

Wikipedia Loves Art

So here’s the scoop, directly from Wikipedia’s page: “Wikipedia Loves Art, the name being a play off Valentine’s Day, is a scavenger hunt and free content photography contest among museums and cultural institutions worldwide, and aimed at illustrating Wikipedia articles. The event is planned to run for the whole month of February 2009. Although there are planned events at each location, you can go on your own at any time during the month.”

Straight from the horses mouth. All you need is -

• A good understanding of the official rules and listing of themes we/Wikipedia needs documented. You can find that list HERE.
• You’ll also need to sign-up, but that part is easy. It’s your chance to contribute something worthwile, show your photographic eye and experience our art galleries = warm and free.
• Transportation to the IMA, a digital camera, pencil/notepad and a Flickr account.

It’s also Indiana’s opportunity to help out Wikipedia with better art content, go head-to-head against some of the leading museums throughout the world and, perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier, your opportunity to win an iPod touch, blog t-shirt and more.

Questions?  Feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me at newmedia@imamuseum.org.  Let’s do this thing!

Initial graphic treatment by Matt K

It’s not typical for us (or other museums/institutions) to share pending design or identity work.  But in the spirit of transparency, not taking ourselves too seriously, and just ‘doing it’, I thought I would share some of the preliminary work and concepts.  Earlier this week I met with members of the Design Studio – David Russick – Chief Designer, Matt Kelm – Graphic Designer, and Brad Dilger – Installation Technician – to finalize plans for the reopening of this space that will include a mixture of darker wall tones, versions of the graphic treatments in this post, track lighting,  a large projection, touch screen computers and furniture featured by the Design Center (you can actually buy the furniture that will be in The Davis LAB).

Space, as of yesterday (no flash!)

There has been a real conscious decision by David and Matt to tie in creative solutions to the integration of graphic design, furniture and technology.  It’s hard to truly visualize the end result based on flat drawings, paint chips and carpet samples, but I’m starting to see it come together and I’m really excited.  It will be unlike any other space in the museum and both David and Matt have shown real awareness of the needs of this environment.

Periodic table inspired graphic by Matt K

In terms of technology, we will be debuting a brand new video website via a projector and providing a comfortable environment, where visitors can lounge, search and select what they want to watch (remember, I’m against the orientation video).  We also want to encourage participation from our visitors, so we are installing (4) computer workstations, using the new (very hip [but not Mac's]) HP Touchsmarts.  Everyone will have the opportunity to share their perspectives via many of our online identities such as this blog, Flickr, exhibition websites and other new digital projects.  We create websites and videos and podcasts because we want you to have meaningful and unique connections with the museum and art.  But – we also want to hear directly from you.   Don’t be shy.

Subtle prompts for you to interact, again by Matt K

So that’s the inside scoop on what’s happening in The Davis LAB later this month.  When you combine looming deadlines, lots of work, creativity and last minute ideas, stuff has a tendency of changing – but for now, this is our design direction for this space.  Or perhaps this is a clever ploy by yours truly, to motivate you into visiting in person after January 24th.

Happy New Year!

The X Room, shortly after the IMA reopened in 2005

2009 will bring a new approach to this tech environment, that I hope encourages our museum visitors to talk back to us.

We have a couple of strategies in place here.  For one, we’ll be showcasing a large portion of the video art content we produce, in a theater-like environment.  I’ve always been critical of the traditional museum orientation video space, because I’m not convinced our visitors want to sit through a 10-minute introductory video that essentially, is a one-way, passive form of communication (I know I don’t).  To counter this, we’re going to offer our visitors choices.  You will be able to search our video collection and then hear directly from experts in the art field and excitingly, directly from contemporary artists.  The choices will be at your fingertips, and the viewing experience will go beyond traditional methods (sort of top secret at the moment).  Did I mention that those choices will include artists like Maya Lin, Robert Irwin and much, much more?

We really do want to hear honest feedback from our visitors, so we’re also installing a series of computers that will allow to access our images on Flickr, our collection online (not as good as the real thing, but we have more art viewable online), and access to this blog.  All of these applications will allow tagging and comments.  We also know that we have good readership on the IMA blog, but I’m intrigued to see what will happen when any of our IMA – museum (not online) visitors have the opportunity to read blog posts and comments.  I’m sure a lot of our visitors are unaware that we have such a diverse online presence.

In 2007 for the exhibition Nature Holds My Camera: The Video Art of Sam Easterson, we debuted a similar strategy where visitors could ‘talk back’ in the gallery.  They could, in a blog-style design, ask questions directly to Sam.  It was a big success and I hope we have similar participation in this new environment.

I’ll keep you posted on this space, but in the meantime I would love to hear feedback about your thoughts -

• about art and interpretive technology
• museums that incorporate technology into gallery areas
• and if you think we will get more feedback by providing computers in the museum

…talk back!

My first idea was to do simply what I described above. I searched around a bit for a Flickr app, but I haven’t found one written by the Flickr team and I don’t really want to give my information to yet another third party. It seems, however, that Flickr has a really nice mobile web interface. Paired with the ability to email photos to Flickr from the phone, I think I have all I need to take that route. However, in the meantime I found that uploading photos with the Facebook app is really easy. This, along with the fact that the iPhone camera can’t compete for image quality with my digital camera, has led me to decide that the iPhone will fit the bill for the sort of in-group photojournalism that my close friends would appreciate, as I capture photos of my pets (and theirs) and other humorous things while I’m out and about. Some might argue that this is a waste of digital resources, but hey… what’s life without a little whimsy?

My discovery of the Google Earth app’s integration with Wikipedia and Panoramio, however, rekindled my interest in contributing high quality geotagged content. Contributing content to these resources is something that could have been done before, but the iPhone (and other devices that utilize both GPS and wireless networks) provides a new level of exposure. Rather than needing to research a travel destination beforehand, it is now possible to whip out a device like this and find interesting features nearby, or learn more about your current surroundings.

I decided that it would be quickest to try out Panoramio. After signing up for an account, I uploaded a couple of my photographs (one of them taken here at the 100 Acres) and found the process to be very easy. I could really see myself getting addicted to uploading new images and waiting in great anticipation to see if they are deemed Google Earth worthy, at which point they should show up on my phone. There are also thematic contests that are very easy to enter, so I couldn’t resist adding my photos to those as well. We’ll see if people think they’re any good.

I might also try out Wikipedia. After signing up and reading the newbie documentation, I’m a little concerned about finding what they would call “notable” subjects (among other qualifications, things of more than just local interest). According to the guidelines, I can’t write about the IMA, so I’ll have to find other local gems… seems like a good challenge.

I believe that these new devices could open up an era of increased engagement with our surroundings. It will be interesting to see how these tools handle the increasing amount of geotagged information as more people contribute content. Hopefully the result will be high quality resources that educate and inspire the people who use them.

Gary Hutchinson in his IMA Blog T-Shirt

Danny Beyer in his IMA Blog T-Shirt

Need to get a blog t-shirt?  You can buy one in the IMA store or you can buy online here.  Supplies are limited don’t miss out!

And as I mentioned at the beginning, this is my last post, and tomorrow is my last day at IMA.  I have loved getting to know our online communities and will miss this work!  Please keep on contributing and help IMA create the best online art experience out there!

Danny Beyer, sporting the new IMA Blog t-shirt

The IMA joined Flickr a little late in the game, but I feel like we are really starting to use it in some interesting ways.  My colleague Despi recently created a set featuring the new IMA blog t-shirts.  You’ll be hearing more about that.  Our conversation department has been active creating individual case studies on art objects.  You can learn about a recent Thornton Dial acquisition here (complete with video), or the treatment of a Saarinen Sideboard.  It’s an interesting glimpse into some behind-the-scenes action at an art museum and a new way of discovering engaging content.  Look for more of these conservation case studies in the very near future.

2009 will bring lots of activity to the IMA, especially in 100 Acres: The Virginia B.  Fairbanks Art and Nature Park.  The Nugget Factory will be working very closely with the contemporary department to document the art installations, capturing artist interviews and developing new visitor experiences.  On Flickr, we created a set dedicated set to Type A’s involvement in this space, here (I recommend the videos).  Under development, is the official 100 Acres Flickr group.  We’re still tweaking it, but please feel free to join and contribute your photography.

IMA’s Horticulture department was kind enough to place some new signs across the beautiful IMA campus.  We often spot photographers walking our grounds and we would love to see their perspective.  I hope these signs encourage or inspire our visitors to go online and shape IMA’s presence on Flickr.  I mean that.

We really want you to get involved in Flickr

IMA blogger Noelle, also just completed a Flickr article in PREVIEWS, the publication for members of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.  I told you we love Flickr, perhaps a little obsessed.  If anyone is interested in a copy, leave a comment and I’ll send you one.

And finally, Museums and the Web will be hosting their annual conference in Indianapolis next April.  They’ve created a group requesting images of Indianapolis.  It will give conference attendees from all over the world (Australia, Japan and Holland) a chance to discover our city and check out the new airport.

I’m all Flickr’d out.  Have any Flickr ideas?  Let me know.