This posting was originally written in early March. Since then, the world has been witness to the incredible power of water. We are seeing serious repercussions from flood events in this country and around the world. My sense of wonder, joy and enthusiasm below is only possible because I am safe. I know that well, and I am grateful.

Maybe it’s because I’m a Minnesotan – I am drawn to water. Big water, little water, tiny creeks, large rivers, I need to be there. So it is difficult to stay away from the White River even when it is rising toward a flood. I feel like one of those crazy parents, the kind that drags her son along to see the water flowing where normally there is a path. “Let’s go to the danger zone.”

The U.S. Geological Survey installed a stream gauge several years ago to monitor the height of the river. I find can find this data by going to the IMA’s Dashboard, and find it under Topics, and then Nature. The data on the dashboard is in real time.

The artists  commissioned for 100 Acres are told there might be flooding. The inaugural pieces are evidence of this potential.  Here are some images of the works impacted by the flooding back in March:

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Filed under: Art and Nature Park, Horticulture

So, the time has come to wish a fond farewell to our series of articles on Museum Transparency and Dashboards!  We’ve spent the previous 4 weeks covering a range of topics dealing with issues of transparency and performance metrics.  I hope that the posts have been valuable and that they might be a touchstone for conversations within your own organazation about being more transparent.

If you’re just joining us, you can find links to the previous articles here (tag: transparency)

To leave you with a bit more to chew on before we head off, this last article provides some suggestions for how to implement your organization’s own dashboard.  Feel free to add your own suggestions / questions to the comment stream after the jump!

7 Guidelines for Implementing Dashboards

For museums that would like to take the plunge into revealing and tracking their performance metrics online, the software used in the creation of the IMA’s Dashboard tool has been made freely available to the community under an open source license. (http://code.google.com/p/museum-dashboard/) Regardless of the tools used to embrace practices of Transparency, the following are some pragmatic suggestions to consider during your planning processes.

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Filed under: Musings, Technology

In the past few days, I’ve spoken to a number of people about how the IMA’s Dashboard effort is similar to and yet different than many of the commercially available Business Intelligence packages that are out there.  It still surprises me that after two years, people are still interested and intrigued by the process behind the tool.  I guess that’s a good sign!  The Dashboard has proven to be one of our stickier projects since we’ve launched it.

Two things in particular which set our Dashboard effort apart from other business intelligence or executive dashboard tools are the way we engage our staff in the process, and the extended integration we’ve done with core museum systems.

In the past several weeks, we’ve spent a lot of time discussing the theory and the underpinning logic of why any museum would consider moving forward with a strategy like this.  If you’re just joining the discussion you can find the previous articles here:

1. Walking The Talk
2. Reasons for Transparency
3. Impact on Institutional Culture

This week we’ll take a detailed look at how the Indianapolis Museum of Art implemented these ideas in the IMA Dashboard.  We’ll examine how we structured the experience, what our goals were and what some of the results and unintended consequences turned out to be.

We’ve had some really great questions and points raised in the comment sections of the previous articles, and I’d really like to hear questions / thoughts from the peanut gallery as it were.  Don’t be shy!  I’ll do my best to respond to every thoughtful comment in turn.

Transparency in Practice: IMA’s Online Dashboard

As discussed in previous posts, one of the most important aspects for museums wishing to take steps to be more transparent about their successes and failures is a decision about the best way to share this information.  There are many ways museums might accomplish this. Ideally an organization’s information should be freely available to all interested parties with a very low barrier to access. Many museums have adopted the practice of making their annual reports and even tax returns available online for public access. It would be difficult to make the argument that these mechanisms provide “easy access” to this information since these documents are often lengthy, technical, and difficult to interpret.  The investment required by a member of the public must be high enough to overcome these barriers in order to develop an understanding of the museum’s performance.  While well intended, this method of presentation obfuscates the information which, if shared in a simpler more user-friendly model, might otherwise lead to valuable interactions and discussions with media, donors and the general public.

In the summer of 2007, the Indianapolis Museum of Art began to take steps to capitalize on an institution-wide effort and commitment to organizational Transparency. A team of web developers and graphics designers led by the Chief Information Officer set out to design a presentation of information and statistics about the museum which would enable an at-a-glance interaction as well support of deep-diving investigations into specific topics of interest. The team desired a system which was easy to digest and easy to navigate, and could support the wide array of information important to the mission of a diverse institution.  The project took inspiration from contemporary web design and interaction trends to create a site which would feel fresh, fun and visually engaging.  Feeling that many corporate dashboards were both intimidating and hard to understand, the team strove for a simplicity of presentation that could hook interested visitors into a deeper investigation and tracking of the museum’s performance over time. Finally, the institution needed an easy to use tool which could be integrated into the pre-existing workflows and job demands of many of the different staff around the museum.  The result was a tool called the IMA Dashboard, which was launched by the museum in September, 2007 and later released as open-source software for the benefit of the larger museum community.  Many museums and institutions have downloaded this software and expressed an interest in using it to fuel similar endeavors within their own organizations.

Figure 1 - The IMA Dashboard

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Filed under: Musings, Technology

One of the things I’ve been proud of during my time here at the IMA is the museum’s commitment to institutional transparency.  It’s always just made sense to me to concentrate on doing the right thing first, and then sharing as much as possible with others. (See, Mom… I wasn’t tuning you out all those years)  If you’ve followed this blog for very long, you’ve probably heard us talk about the IMA’s Dashboard a time or two.  Well, it’s hard to believe, but the Dashboard turned two years old in October!  I thought this would be a fitting time to spend a bit of time talking about the how’s and why’s of transparency and IMA’s experiences in running the Dashboard during that time.

I had originally authored this as a paper to be published in print form, but I think it will actually work better in a blog format like this one.  I’ve really appreciated the feedback and input readers have contributed to my last few posts, and would love your thoughts on this text as well.

Perhaps the most prevalent concern shared by peers about adopting similar approaches to transparency is a latent fear of the unknown, or a feeling that sharing the gritty details with the public will be too overwhelming and therefore misconstrued.  I’m happy to say that the wheels haven’t fallen off the IMA’s apple cart yet, hopefully this series will illuminate some of the benefits we’ve seen from taking these steps.

Walking the Talk – Part 1

The concept of Transparency has received significant attention in the media and online recently.  This attention comes at a time when public doubt in corporations, government and corporate executives is at an all-time high. High profile failures of some of the nation’s largest and most trusted institutions have shaken our assumptions about what had always seemed to be untouchable industries. Museums have always jealously guarded their trusted place in the public’s perception, but is there a risk that this trust will someday be lost?  As caretakers of this trust, what is the best way to foster open communication about the challenges and opportunities that face us as we try to achieve the mission of our museums?  As comprehensive and easy access to operational information becomes the norm, how can museums embrace this as an opportunity and confront internal fears about sharing their performance metrics with the public?

A Working Definition of Transparency

To begin, we must first come to a common understanding about Transparency. Institutional Transparency is a concept that is notoriously difficult to define precisely.  Principally, Transparency can be defined as the open sharing of information regarding a museum’s operations and performance.  But questions soon arise regarding what to share, when to share, and how to share it. These issues are much more significant for museums to consider when crafting an organizational stance about Transparency.

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Filed under: Art, Musings, Technology

It has come to my attention that the tweets are out of the bag about the new interactive admissions map on the IMA dashboard. The map is a mashup of our admissions data using the Google Maps API and a zip code demographics resource called ZIPskinny. I thought that I would take some time today to discuss the art and science of colormap selection that went into developing this visualization.

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Filed under: Design, Technology