With the hustle and bustle of life and meetings swirling around us all, it’s a rare occasion that we get to step outside of that pace and reflect on “big issues.” Contemplating an approach for the challenges that face museums given the changes in popular culture can make the difference between an organization that significantly impacts its community for good, and those that simply succeed at keeping the doors open.  Given the economic challenges many museums are encountering, keeping the doors open is – in and of itself – a challenge.  I’m a firm believer that times of challenge can be the best possible times to seize the opportunities at hand and make big changes.

I’m grateful for an opportunity to join a small group of museum and library experts in Salzburg next week for a meeting at the Salzburg Global Seminar entitled, “Libraries and Museums in an Era of Participatory Culture.”  I’ve agreed to participate and blog about my experiences from my perspective as a museum executive and a technologist.  I thought that in the spirit of “participatory culture,” I could ask a number of my friends and colleagues their opinions about the biggest challenges facing museums and libraries today.  I’ll bring those ideas and insights to Salzburg with me and represent those thoughts in the discussions there.  Please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter (#museumchallenges) or post your thoughts in the comments here.

The responses I’ve received via email and twitter have been pretty amazing! Several of my colleagues pointed out that museums are still adjusting to a perceived shift in our relationships with visitors.  Museums want to engage visitors and provide a variety of deep experiences, but don’t quite know how to sustain those efforts over a long period of time.

Shelley Bernstein, Chief of Technology from the Brooklyn Museum of Art asks the critical questions about how museums can build consistency in their efforts of engagement.

“How do we create engaging experiences consistently, so that visitors feel participation is part of the overall culture of the institution?  I’ve seen a lot of one-offs, where there’s a burst of activity around one single project, but the challenge is creating a consistency so that valued participation is always part of the museum experience.  In addition, these projects too often just exist online and not within the walls of the institution when people visit. The challenge is creating an overall experience that works both online and off and one that consistently allows visitors to participate in meaningful ways.”

Rich Cherry, Director of the Balboa Park Online Collaborative, points out that this goal of engagement and interaction with visitors both online and in the gallery carries with it some different expectations from public audiences and funding agencies that make planning for sustainability more difficult on the museum.

“Museums are in a difficult transition phase because of changing media consumption.  While young audiences are consuming social media and online content, older audiences are making that transition more slowly.   Unlike past shifts in media, this one is more interactive and limits the ability to simply re-purpose content.  This creates unique staffing and budgetary issues that are compounded by the recent economic downturn.  Funders are pushing museums to engage these new audience behaviors while not recognizing that a significant audience does not use these new methods and [museums] must support a dual track for some time to come.”

Nina Simon, Executive Director of the Museum of Art and History Santa Cruz, makes the point in her book about The Participatory Museum that,

“Participatory projects are like gardens; they require continual tending and cultivation. They may not demand as much capital spending and pre-launch planning as traditional museum projects, but they require ongoing management once they are open to participants. This means shifting a larger percentage of project budgets towards operation, maintenance, and facilitation staff.”

In addition to this fact, when I asked Nina what she saw as the challenges for museums seeking to embrace a participatory culture, she raised an important issue about museums’ strategy for funding these initiatives. Nina asks, “How do [museums] use participatory techniques to support more diverse and equitable use of our resources (as opposed to providing more for the people we already serve well)?”

It was a happy coincidence that Nina also covered a similar topic on her Museum 2.0 blog recently (What are the Most Important Problems in Our Field?, October 3, 2011).  I highly recommend reading through many of the excellent comments in response to that article for more great insight on the topic.

Ed Rodley, from the Museum of Science in Boston echoed some similar thoughts in questioning whether museums have really come to grips with the profound changes that we have all experienced in the rise of digital culture and the ubiquitous access to information afforded by the web.

“The digital challenge is that we are still conflicted about how to be citizens of a global information network. When all digital content has the capacity to reach people all over the planet, why are we still building websites based on the 1995 paradigm of “make a virtual simulacrum of the building”? The sway museums could have in this ecosystem is vast, given the breadth and depth of content we sit on.
…
Digital is ceasing to be a separate thing, and is becoming (if it hasn’t already become) part of the information ecosystem that our visitors use daily. [Museum] practice certainly doesn’t reflect this yet. How can we re-imagine ourselves in such a way that museums not just recognize, but embrace the online and the digital in ways that remain true to our core competencies as repositories for authentic experiences with culture?”

I was curious about what the potential overlap between these issues might be for libraries and museums.  In many ways it seems that some of the challenges addressed here are similar for both kinds of institutions and others are more unique.  I asked Martin Kalfatovic, Associate Director for the Digital Services Division of the Smithsonian Libraries for questions he would like to ask at the forum.  Martin asks,

“How can libraries, museums, and archives more effectively collaborate to cross-pollinate their collections? (i.e. a museum object with the associated printed text and archival materials that led to its collection). Can participatory culture (crowdsourcing) be used to help make links or show relationships that are not otherwise possible?

He raises an interesting issue about potential areas of collaboration that exist between these organizations that are as yet, unexploited.  These institutions have recognized relatively recently that many of the challenges faced by one kind of organization are faced in some way by all the others.  Collectively these “memory institutions” face questions about the changing role of authority, scholarship, and access in an age that offers vast amounts of information at the click of a button.  As Martin points out,

“How does the role of the museum library, particularly in the area of reference, change when museums begin to bring in crowdsourced content? Can the library play a knowledge management role for this content and perform the same information curation that is done with traditional print and archival sources?”

Rodley also touches on the new challenges of being source of authority in our current culture.

“Participatory culture doesn’t do away with the need for authority, but it will privilege a different kind of authority, a more transparent, more engaged one.  I believe people still want a trusted voice they can listen to, particularly in the digital realm.

… [Museums] must be less like the Great Oz, hiding behind our artifice and erudition. That doesn’t mean that we abandon our position, but it means we have make being questioned, being challenged, being called out, even being heckled part of what it means to be a museum. To be an authority in the current century will require a level of engagement that we can scarcely imagine.”

The pervasive nature of the web and information changes the game for museums and libraries. What is the relevance of an object in our collection, or a book in the stacks, if the information about that artifact can be accessed from the phone in my pocket?  This is not a trumped up argument about whether or not people will come to museums if we put great images of our collection online, but a more substantial concern about the pipeline of knowledge management that defines the collections we care about.

Kalfatovic continues,

As increasing amounts of library content becomes information online, where will the museum of artifacts and the museum of books as artifacts merge/overlap?”

It seems that the very nature of the artifact, or the object that is collected is changing.  What will this mean for museums and libraries who – in addition to creating new knowledge – are dedicated to preserving artifacts of history and culture?  Cherry points out an interesting conundrum,

“The changes we are witnessing in technology and culture are the ways cultural institutions work together. One seemingly benign artifact of this current age is going to cause enormous headaches in the years to come: email.  30 years ago when a museum director, or curator worked with an artist/collector/dealer/estate on an exhibition; that correspondence was captured on paper and was likely to be physically archived.  Today that correspondence is taking place in email and is unlikely to be archived effectively, if at all. The amount of information that is lost in that process is terrible for future researchers.  Museums and libraries need to research this problem on two fronts:  1) finding cheap effective ways for museums to create long term archives of electronic messages and 2) developing software capable of mining these messages to collate information about significant events in an organizations historical record.”

A litany of challenges to be sure! Ultimately, there seemed to be consensus among everyone I talked to that the place in our culture reserved for museums and libraries is changing to be one that is more integrated and important to the lives of the communities we live in.

Rodley,

“Making museums places that you go to in order to be an active citizen is something I’d love to see more museums attempt. That means making space available, making time available, and making our ears available to hear what matters to our constituents. Rephrased as a question, I’d say ‘How can we re-shape our buildings, staffs, and offerings in ways that support our local communities, not as temples where visitors come to consume culture, but more like agoras – meeting-places where our visitors can come to exchange ideas and culture?’”

For many of you that work in the field of museums, libraries, and archives, I’m sure that much of what I’m saying is repeating a familiar refrain.  I’m very impressed by the level of conversation that I encounter from my peers when we talk about these topics.  With very few exceptions, most of my colleagues understand that museums and libraries face a relevance issue to demonstrate the continued and enduring value of what we do in the face of changing cultural norms and expectations. The inherent value of museum and library collections is not a sure thing.  As Nina points out, it’s a garden that we tend through lots of hard work towards a set of common goals.

The key question then, is whether or not we are ready to do that hard work of authentic engagement? Or, are we instead seeking the ‘quick-hit’ payoffs to be gleaned from the current crop of cultural fads? Nancy Proctor is Head of Mobile Strategy and Initiatives for the Smithsonian Institution and puts the question in context:

“The move towards a more participatory culture in museums has been underway for a couple of decades now, and seems finally to be impacting daily practice among museum professionals on a wide scale. However even as we achieve greater openness, transparency, and collaboration among museums and “the people formerly known as the audience,” I am increasingly wondering if we are truly changing the fundamental structure of museums within society, or simply putting new faces into power in the old system? It won’t take us far if, to use a simplistic shorthand of stereotypes, “old guard” academics, curators, directors and other power-holders in the existing hegemony are simply swapped out for perhaps younger, more social media-savvy, museum “rock stars.” This may offer a temporary “revolution,” but is not a truly sustainable radical museum practice and will last only until the next group of upstarts overturns the establishment in their own turn. Modernism and capitalism of course depend on this kind of illusion of “progress” through revolution, because each depends on a constant supply of fresh “innovation” to fuel the markets. But I think we need to be very suspicious of the fetishization of the new in this period where there is a constant stream of shiny new toys to dazzle us with the promise of starting over in a Brave New World. Let’s make sure we don’t deceive ourselves, like Columbus discovering America, but rather undertake the much harder, less sexy, but ultimately more sustainable task of radically restructuring our museums and practices even as we work within those very institutions.”

Thanks to all my friends and colleagues for chiming in on the topic!  I’m very much looking forward to continuing the conversation with you all in the comments, on Twitter (#museumchallenges), and in Salzburg next week. Stay tuned for new posts and insights as the conversation progresses!

As one of the two photographers here at the IMA, I am responsible for capturing the IMA galleries in a similar fashion.  At times I capture galleries alive with its patrons.  At other times I document for posterity the space free of human distraction.  I, as those participating in my questionnaire, enjoy seeing the galleries in various degrees of these states – the sole visitor reflecting on a work of art, the mass of humanity flowing between its walls, the gallery alone asking us to reflect on the images presented, or the gallery free of any artwork or person and completely desolate.

Below are a few of those images and the responses from the photographers.  If you are interested in the photographs presented, please follow the gallery series on Flickr.

 Witold Riedel:
Witold Riedel is a creative director at one of the largest advertising networks in the world. He is responsible for a worldwide campaign, which “involves a good amount of travel.”

This image was included in the “Trapped In The White Cube” series. An excerpt from Witold’s responses to the questionnaire is below:

(via Flickr)

 What made you capture and share the image you created?

Are we talking about the picture of the nun and the dinosaur? Oh, it was just a very sweet moment at the Museum Mensch und Natur in Nymphenburg, in Munich. I had missed my flight to Moscow on that day and after visiting the BMW Welt, Nymphenburg felt like the perfect contrast. The room was very small, I had to be close to the nun to take the picture. I only had one chance to expose the photograph without disturbing the composition. I was lucky. I had set the exposure and aperture and the focus on my Leica correctly. I like that there are some parallels in the expression of the dinosaur and the nun. The picture is certainly not intended as cultural criticism. I have nothing against dinosaurs or the Catholic Church.

What type of museum objects do you enjoy the most?

I like to return to some not very loved paintings, just to discover that I have changed more than they have. And I also like to see that they are still there, in their own place. Or maybe in a new place.

I  used to stand next to the Mona Lisa at the Louvre sometimes and just look at the people coming to visit. I actually have two photo series about this on my old website. It was interesting how many visitors were not actually interested in the work, they were more interested in having a picture taken with the work. It really is about that connection sometimes. The Mona Lisa is now in a different place within the Louvre. It is now easier to take pictures with her. But it is much more difficult to see her. That might be one of the reasons why I prefer the not so loved paintings sometimes. Though they obviously must be incredibly special already, just to make it to the galleries. What percentage of the work never makes it out of storage? Some museums have created galleries that feel almost like open storage. I like that idea quite a bit.

XAM+ANNA:
XAM+ANNA are actually Massimiliano Matera and Annalisa Pilati, two aspiring architects, and a couple in life and work.  They live in Rome, which is its own “open-air museum.”

This image was included in the “Trapped In The White Cube” series and here’s an excerpt from XAM+ANNA’s responses to the questionnaire below:

(via Flickr)

What made you capture and share the image you created?

The photo creates a relation between the space and the visitors, with specific references from the art world (see works of contemporary artist such as Vito Acconci and Michelangelo Pistoletto, for example). For us, the link between spectator and artwork is fundamental and our research tends to show the reactions of the spectator, making him an integral part (then actor) of a new form of art, in which he’s the protagonist.

Vileinist:
Vileinist, a.k.a. Jonathan O’Reilly is a Faculty Researcher at University of Maryland lives in Washington D.C.

(via Flickr)

What made you capture and share the image you created?

It was an interesting piece of work. You can expect avant-garde art at the Hirshhorn Museum, but this was something quite unique. When I turned the corner into the room, I was taken aback by the visual display – swirling curves of light were dancing across the wall to a soundtrack of pure silence. There were no distractions in the room, just the projector and the wall. There was a lone person looking at the piece in a state of wonder. Her placement in the frame helped me create an image that helped to reflect my own feeling of awe. An image of the piece by itself would not have been as surreal. In general, I like to photograph humans not as primary subjects, but rather as accessories to accentuate proportions or my own feelings in a given setting.

I have the distinct pleasure of being in Daniel‘s class this fall, Museums and Technology.  While it is surprising for my classmates that I would take a class about something I do already, I am excited for the opportunity to explore more thoroughly the meaning of technology for the museum experience and how the visitor is affected by these changes. I see continual parallels between issues encountered with visitors in physical space and issues we are encountering all over again in our digital spaces. I’ve talked about Twitter before and I have been thinking about how it is harnessed by museums and where we are going wrong.

We were talking about Twitter again in a recent class, more specifically what we consider to be a successful museum tweet, and why. It’s very hard to nail down, and even harder to do. The main reason is because it’s so hard to avoid becoming a marketing ploy, something which happens without rapt attention. A museums use of twitter now stands as an analogy for the way the actual museum interacts with its visitors and the traditional barrier between the inner workings of an institution and the public at large. So many museums need to release their stranglehold on twitter feeds to actually let interesting information get out.

I was at the Indianapolis Greek Festival this past weekend, and I couldn’t help to think that they were doing something right.

There were throngs of people, tons of Greek food, everyone jostling and yelling and having a great time, but here’s the part that baffled me- you had to pay to get in, and the food was delicious, but quite pricey. What is the Holy Trinity parish doing that connects so much with their audience that museums cannot seem to do? I think we can be the Agora marketplace discussed by Dr. Steven Zucker (@drszucker) and Dr. Nancy Proctor (@nancyproctor) a vibrant place for community and discussion, in the same way that the Greek festival is. I think the problem is balance- how do we sell ourselves as experts in our field while maintaining that we want everyone else’s opinion, too?

Some people are getting it right, figuring out how to sift through all the noise and clutter to connect with their audience while maintaining their voice. One such person is the British musician Imogen Heap, who felt a divide between herself and her fans before she started to utilize blogs and Twitter, not dissimilar to the separation between and institution and it’s community. In a recent interview with Melissa Block on NPR, she describes the divide quite succinctly. She then discusses what it’s like to have that direct connection throughout the process of making her music.

It’s been so amazing. I’ve always struggled with this barrier that I felt like I’d had up until blogging came along. Just one comment from somebody really sparks something in me. It doesn’t need to be this huge wall between me and the listeners anymore. I really thrive on that.”

@ImogenHeap gets it- the audience has become part of the process, and there’s no going back.

And perhaps this is why we began a series of articles in the IMA’s magazine on the provenance of important works in the Museum’s collection, written by Annette Schlagenhauff. As the IMA’s Associate Curator for Research, Annette has spent years tracing the paths of works of art from the artists’ hands to the walls of the IMA. The stories are fascinating and not without moral ambiguities and missing pieces.

Landscape at Saint-Rémy (Enclosed Field with Peasant)

The fall issue of the magazine features the IMA’s Landscape at Saint-Rémy (Enclosed Field with Peasant) by Vincent van Gogh. As one of the most important and valuable works in the Museum’s collection, Annette peers beyond the paint into the 120 year life of the painting. Painted in southern France in 1889, its early history is well documented, however, during the time of Nazi regime power when many of Europe’s art collections were in jeopardy, its provenance is spotty. Did Landscape at Saint-Rémy leave Europe legitimately or was it tied up in the Nazi’s campaign of looting Jewish art collections?

[This is why the magazine should be online. I could link to the rest of the story here and you could happily finish reading. Soon enough!]

Long story short, papers found in the New York Public Library confirmed that the painting left Europe still in the family of the original owners and had been consigned to a New York-based art dealer when arriving in the United States. The IMA can breath a sigh of relief and say that the provenance of the Van Gogh is clear.

But what would have happened if the provenance was not clear? Should research suggest the name of a possible legitimate owner, the IMA is obligated to attempt to contact them to discover more. Many paintings in the IMA’s collection have gaps in their provenance in the critical years of 1933-1945. Per the American Association of Museums (AAM) and the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) guidelines, the Museum posts these works on the Nazi-era Provenance Internet Portal and the IMA Web site–provenance research project. The facts unique to each painting help determine the course of action. (More here)

I think there are more than a few of us who would like Annette’s captivating, Nancy Drew-like sleuth job. No doubt it’s nerve wracking, hard work. In the winter issue of the magazine, and online, you’ll be able to join Annette in her journey to discover the past of the Dutch painting Valkhof at Nijmegen by Aelbert Cuyp. I see National Geographic documentaries in her future.

The Valkhof at Nijmegen

But you don’t have to take my word for it. Come to the IMA on October 3 or 23 to see The Rape of Europa in The Toby. This is an amazing opportunity to watch a documentary film that examines Nazi looting of the great museums and private art collections of Europe in an attempt to obliterate cultural identities. The film’s epic scope explores a descendant of painter Gustav Klmit’s flight to regain a portrait of her aunt, Louvre staff members who packed and moved 400,000 pieces of art as the Nazis advanced, and the “Monuments Men” who plumbed salt mines to recover stolen art after the war. You’ll be faced with the question: “Which is of more value: a work of art or a human life?”

Preview The Rape of Europa below and get your tickets now.

One of the most frequent comments I hear is about how we are located in a “strange place,” way up on 38th street. It’s true, we do not sit on “museum row” in downtown Indianapolis, but I think the current location gives us many different opportunities that the museum would never be able to explore if it remained downtown. There are many benefits from being slightly off the beaten path: the latest is a current project everyone is very excited about- 100 Acres, the Virginia B Fairbanks Art and Nature Park.

The local arts and culture community in Indianapolis is vibrant and thriving, in spite of the economy and our community’s singular sports focus (No judgment, I’m a huge Colts fan, 14 days ’til preseason starts, etc. I just don’t think sports need to come at the high price of culture) The Indianapolis Museum of Art’s current location has the potential to give us the feeling of a destination, a calm refuge in the heart of a bustlng downtown.

But why does it matter where we are located? Is the difference between downtown and 38th St. such a great one?

Other museums have explored different options for their unique needs of “place,” for different reasons. Several museums have opened up satellite locations: the Guggenheim spread to multiple countries, including Spain and Germany, (and Las Vegas!) increasing the international audiences the museum is accessable to. The Getty has the Villa, which specifically houses their Roman and Etruscan art collection, so that location can focus on that one subsection of their collection. Other museums operate without physical locations, such as The International Museum of Women. It doesn’t yet have a physical site, but builds community through exhibitions online,  lectures and events as they work toward a physical building.

All of these museums are reacting to their visitors and what they need from each institution. The most important aspect of location for museums and cultural centers is visitors and community. Physical space is a large part of what defines communal identity, and concepts like nationalism and even the sports team you favor arise from where you were born. We as humans like what we know, and we know what’s around. Shouldn’t our closest neighbors love us and visit the most? Yes, but often, they don’t.

Museums are defined by who comes to visit them and who they are reaching, something all museums should have a firm grasp on. We want to know who comes, and more importantly, know who doesn’t. This is where it gets tricky. I feel that ultimately, the current model of visitor-to-institution relationship comes down to the same patterns. Museums seek out new and different audiences, but they don’t come, regardless of the effort. Generally, the same people who care about the museum keep coming, and the museum continues to tailor it’s exhibits and activities for that same group. I suppose it’s only up to us to change this… more on that next time.

In the recent days, I have watched and listened as social media innovates political process in Iran. Twitter has been a powerful forum for a newsfeed out of the country, allowing people to photograph, video and blog about events in real time, even as more traditional journalists are being asked to leave.

Listening to a segment about it on the radio, I couldn’t help but think about the massive change to how news is found and the way crowdsourcing of information has so drastically changed the source of the news we get, and for museums, how closely this is tied to the changing face of visitor interactions through the web. Nina Simon, in this article at Museum2.0, writes,

For people who are deeply immersed in social media, social networks are already a much heavier influence on personal choices–where to visit, what concert to attend–than traditional advertising. Which means that your organization’s website–a brochure out in the wilderness of the Web–is only going to remain relevant and useful as a marketing piece if it is being referenced in the social context of your users’ lives.

Different people and institutions have found vastly different approaches to garnering information from their audiences.

Some museums have decided to use crowdsourcing, which can be appealing to visitors, in a way that is helpful to what the museum wants to accomplish. The Brooklyn Museum’s Shelley Bernstein wrote about a new project called Freeze Tag! where Brooklyn decided to utilize their loyal taggers to help control errant or incorrect information. Putting control back in the hands of the visitor can be risky, but, like Wikipedia, ultimately a project where passionate people and the wisdom of crowds wins out in the end. Brooklyn is a leader in integrating the visitor into the museums practice in innovative ways. With or without social media, how can other museums use this model to further their own goals?

Certainly, insta-media has increased the demand for transparency. Last week, Tyler Green and Christopher Knight tweeted and blogged about the dubious ethics in a private sale of works of art at the Orange County Museum of Art. These exchanges led to a heated discussion of the readers of the respected entries, including people representing both sides of the argument, and lots of scrutiny at the museum. Did the museum miss a chance to lead these discussions in the first place?

The problems start when the institution places itself on these social media sites, but don’t seem ready to hear what their devoted fan have to say. Douglas McLennan, of  Diacritical says,

…traditional PR notices are not only ineffective in this new era of many-to-many communication, but can make things worse. And what might have been a real opportunity to meaningfully engage this community has been lost.

Can a museum be listening all the time? In the world of public relations and standards, the casual conversation style of the Facebook world must seem completely alien.

The voice of the audience has never been as available to museums as it is now. Museums small and large have been all over Facebook and Twitter, my social media outlets of choice, trying to add fans and establish a voice that is cohesive with the museum’s image. Let’s imagine there is a museum out there doing it all perfectly. They generate lots of discussion and suggestions from their core audience of loyal visitors and donors…. What now? This next step is crucial and the point of getting involved in social media in the first place, and it is up to each museum.  How and when is that museum going to listen?

It’s my hope that we will continue to see the flowering of visitors being welcomed into the museum conversation, worldwide, with social media just being an example of ways to welcome them into the rest of the practices in the institution. If we want the community to value our institutions, we can strengthen the relationship by showing how much we value them.

My first impression of StumbleUpon was that it is a fun tool. Before I had it figured out, (you do literally stumble around for awhile), I spent at least an hour in MoJoe’s looking at animals in love, making snowflakes, gawking at street installations in Washington, D.C., and oohing and awwing over some human creative painting. Most of the reviewed and rated sites are novel — odd and wacky, interactive or display amazing talent.

So how can the Museum world use StumbleUpon? The online community has a specific Arts category and a page of Web content tagged with the term “Museums”. These are places to surf what other Museums are producing. Moreover, it has perfect potential as a platform for viral marketing if you have enough friends or a brilliant idea with a long shelf-life. Last week, the American Chronicle published “Twelve Ways to Promote on StumbleUpon” spelling out relatively simple techniques to getting your site recognized. My favorites include emailing sites to friends with the easy-to-use StumbleUpon toolbar, reviewing sites and requesting others review yours, and blogging.

The future of StumbleUpon may be uncertain with eBay’s recent downturn and its decision to seek a buyer for StumbleUpon. With 5 million users verses Facebook’s 100 million, I’m not sure its popularity will ever warrant the same focus from marketers. Until it’s clear, I’m happy to keep stumbling. How do you feel?

You can Stumble any of the IMA’s blog posts by clicking the icon on the far right after each entry.

Okay, what kind of blogger or marketer would I be if I actually did that? Recently, I’ve been pondering the possibilities so-to-speak. After reading Richard’s insightful post on the use of Twitter in museum conservation and then spotting Nick Brien’s article, Strategic Thinking 3.0, in ADWEEK, my fingers have been set on the keys with no clear song in mind. I’m overwhelmed by possibility. Sometimes it is comforting to have boundaries to narrow and contain one’s scope of thought. But in the coming years, I am not sure we will have that luxury because of technology.

Picking from Brien’s general media forecast for 2009, I would like to apply several of his predictions to the arts and the IMA in particular:

1. Digital media enables easier marketing access. Have you heard of Web 2.0? These tools are booming in the arts sector. With limited budgets and expertise, groups like dance companies and symphonies are using blogs and other tools to market to wider audiences with a direct focus. See the San Francisco Ballet Blog. How about providing digital perks for members? As I mentioned above, the range of tools is just going to become more expansive. At the IMA, I think our challenge will be to use these tools wisely. And with our crack team of Web programmers, designers and Nugget Factory, maybe we will push the limits with a few of our own.

2. Marketing means selling. Performance is always important but not always measurable. At the IMA, you have ads in the Star, on the radio and on billboards, while at the same time you’re sending out evites, traditionally mailed invitations, Facebook notifications and blog posts…you don’t even remember where you first heard about the event. While we try to capture this type of data as well as attendance on the IMA’s Dashboard, it’s worth faithfully tracking and rejecting the tools that don’t produce desired results.

3. Collaboration drives integration. This has been happening at the IMA for as long as I’ve worked there (more than a year). When Marketing, Development, New Media, Education, Curators, MIS, Horticulture and many others come together, it’s hard to tell who belongs to who. Diverse personalities and backgrounds allow for anyone to bring an idea to the table that may become the next golden nugget. Cross-departmental collaboration is key.

4. Data drives decision-making. Amen. I think this repeats #2 in making time for evaluation and being bold enough to let the data drive change rather than trying to do it all.

5. New players bring new perspectives. Both international and local competition in the arts and Museum world will awaken us to new thought and possible collaboration. Read our blogroll to check out what everyone else is up to. The IMA’s Professional Development team (which is cross-departmental by the way) is planning a staff exchange program with other institutions for just this purpose.

6. Social networks enable better listening. We’re working on this one. Through polls, comments, rating options, calls for user-generated content and social media applications on Facebook, the IMA is hoping you’ll talk to us. We truly desire a conversation and “raw” feedback on the material we are providing. Having this conversation can be difficult for an organization without a single representative or without time devoted to personal response.

7. Mobility matters. I predict we’ll see increasing opportunities for on-site interactivity inside and outside (think 100 Acres) the IMA galleries. The Newseum in Washington, D.C., does a nice job of creating popular and educational user-experiences in exhibitions with mobile devices.

So those are my current thoughts, which are not very well thought out because I’m busy trying to keep up with it all in real time. To speak to the IMA’s collection, you could say I’m just a girl at the piano recording sound.

At the ISM, Footprints features taxidermy to die for. In an exploration of the natural history of what is today Indiana, stuffed ice age sabertooths cavort with stuffed otters, owls, fish and badgers, arranged in an unintentionally surreal tableau. This is installation art if I’ve ever seen it: a barrage of lives that were, juxtaposed for maximum emotional impact. Later in the show, there are piercing black-and-white photos of Indiana’s hunting history. The eyes of the hunters and their giddy hounds smolder with pride in front a wall of raccoon skins, circa 1935. Footprints has a high haunt factor.

The Harley-Davidson Museum, on the other hand, is pure exaltation. This cathedral to industrial design and American capitalism opened just this month after a multi-year planning process. Founded in 1903 by two pals (Bill Harley and Arthur Davidson) pimping bikes in a shed, Harley-Davidson is now global. Designed by Pentagram —the same firm the IMA is working with now on branding and wayfinding—the museum building is gutsy urban chic on a 20-acre plot in downtown Milwaukee, and a new biker mecca, no doubt.

Inside, there’s a motorcycle preservation lab, a stylistic gallery of engines and gas tanks, a social history of Harleys, and a slanted video screen with Evel Knievel footage. (The café’s corn-and-barley salad with tarragon pesto dressing was also super yum). Though the whole place could easily fall into the corporate propaganda category, I came away with an appreciation for the artistry of automotive engineering, an expanded concept of rugged American coolness, and a crush on the sexed-up architecture.

Both exhibitions raise questions about agendas in museums. Museums are by nature mediated experiences. How do artifact selection, building design and didactic language work on you? An object—an embarrassed-looking stuffed fox or a vintage Harley Electra Glide Sport—can leave you reeling.

We like to noodle on these issues at the IMA. The question of mediation or interpretation is especially interesting in the case of IMA’s Art & Nature Park slated to open in 2009. You can’t hang a label on a cloud. So we’re looking for ways to create dialogue between art and nature in visitors’ minds in surprising ways.

If you’ve had any memorable museum pilgrimages this summer, or meditations on museum objects with impact, do tell.

June at SFMoMA – I’m headed to San Francisco next week, and SFMoMA is on the top of my list for places to visit. There’s just something about that museum that makes me feel super hip when I’m in its presence. I’m fired up because I just discovered that I’m going to be there during the opening week of Frida Kahlo. I’m thinking about buying a membership to the museum just so I can hang out on Thursday night at the member reception. If that party is anything like what I’ve imagined, the cocktail hour is going to look like an opening of a Marc Jacobs store.

July at the MCA Chicago –I have to say, I am enamored by the MCA Chicago’s marketing team. Particularly the person that writes the eNewsletters. Even if you don’t live anywhere near Chicago you should sign up for their eNews. It is the perfect mix of wit and info. This July, I’m looking forward to a couple of things at the MCA. First, Jeff Koons opened last week and I can’t wait to see it. I’m also really looking forward to attending a First Friday event. Every month, the MCA brings in a DJ, features the work of local artists, and apparently has figured out a lighting system to make everyone at the party looking stunningly beautiful. Check out the pictures!

August at The Walker - My pulse raced when I read a headline from the Walker Art Center’s May enewsletter, “Walker on the Green: Artist-Designed Mini Golf.” Finally, my dream has come true! Before I was a museum professional, I was a golf professional. For a full summer after graduate school, I taught golf lessons at a country club. Other than meeting Leroy Neiman at a tournament, I have never found a way to incorporate my love for golf and my love for art. THANK YOU Walker Art Center for doing it for me! Thank you for making golf cool!

Folks at the Walker – I’m coming up this summer to play a round, and as a gesture of my appreciation, I’m offering free putting lessons to the entire staff!

]]> http://www.imamuseum.org/blog/2008/06/05/trying-to-stay-cool/feed/ 2 Stay Cool Mini Golf at the Walker