Social Media brings the visitors to our virtual door. What have we gotten ourselves into?

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Filed under: Guest Bloggers, Musings, New Media

I spent my weekend stumbling around. Instead of writing a blog post, I decided to play with StumbleUpon — since I’m convinced I don’t know enough about all the Internet communities out there using social networking tools such as Delicious, Digg, Twitter and Mixx. Unfortunately, I didn’t come to any groundbreaking conclusions using StumbleUpon. We haven’t discussed StumbleUpon on the IMA Blog yet, but now is as good of time as any. The Wikepedia definition is helpful if you are unfamiliar with this technology and want to learn about its history, how it works and its line of owners. “Stumble Upon is an Internet community that allows its users to discover and rate Web pages, photos and videos. It is a personalized recommendation engine which uses peer and social-networking principles.” (Of note — In May 2007, eBay acquired StumbleUpon for $75 million from the original post-graduate school developers but has hired Deutsche Bank to try to sell it again.)

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Marketing, Musings, New Media

In an effort to visually portray my predictions for marketing the arts in 2009, and to solicit ideas, I’m leaving the rest of this post blank.

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Filed under: Marketing

Some tigers are saber-toothed and stuffed; others are rendered in chrome. Two museums brought me closer to wildness this summer: the Indiana State Museum’s Footprints exhibition and the new Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, WI.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Art, Exhibitions

So, a few months ago, I wrote a blog listing my “art crushes.” From art critics to museum directors, I bared my soul to the arts world. Michael Kimmelman, Tyler Green, Will Gompertz, Kathy Halbreich, and Phillippe de Montebello, I still love you all, but I’m afraid I’ve forever ruined my chances of being cool. It’s pretty difficult looking hip when you’re admitting you’ve got a massive crush on the Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. So this summer, I’m making an attempt to overcome my innate dorkiness. I’m going to spend the next few months visiting some of the hippest museums in the US. Here’s my plan to stay cool this summer.

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Filed under: Musings