Musematic
Desk and File Cabinets Organized and a New Textbook for Fall Ethics Class

Posted by Holly Witchey on Saturday July 24 2010

What could be better?  That’s what I was thinking to myself when this morning’s mail brought my desk copy of Herman T. Tavani’s Ethics and Technologies, and Strategies for Ethical Computing (Third Edition).   I know that sounds crazy but I’ve been at odds with myself for the past six months trying to decide where I was going to locate the desk (my mother’s Paul McCobb Planner Group Secretary) I use for my primary work.  Two weekends ago I made Patient-Long-Suffering-Spouse help me in an intense and back-breaking game of musical furniture.  As a result the piano is now in the dining room, waiting for someone who can actually play the thing to sit down and fill the house with music.  The dining room table can actually be used, once again for dining.  And my work desk is where it should be, in the designated room that we’ve always referred to as “my” office  (probably used to be an enclosed sun porch) but that desk was taken over by PLSS for dealing with household finances.  So now there are two desks, he only uses the finance desk in the mornings before work, and for a brief time in the afternoon after work, and the rest of the time the office is mine, all mine.  So for today, at least, I am playing the absent–minded professor. I’ve sent the boys (husband and son) off to pursue their own plans and I’m happily ensconced at my desk with a textbook at my side and a syllabus to revise for my Johns Hopkins students.

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Filed under: Education and Random Musings and books
What a hoot! Back to school inspiration.

Posted by Holly Witchey on Tuesday July 20 2010

New Spice: Study Like a Scholar, Scholar

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Filed under: Random Musings
MIDEA Social Media Workshop AND Swallowing My Words

Posted by Holly Witchey on Wednesday June 30 2010

Spent a fascinating day today in San Antonio at a MIDEA Workshop on Social Media.  MIDEA is an acronym for the Marcus Institute for Digital Education and the Arts.  In terms of full disclosure, I’m the lead blogger for the MIDEA blog, so I’m writing this both as an employee and a participant.  The workshop brought together more than 50 museum professionals from across the country, but with a predominant number of delegates from Texas museums.  The Marcus Foundation has consistently supported art education in Texas and has now branched out and is supporting this organization which is designed to serve arts-related institutions across the nation and across the world.  Friends Peter Samis and Susan Chun were also in attendance, Peter with his inevitable wise words on almost every topic (I love Peter) and Susan gave a terrific presentation on strategic planning for social media in museums.

Larry Johnson, the CEO of NMC had invited me to kick-off the workshop and I so I offered the group some reflections upon the history of museums in United States, common aphorisms, and audience satisfaction.  And much to my delight Rachel Smith was visually recording the session and posted the following photograph condensing what I said into the image below.  Thanks Rachel.

The best thing about the day was listening to the presentations and ideas and commentaries of the really bright young people who are working in museums today.  They are transforming the landscape and we (who are bowed at the shoulders, with creaky bones and joints) should take advantage of their enthusiasms and allow them to show us  museums and audiences through their eyes much more often.   A big shout out to Lillian from the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts.  You rock girl!

And…swallowing my words….

Lo many moons ago in this blog I declared my intention (in musical parody) never to tweet.  But today, June 30, 2010, I take it all back.  I’m tweeting–but sparingly–one tweet a day, an object from a museum somewhere in the world.  You can follow me on twitter as @hwitchey.

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Do Less With Less

Posted by Nik Honeysett on Monday June 28 2010

(This posting is based on my presentation at AAM’s recent Technology, Interpretation & Education online conference in a session with Nancy Proctor. What’s that? You missed it? Shame on you, it was an excellent two-day conference. No worries, it was recorded. Check AAM’s Professional Development website).

Smaller, cheaper, faster, better – The promise of technology. Isn’t technology meant to make our lives easier by streamlining workflows, eliminating manual processes and supporting our administrative, interpretative and educational initiatives? That’s the myth. While technology is often smaller and faster, the reality is that technology sometimes isn’t better (shock, horror) and it definitely isn’t the cheap option. Technology may not be cheap, but done right it is a great investment. However, technology done badly can be an expensive mistake and that gives many the impression that technology doesn’t work and is an expensive waste of time. As museum technologists we struggle with this image.

In our current financial situation technology can be the soft target when we’re looking at our budgets, a second-class citizen struggling to convey its true value. I sometimes see technology as the sporting equivalent of a benchwarmer – a dispensable player who can be removed from the game without affecting its result. It’s not.

Who’s to blame for doing technology badly? No point looking around at others, we are when we don’t do our due diligence in matching solutions to requirements, or worse, when we don’t even bother to do requirements because “isn’t it obvious?”, or even worser, when we use technology for technology’s sake.

I’ve seen it many times. Applications are often a substitute for existing (manual) processes, so when we look to bring in a new application we look to replicate the processes that we have in place and are unwilling to change our ways. Third-party applications are often the result of a distillation of processes from a variety of different sources and situations into something simple. Instead of using the moment when we select technology as a time to question how we do something, we look to blindly replicate our processes with something that wasn’t designed to be as convoluted as we’ve trained ourselves to be. Bringing in technology under these conditions is a recipe for disaster.

There are any number of reasons why technology doesn’t hit the mark, but a sure-fire way is not clearly identifying the purpose and goals at the outset.

I’m reminded of a quote:

Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to be done.

- Andy Rooney, US news commentator

But technology done right is a bit like the definition of pornography – I’ll know it when I see it. And the epitome of “technology done right” is that its transparent – its there but you don’t see it, it presents no barrier to the experience. And if we’ve done our job right, it actually enhances the experience.

The two-day Technology, Interpretation & Education conference showcased the value of technology and discussed getting it right. From the MUSE award virtual reception (thanks Jack & Suzy and congratulations to all the MUSE Award winners), to the Art Institute of Chicago on Teens and Technology: Remixing the Museum to Stephanie Weaver on Creating a Social Media Strategy to the consistently engaging Nina Simon on Developing Tools for Visitor Participation. The conference featured instances where the disciplines of education and interpretation have been brought together, supported by technology, to provide an engaging experience that represents value: a thoughtful and resonant engagement with our audiences, or more specifically, a visitor’s thoughtful and resonant engagement with us. Instances where traditional ways of interpretation and education have been replaced by elegant and meaningful solutions that further our individual missions, not necessarily using cutting-edge technology, but the right solution for the job at hand.

Technology done right is a thing beauty and a joy forever – that is, until the upgrade. But as the Chinese Curse goes: May you live in interesting times. That is certainly true of the times we are living in. And in these times we are being asked to “do more with less” – and often the instinctive answer is some technology solution. But as museum technologists and as museum professionals we’ve been tasked with “doing more with less” for many years.

We have less, so let’s do less. I think its time to focus our time and resources and “do less with less”, but “do stuff that matters”, to quote Tim O’Reilly. Tim O’Reilly also talks about “big hairy audacious goals”, but see Mike Edson for that.

“Do Less With Less”: Museum technologists always want to say yes, they are particularly good at saying yes or rather, they are bad at saying “no”. In this time of financial and resource constraint, as technologists, as content developers, and as educators, we need to create a culture where its okay to say “no” if our goal is to wisely and judicially use our skill and resources to create lasting projects of value. To misquote, Rich Cherry, Director of the Balboa Park Online Collaborative: “Don’t half-arse, just say no”.

In the short story Runaround (published in I, Robot in 1942), Isaac Asimov came up with three fundamental laws that all robots must obey:

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
  2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law

I’ve come up with the Museum Technologist’s equivalent that I’d like to share with you – to make the point of doing less with less. So for us Museum Technologists, I give you the Three Laws of Museum Technology:

  1. A museum technologist may not implement a technology solution that is inappropriate, uneconomic, unsustainable, unproductive, inelegant, inflexible, a closed architecture or not based on standards
  2. A museum technologist must obey the opinions and decisions of a museum non-technologist except when such opinions and decisions conflict with the first law
  3. A museum technologist must protect his own existence as long such protection does not conflict with the First and Second law

So, what is an inappropriate technology solution? Well, I talked about that one: not matching solutions to requirements and doing technology for technology’s sake.We technologists have, what I like to refer to as the shiny gadget gene, we see others doing something cool and there is an overwhelming urge to emulate it. Or we see others with some success and we want to do that very same thing. We are a culture of emulation, but we have to be careful that we emulate for the right reasons. We jump on the bandwagon, without thinking whether we should be on it or even sometimes thinking about where it is going. The early institutional websites were a great example of this, but now I hope we’ve individually figured out why we do all have a website. I worry that our current social networking efforts are similarly inclined. Are you clear why your institution has a Facebook page and what the plan is? Are you clear why you are capturing User Generated Content on your website, and what the plan is? Technology for technology’s sake is not doing “less with less”, its doing “more with less”. And most importantly, it violates my first law.

What about uneconomic? We have to be careful of not buying into the myth that replacing something with a technological solution is the cheap alternative, or that technology is in itself, “cheap”. In our world there is rarely an immediate return on our investment and thinking that is the case, is a problem. Technology is an ongoing investment and trying to do it on the cheap, for example selecting technology based on relative cost and ignoring the requirements (assuming you did some), will result in tears before bedtime. Unquestionably, technology can support us in our mission, help us build engaging interpretive and educational solutions, but it requires investment and commitment from the highest levels in our institutions and the returns are not hard cash, but are hopefully feet through the door, greater access to our content and meeting our missions.

And let’s not forget that Open Source Software is as free as a free puppy: no upfront cash, but years of scooping poop. Just because Social Media is cheap and easy (is it really?) should we be doing it? There is an important distinction between “cheap” and “economy”. Done wisely and judiciously, technology can be a great economy, saving time and resources over the long term. No doubt that some technology solutions absolutely can be cheap and can be a “financial economy”, but our returns on investment are about meeting mission, sustainability, preservation and access, which by their very nature, play out over the longer term. Doing “less with less” means being crystal clear that what you are about to do clearly addresses these mission-related goals.

To do less with less is to focus on the things that are core to our institutional mission, things that are being done for the right reasons which everybody is clear about, and are done in a way that maximizes resources and finances. We should plan for flexibility because we don’t know where this “thing” is going; we should plan for scalability because we don’t know how big this “thing” might get; we should use standards because we want to play and share in a much bigger arena; we should collaborate and stop trying to re-invent the wheel. And most importantly, we should address the long term – the sustainability of the things we’ve created for our institutions after we’ve moved on.

Doing less with less may also extend to how you structure your workforce. Here at the Getty we reorganized departmentally to recognize that there functional areas that shouldn’t change – such as content development – the way we interpret our collections, but there are areas that will change – how we brand our content and how we deliver it. How does doing “less with less” fit into a world where new technologies and platforms are constantly emerging? If you know something will change, at least you can plan for it with modularity in hardware, software, people or resources.

In these “interesting times”, your take on doing “less with less” may be different. Maybe “doing less with less” is to do something that creates a revenue stream, or to do something purely because its high-profile, or even to do something that is in fact technology for technology’s sake – a one-off, no-holds-barred, shiny-gadget project. Far be it from me to judge. Essentially, “doing less with less” it is to be thoughtful and appropriate in how you conduct your business and how you support and deliver your interpretive and educational goals under the banner of your mission.

PPT available on slideshare here.

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Filed under: Random Musings
I’ll know it when I see it

Posted by Nik Honeysett on Thursday June 10 2010

I led a couple of Career Cafe sessions at AAM which were meant to be resume writing workshops, but I decided to do something different. Initially, the attendees were a tad annoyed (another session that isn’t what it says its going to be) but in the end I think they appreciated it. I’m skeptical of boilerplate resume writing workshops because for me, a good resume is like the definition of pornography – I’ll know it when I see it.

(more…)

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Filed under: Random Musings
No Fig Leaves in the App Store

Posted by Amalyah Keshet on Tuesday June 8 2010

From the “You’ve Got To Be Kidding, This is 2010, Isn’t It?” department:

“A comic book adaptation of James Joyce’s notoriously challenging epic Ulysses is now available on the App Store, but only after Apple demanded cuts.

Rob Berry and Josh Levitas launched the ambitious webcomic version of the classic novel, one of the most important works of Modernist literature, earlier this year under the title Ulysses Seen. The comic includes only cartoon nudity, which the pair had to remove before Apple would approve the app.

“Apple has strict guidelines and a rating system to prevent ‘adult content.’ Their highest mature content rating is 17+, which doesn’t seem to be a problem since no one reads Ulysses at sixteen anyway. But their guidelines also mean no nudity whatsoever. Which is something we never planned for” …

“While the first chapter of the book, the one now at iTunes, doesn’t contain ‘offensive language,‘ our comic does have frank nudity. Something we figured we might have to pixelate or cover with ‘fig leaves,’” Berry notes. “But Apple’s policy prohibits even that. So we were forced to either scrap the idea of moving to the tablet with Apple or re-design our pages.”

Further comment probably superfluous.

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Filed under: Random Musings
American (Association of Museums) Idols

Posted by Holly Witchey on Wednesday May 26 2010

Just back from AAM and since the conference was slam bang in the middle of the American Idol extravaganza, I wanted to nominate a few of my own American Idols.

Huzzah for the Digital Jump-Start Unconference Co-chaired by Sharon Leon and Michael Edson

Kudos and a special champagne toast to the entire Media & Technology Board, and the many volunteer judges and jury members for a tremendous jump-start to the conference last Sunday evening with the MUSE Awards, and continued to power-house through the week with tutorials, an online conference, and the most successful M&T lunch ever.

And speaking of the MUSE Awards–congratulations to the 2010 MUSE Award Winners.

Special shout out to the winners in the new (and newly named) Honeysett-Din Student Award (to be known henceforth as the HD Student Award).

Three cheers for Herminia Din and Nik Honeysett, both of whom, retired from the Media & Technology Board this year.  They were rewarded for their tireless efforts with action figures made in their own likeness and the new award named in their honor.  Fantastic idea JackDaddy Ludden, new M&T Board Chair,  and all of team M&T.

Raise the roof for Douglas Hegley, Jack Ludden, and Rob Stein who gave fantastic presentations and presented themselves as the very models of modern i.t. professionals–thoughtful, challenging, intelligent, and witty–in the Demystifying the Mighty I.T. session yesterday.

Another round of applause for new AAM Board of Director Nik Honeysett who took over the responsibility for museum’s role in the Joint National Committee for Archives Libraries and Museums (CALM) and, without his hands ever leaving his arms, gave a stellar and useful presentation on mid-career resume building (get that pdf and presentation online soon Nik!)

These are just a few of the American (Association of Museums) Idols — no voting any of them off, ever–they are too, too talented a group of people.

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Falling on Olympic Avenue

Posted by Holly Witchey on Tuesday May 25 2010

At 8 am this morning, in the middle of Olympic Avenue, in Los Angeles, on my way to chair a session at AAM, I fell.

I think this is a story about unemployment.

I’m not really unemployed, I’m underemployed.  I teach, I do contract work and I truly enjoy what I do.  I’ve been very happy lately and thought, until this morning, that I had gotten over the devastation of having my full-time position eliminated last August.

And then, this morning, I fell on Olympic Avenue.

I wasn’t badly hurt.  I quickly picked myself up, and brushed myself off.  Looking down I realized I couldn’t go on to the convention center without doing a little triage.   I turned around to walk back to the hotel and wash the blood off my knees.  As I turned around I lost it.  In less then 30 seconds I went from a confident professional, to the person I was last August, sitting at a table and listening to someone inform me that both my job and my department were about to be eliminated.

As I trudged back to the hotel I had a conversation with myself that I probably should have had last August.  I wailed (not verbally, this was virtual wailing) and gnashed my teeth.  I argued with the universe about my worth and made the case for Holly Witchey.  At the end of the whole painful process a light bulb went on above my head.  The physical accident had allowed me to mentally pick myself up and brush myself off from an intellectual tumble I’d taken 10 months earlier.

You know what?

I could not be happier that this morning, in the middle of Olympic Avenue, I fell.

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Filed under: Random Musings
Had to Share

Posted by Nik Honeysett on Monday May 17 2010

If you’re coming to LA for AAM you’ll be able to see the real thing but in a shameless plug, I had to share the next best thing. We’re opening a redesigned gallery featuring Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture and Decorative Arts.

Click here to see the re-designed gallery.

A focal piece of the sculpture and decorative arts galleries is an extraordinary collector’s cabinet from Augsburg, Germany, which represents the 17th-century desire to gather and order knowledge. Cabinets such as this, along with items of natural, artistic, and intellectual interest originally kept within, are essentially forerunners of today’s museums.

Although it isn’t known what was kept in this cabinet, its many surfaces are richly decorated. This interactive presentation—also available in the gallery near the cabinet itself—enables you to discover the piece’s many surprises.

Click here to interactive with the cabinet.

But that’s not the coolest thing. The coolest thing would be this:

Instructions can be found here.

Shameless plug, I know. Sorry.

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Filed under: Random Musings
If you work at a museum you must watch this! Really, really!

Posted by Holly Witchey on Sunday May 16 2010

Kim the Kitten reads an executive summary of her report about museums entitled “We love museums…Do Museums Love Us Back?”

Don’t go to AAM until you’ve watched it.  In fact, don’t go back to work tomorrow morning until you’ve watched it.

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Filed under: Random Musings

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