Thought I’d jump back in here folks because I’ve just returned from a wonderful, engaging, enlightening, and highly entertaining AAM 2012. As always the MUSE Awards, ably kicked off by that man-about-town Jack Ludden, was a highlight. You can find all the MUSE Award winners here.

But the real reason I thought I’d post today is I had several opportunities to listen to comments and constructive criticisms of the 20122 Horizon Report>Museum Edition. And it occurred to me that some of you out there might have some comments too, or a project that you want to share, or you might be interested in participating as part of this year’s advisory board.

Here at NMC/MIDEA We welcome your input and here are a couple of ways you can connect with us:

Two ways to Tag Resources hzk11
http://delicious.com/tag/hzk11
http://horizon.wiki.nmc.org/Tagging

Or you can nominate yourself for the 2012 Advisory Board

There’s also a MIDEA facebook page–friends us and share comments–or leave us a comment using twitter #NMChz #MIDEA

Oh…and one last item. A shout out to Nik Honeysett’s recent post “How To Pitch Technology To Your Board” using Present Me, his current favorite presentation technology.

The first “northeast” SIG meeting is nigh. We’ll be getting together at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts on July 15th, gathering at 10am at the Staff entrance to get our badges, register any computing devices, and head inside to Founders Hall for a day of what look to be excellent presentations and networking. I already have a long list of folks coming from as far away as DC (we consider “NorthEast” to be a flexible concept) with whom I hope to spend some time during the day.

Unlike the several-day-long Fall MCN conference (in Atlanta, this year, from Nov 16-19), we have kept the program simple. There is one track with a strong emphasis on presentations about things that you can go home and use immediately, with subjects ranging from Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems and what works, to a presentation on using Linked Open Data (LOD). We have also tried to ensure that there is plenty of time to get together and shmooze. It isn’t all about data and technology—a lot of the point of having an event like this is to find and meet people who are doing similar work for support, sharing, and the pleasure of being able to talk about exhibit issues and museum trustees with other folks who care about those subjects.

The crowd, so far, is as diverse as you would encounter at MCN: Lots of people connected in some way to IT or technology at Libraries, Archives, and Museums—folks on the LAM, as it were. (I probably won’t be allowed to repeat that attempt at a pun, so enjoy it here.)

Please help spread the word. You can follow along with the hashtag #mcnsig. In fact, if you are attending, please send your twitter handle along with the usual name and email and let me know if you’d be interested in tweeting the event.

In case the link got buried, you can see the program and other details on the MCN website, on the northeast-SIG page. I look forward to seeing everyone in just a couple of weeks.

Jack Ludden's vision for museums in a gigabit world

I am absolutely unapologetic about cross-posting this little note.

For the past two days I’ve been sitting in a lecture room at CWRU with 50 colleagues from all over the country discussing how we might re envision public services in a world where everyone is connected by high-speed, reliable, big, big bandwidth.

the bulk of the delegates seem to come from science, health care, and government sectors but there is also a small contingent from the library world, including Mamie Bittner who heads up the Office of Policy, Planning, Research and Communication at the IMLS), and an even smaller group of us representing museums, ably led by Jack Ludden, Manager of the Web Group and New Media Development at the J Paul Getty Trust.

Last week we were all given a homework assignment to complete before our arrival. Each of us was asked to prepare one slide articulating a vision for our communities in a world where the bandwidth for communication is bigger and better than ever before. My own slide was uninspired; Jack’s was brilliant and with his permission I have reproduced it here.

Now….If you had unlimited bandwidth and the money, manpower, and time to produce the programs, content, experiences, and interactions you’ve always dreamed about, what would you do?

This year, the MCN conference’s closing plenary was a formal debate, featuring two teams of debaters considering topics of broad interest to the museum community.

Our debate propositions and teams were:

1. Museums that are not run as businesses will ultimately fail.
For the motion: Erin Coburn and Rob Stein; against the motion: Nancy Proctor and Bruce Wyman

2. Engagement with online visitors is as important as engagement with those on site.
For the motion: Rob Stein and Len Steinbach; against the motion: Beck Tench and Bruce Wyman

The debates were hard fought, sharply argued, and lots of fun. For those of you who weren’t able to be there, Rich Cherry’s team at the Balboa Park Online Collaborative captured and edited the event. Thanks to Rich for arranging the videotaping, to Scott Granger for the video capture, and to Chris Borkowski–BPOC’s newest staff member–for editing the footage. A four-minute digest of the event has been posted on the MCN website at: http://www.mcn.edu/great-debate

One of my favorite aspects of the debate was the participation of the audience. Audience members not only voted for the winners (the speakers who persuaded the most people to change their minds during the course of the debate*), but also asked really smart, thoughtful, and relevant questions during the event’s cross-examination section. The digest version of the debate doesn’t include the audience questions, but a full-length video, which will be posted shortly, does.

Thanks to our debaters for their fearlessness, preparedness, and wit–and their willingness, in some cases, to debate a position that they didn’t necessarily agree with! Thanks, too, to everyone who attended, added to the discussion with questions, and took place in the voting.

*For the record, the winners of the debates were Erin and Rob, arguing the affirmative side of the proposition, “Museums that are not run as businesses will ultimately fail,” and Beck and Bruce, arguing the negative side of the proposition, “Engagement with online visitors is as important as engagement with those on site.”

And…this just in….Larry Johnson, CEO of New Media Consortium has just been announced as Keynote Speaker for the conference.

Hope to see you there.

At the same time, the Center for the History of Museums has been talking about “future studies” that will prepare museums for inevitable changes – a move from being re-active to pro-active about our futures. While spending time looking at research may not be immediately helpful to you today or tomorrow, research helps to shape the “Cone of Plausibility” – in fact the goal of research is specifically to expand the “limits of plausibility” by pushing the boundaries. When I first started my graduate program (almost 6 years ago), multi-touch displays, augmented and virtual reality, telepresence robots, smart phones, all seemed like science fiction. Now I have more computing power in my pocket than all of my first 5-6 computers combined and it’s constantly connected to the Internet (well, at least when AT&T lets me).

If we are going to try and prognosticate the future(s) of museum information technology, keeping an eye peeled for relevant research seems like a good idea. In my next series of posts, I’ll review a few of the research conferences that I’ve attended that feature research grounded in museum settings. I’d also encourage anyone who’d like to contribute a guest post about other conferences to leave a comment.

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.

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.

In terms of full disclosure, Nik and I go way back, I’ve known him since he was a singularly gifted programmer at Cognitive Applications in the mid-1990s. It has been a pleasure to watch his steadily meteoric career after his shift from the vendor world to museums in 2000. Nik’s appointment is a terrific thing for museums, not just for technologists–although admittedly it is great to finally have someone at the board level at AAM who came up through the ranks.  It is fantastic to have someone, like Nik, who understands and has an impressive track record in the strategic implementation of new technologies.

Nik knows how important success is and he knows that failure can sometimes be the best teacher.  He is clear-sighted and he does the right thing.  He raises the bar and invites and inspires others to do their best.

I didn’t start out to write an encomium on Nik Honeysett, okay, maybe I did.  As a friend and colleague I am proud of his success and proud of my professional organization for having the good sense to appoint him to the Board of Directors.

Get the champagne chilled in Los Angeles there is cause for celebration.

Congratulations Nik.

In case you don’t know TED, which stands Technology Entertainment Design, is a conference and a community. Its grown to include many disciplines and global and political themes. The annual conference by which it is most widely known by, is held in Long Beach California, gets 1,000 attendees and is normally sold out a year in advance – something most conference organisers would give their left nut for. The conference is a four-day event, with 50 speakers who each get 18 minutes. There are filler pieces of performances, comedy and poetry, but the real draw is the visionary talent that speaks there.

There is also TEDGlobal which is TED’s twin annual conference now held in Oxford, UK – Jolly Good. It has the same format but a more international theme. TEDIndia, a one-off conference “celebrating and exploring the beckoning future of South Asia” just wrapped in Mysore, India.

The annual TED conference is an expensive conference weighing in at $6,000, some say its elitist, including TED, if you check they’re website.

If you’re poor, or just not up to TED’s standards, you could attend the TEDActive conference which is the pauper’s version of the annual conference. Its a live simulcast of the Long Beach conference, its intended to give you the same content of the conference, at the same time, but it keeps the riff raff away from the important people. Watching the conference on T.V. will set you back $3,750, but it is at the Riviera Hotel in Palm Springs. TED’s parent organisation, the Spalding Foundation, is a 501(c)3 which means your membership is tax-deductible.

TED have franchised out their conference format calling it TEDx. Like the Starbucks franchise, they’re on every street corner, 80 are planned before the end of next year in the U.S. alone. I think that makes the MCN conference much more elitist.

If you really are in the poor house and have 10 equally poor friends, you can become a TED Associate Member for less than $1,000. That allows you and your 10 poor friends to watch the live conference webcast from the comfort of your own PC – assuming you’re not too poor to own one.

But even if you have $6,000 that doesn’t get you into the conference. You have to apply to register, then they’ll invite you to the conference, assuming you have correctly filled in your Assistant’s details on the application form and answered some ego-deflating questions such as What have you achieved? Other questions include, What are you passionate about? and Can you share a memorable anecdote that will tell us what makes you tick? Funny you should ask, I was once near a TED conference…

So, is TED worth $6,000 to attend? The only reason for going is to network, because you can watch it all from the comfort of your own home on your expensive PC that you were able to afford from not going to the conference. And even if you did go, don’t think you’ll be able to get close to any of the affluent, intelligent and important people, because they’ll spot you a mile away.

I highly recommend these 18 minute presentations:

• Pattie Maes/Pranav Mistry MIT MediaLabs Fluid Interfaces Group
• Tim Berners-Lee on the next Web (anything that starts “When I invented the Web…” has to be compulsive viewing…)
• Hans Rosling: Let my dataset change your mindset
• David Merrill, Inventor of Siftables, interactive mini-PC tiles
• Ed Ulbrich: Digital Domain, How Benjamin Button got his face

Not from this year’s conference but one of my favourite TED videos:

• Ken Robinson: Schools kill creativity