Vine to Share the Museum Experience
Vine can be used as a way to get your audience to share or a way to share what your audience is doing. My previous post sets the foundation for my ideas about getting your audience to share. I would only punctuate those ideas with some notes about content. First, let’s meditate on the word …
The Right Audience for Vine
The interface of vine is strangely equalizing in its startling simplicity. You just touch the screen—there isn’t even a button. Anyone who has accessed the app can touch the screen. After all, that is how they got into the app. This simplicity has its problems. You look at the screen and wonder—what do I do? …
Vine Video for Museums: Post 1
Have you ever lost track of time watching a Vine video? What makes a Vine so engaging that you end up watching them over and over? They are only 6 seconds, after all. The brevity of the medium is at the core of its power. Spurred by the challenge of fitting an idea into such …
Museum Games: Dishes Best Served to Order
The tinkling, jingling bells of the approaching ice cream truck awaken something in the soul of my oldest daughter. My other daughter squeals with delight at broccoli. Whatever floats your boat? Right? Recently, at AAM, there was a long discussion about if museum games can have spinach in the cookies? Similarly at the …
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What makes Rembrandt Rembrandt?
Whenever I pass Rembrandt toothpaste in the aisle, I can’t help but try to imagine that branding meeting. What makes the name so puzzling? Maybe it is all that time i have spent trying to make compositional sense of the master’s etchings. Or maybe the general impression i have of the brown backgrounds and dour …
What can museums learn from Podcasts and Public Radio?
I must applaud AAM for turning their keynote mic over to the Moth Radio Hour, produced by PRX and Atlantic Public Radio. Three storytellers came up to the stage, one after the other, and spoke about their life. Each was clearly carefully chosen to match the museum professional audience. One spoke about confronting her preconceived …
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AAM 2012 Recap
Rather than create a play by play recap of the annual conference, this post highlights broad strokes of the event. On Museums: Museums are holder of the public good. Programs should showcase public value. Museums should create memories for visitors. Museums are community based and community responsive. They are public utilities. Museums serve 55 million …
What can Docents Learn from a Sunday at Church? Storytelling for the Galleries
On one cold snowy Saturday, I found myself sitting on a hard wooden pew while doing some mental algebra. I was reading a wedding program and assessing the priest’s style with the hope of counting the minutes left before I could escape this country church. While I certainly shared the joy of the congregation of …
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When museums are run like Downtown Abbey…
After spending hours of research watching and rewatching Downton Abbey (and over a decade of research working in museum), I can’t help but see uncanny similarities between museum organization structures and the hit PBS show. The Abbey The museum, like the manor, is more than a structure, and frankly is more than the collections it …
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Enter the Interns
It happens every spring. The snow dissipates. Flowers come into bloom. And, the gaggles of summer interns appear at museum doors throughout the country. This is a little note for the interns and their supervisors. Dear Supervisors, please remember Slavery was not right then and isn’t now. Internship is not slavery! An intern is not …