On December 2, 2008 I was fortunate enough to speak to a large Cultural Connections group at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The topic of the night was visitor participation in the museum experience and included myself along with Stephanie Pau, Manager of Interpretation at SFMoMA; Kathleen McLean of Independent Exhibitions; and Catharine King, Vice President of Exhibitions and Programs from the International Museum of Women. We were all asked to speak by Mandy Smith of Cultural Connections who put together an outstanding program that was attended by about 70 people from Bay Area organizations, institutions, and companies. The group was engaged and had a lot of great questions which made for fun and lively discussion.
The topic I spoke on was a recent video that we made for our exhibition Road Trip at the San Jose Museum of Art. The video acted as both a marketing tool to promote the exhibition and a vehicle for gathering postcards for an interpretive component in it.
Thanks to all that attended and to Mandy Smith for asking me to speak! Here are the slides from the talk:
These are the slides for the presentation that I gave at the Tate Handheld Conference From Audiotours to iPhones. The conference was in London on September 4th and 5th, 2008 and there were about 150 people in attendance. The focus of the presentation was the San Jose Museum of Art’s iPod Touch tour. You can read more about the conference or more about the tour. Whatever tickles your fancy!
The San Jose Museum of Art hosted the Annual meeting of the Museum Computer Network’sCalifornia Special Interest Group (say that fast five times) in August of 2008. The day long meeting had several presentations from local museums including History|San Jose, the Magnus, the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco and our museum. For the meeting I spoke about our iPod Touch tour and then invited the 20 participants to check it out for themselves in the gallery. The day was a success and it was great to meet so many new people and learn about their organizations.
For the American Association of Museums Conference in Denver, I was invited to speak about how our museum over the years has gathered visitor comments electronically. I gave a historical perspective and talked about analogue methods using paper and worked up to utilizing “web 2.0″ technologies. The panel consisted of myself, Dave Ashiem from Guide by Cell, Peter Samis from SFMoMA, and Marla Shoemaker from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the session was called Using Technology to Elicit Visitor Feedback. I was sick at the time of the presentation and was not at the top of my game. Ironically, while I was researching some facts about this post, I came across the audio from the conference available for purchase from the AAM website.
I was flattered to be asked, through our YouTube Channel, by David Hart at New York MoMA if I would be interested in presenting at Museums and the Web 2008 about how we utilize YouTube at the San Jose Museum of Art. I was quick to accept because this would be my first conference speaking engagement. Also on the panel were Allegra Burnette, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Daniel Dark, The Indianapolis Museum of Art; Jennifer Rossi, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; and Nicole Minor, The Exploratorium, USA. The idea for our panel presentation and discussion built on a presentation at Museums and the Web 2007 put on by the Indianapolis Museum of Art about posting videos to YouTube. Our idea was - so now you have a video on YouTube now what? My section dealt on how to make your video viral in a marketing campaign. The session was very well attended with attendees spill into the aisles and standing out in the hallway and lined up against the back wall.
The paper that we collaborated on Beyond Launch: Museum Videos on YouTube is available on the Museums and the Web 2008 website. Thanks to David and Allegra for putting it all together!