Writing

Every once in a great while, I write things down!

Carol M. Highsmith,  Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois,  Color and cropping by Koven J. Smith, CC0 1.0
Close-up image of the control panel for a vintage analog synth, with rows of physical buttons, dials, and quarter-inch phono jacks.

At what cost?

February 12, 2019

Is the increased use of commercial digital solutions proving to have unintended consequences for the museum sector?
A pamphlet titled People. The pamphlet is one of eight found in a portfolio titled Soul City. The pamphlet is printed using blue and black ink. The front features six images. The images are of two people in front of a blackboard, a girl hugging a woman, a man taking a picture, a baby, a man’s face and a boy holding a football. The pamphlet describes how the community plans to improve the quality of life for residents.

Take care of your people

December 16, 2018

We’re not doing enough to take care of museum workers.

The great museum unbundling

June 12, 2016

Thinking about the museum as a bundle of connected services, and what disconnecting them might mean.

Is the museum technology sector shrinking?

April 19, 2018

As more and more people leave the field, some thoughts about where musetech is now and where it might be going.
Image of a man sitting on the edge of a rock-face cliff. He is kicking his feet up and fog is directly beneath him.

On bravery, risk-aversion, and hand-slapping

April 6, 2019

Recapping a Twitter conversation among museum colleagues about risk-aversion and bravery.
Visitors pose in a pool of oversize sprinkles at the Museum of Ice Cream in w:San Francisco.

On selfie museums and empty calories

November 12, 2018

A few words on the emerging phenomenon of so-called experience museums and the their implications for the work we do.
Pen and ink drawing of an arial map of a playground.

The ethics of publishing platforms

August 6, 2018

A Twitter conversation about the implications of centralized digital publishing in the non-profit sector.
Exterior of TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport in New York City, New York.

Musetech at cruising altitude

May 16, 2018

Some further thoughts after MW18 on the contraction of the musetech sector and what that might mean for the immediate future of our work.
This quiet scene between a channel of water shows the famous Mt. Fuji in the background. A man in the foreground carries a group of passengers away from the auspicious mountain.

The conference backchannel and the ‘right on’

April 18, 2018

Thinking about how discourse has changed on social media as the result of a few design decisions, and how that’s changed the musetech conference backchannel.
Close-up of a hand dropping a paper ballot into a cylindrical metal ballot box with a slot in the top. The box is locked with a padlock. On the front of the box are the words 'ballot box.'

Better ways to win

November 23, 2016

A few short thoughts on elections outcomes and what they can teach us about approaching our work.
Image depicts a vintage Zenith radio dial with a needle pointing between 100 and 110 on the dial.

On losing Rdio

December 22, 2015

A eulogy for the only music streaming service I’ve ever truly loved.
The site of the Calvary, a shrine built in 1628 at the top of a cliff overlooking the medieval town of Honfleur, was popular in the nineteenth century among tourists, pilgrims, and people offering prayers for men at sea. Corot painted this work during a trip to Normandy, probably in 1830.

More on relevance

March 2, 2015

Some further thoughts on ‘relevance’ and why chasing it is trouble for museums.

Net Neutrality and the museum community

July 15, 2014

Copy of the text I sent to the FCC about the dangers posed by the proposed 2014 net neutrality regulations to the museum community.
Early photograph of eight men perched on supporting cables on the Brooklyn Bridge during its construction.

The museum as skeuomorph

July 1, 2014

Examining the idea of skeuomorphism and how it (unfortunately) applies to a lot of museum thinking.
An astronaut in a white spacesuit is shown floating with the Earth's horizon in the background. The astronaut is connected to an unseen spacecraft via an umbilical, which extends into the foreground.

Defining “digital”

June 20, 2014

Attempting to figure out exactly what “digital” means in museums.
Watercolor drawing of purple grapes on a vine.

The irrelevance of relevance

May 18, 2014

I keep coming back to this issue of ‘relevance’ and why it’s such a weird thing for museums to be striving for. This is not a great post, but it at least gets some of these ideas on paper.
Image of two people in front of a large screen with hundreds of images of works of art. Both are touching the screen and immediately between the two figures a larger artwork image is visible and the words 'decorative arts' are immediately underneath it.

Gallery One and visible technology

May 1, 2014

Thinking about the very visible technology of Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gallery One in an era where most musetech is about making the tech invisible.
Image of a single plant stalk with five leaves emerging on either side of the stalk. There are red and orange berries on branches emerging from both sides of the stalk.

Have museums always been “authoritative?”

April 30, 2014

Thinking about the concept of ‘authority’ in museums an how that idea manifests itself in daily practice.
Exterior of a brutalist skyscraper, with repeating rows of identical concrete-framed windows.

The Design Thinking Behind Twitter’s Revamped Profiles

April 10, 2014

A short post on the 2014 Twitter redesign and what museums could learn from it.
A picture showing the Brooklyn Museum in March 2018, when the David Bowie Is exhibition was showing there.

The technology skeptic

April 5, 2014

Thinking about what it means to transition from being a full-time cheerleader to a skeptical veteran.