Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Trackstick: A New Visitor Studies Tool For Museum Evaluators?

















The website called Trackstick.com has listed an interesting GPS-enabled app called "Trackstick."

Basically, it's a clip-on battery-powered device about the size of a pack of gum that tracks and records movements (tech specs say it has a 2.5-meter accuracy.)

The really slick thing though, is that the Trackstick coordinates with Google Earth (and similar online mapping programs) to create a visual record of the path(s) that anyone wearing a particular Trackstick traveled!

This seems like a great tool for evaluators and exhibit developers to get a handle on where visitors travel in zoos, botanical gardens, and large outdoor historical sites as well as around museum sites.

Has anyone out there tried one of these? I'll present my own impressions in a future posting.

Friday, August 3, 2007

Astronaut: A Cool Way to Use Flickr's API


Felix Jung, a clever creator at avovision, has developed this slick Flash-based interface that uses Flickr's API (Application Programming Interface) to "grab" images based on Flickr tags to coincide with a song called "Astronaut" by Dan Frick.

Here are a few things Jung had to say about his creation: "Listening to Dan's song, the speaker makes me think of someone fairly isolated - far away either due to distance or time or both. When thinking of Flickr, I think of a multitude of people, all of them interacting with one another - sharing photos, comments, and memories. I liked the juxtaposition of someone singing about solitude, but having his words represented by... well... by everyone else. By the rest of the world.

Each time the Flash file is loaded, new images are randomly pulled from Flickr. I've hard-coded 53 keywords at set points in the song, and when the page is first loaded... calls are made out to Flickr to retrieve these keywords. With each call, I vary the parameters a little bit.

Let's say I search for the word "astronaut." In searching, I randomly apply a sorting method (date posted ascending, date posted descending, date taken ascending, etc). This randomized sorting method allows for different photos to show up in my results (each search should result in about 50 matches). From there, I randomly select one image, add it to the queue, and move on to the next word.

In some cases, I've taken a few liberties with my searching. Instead of sticking exactly to the lyrics, I've substituted words in certain places, either to elicit an effect or due to the fact that the word itself wasn't returning enough results. I've tried searching all text, but found that searching specifically for matching tags proved the most accurate." (You can read Mr. Jung's entire blog posting about his project here.)

I think there are some amazing exhibit and exhibition possibilities for museums and multi-media artists to make use of this approach to tap into existing public Flickr images (including those currently posted by museums.)

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Cool Tools for Exhibits Folks


Everybody needs cool tools!

Here a few favorite websites in the "Making Things"folder of my browser bookmarks. Enjoy!

Let's start with Kevin Kelly's website, appropriately titled "Cool Tools" It's a compendium of continuously updated useful tools and techniques submitted by actual users. I always find something to stoke my gadget lust here.

Next up is Instructables a website devoted to sharing simple projects and hacks. Sort of a Web 2.0 for DIY geeks. Big fun!

Last is a one-trick pony called "This to That (Glue Advice)" It's just two simple pull-down windows that let you choose which material you want to glue to another material. CLICK and it gives you suggested adhesives (with links.)

Am I missing one of your favorite sites?

Let me know, and I'll include it in a future posting.

Friday, July 20, 2007

The Magical Yellow Book
(NOT Harry Potter!)


If I could only have one catalog on my exhibit resources/supplies shelf it would hands-down be the big yellow book from McMaster-Carr.

The widgets and gizmos they sell have gotten me out of many an exhibit jam. I love the fact that you could buy a railroad car wheel here if you wanted/needed to (and get it delivered the next day!)

Check out their searchable website, but try to get a copy of the paper catalog to peruse as well.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Green Exhibits


One of the building trends in the museum business is GREEN.

Clients and visitors are, rightfully, concerned about the materials used to create both museum buildings and exhibitions. In many ways, children's museums have been leading the way in the green revolution.

Brenda Baker and her colleagues at the Madison Children's Museum have been concerned about the types of materials traditionally used in exhibits (lots of plastics and volatile chemicals) and have really worked hard to create more eco-friendly displays. One great product of their work is the website greenexhibits.org a wonderful compendium of information for everyone concerned about green materials.

The other program that children's museums lead the way in is LEED certification of their buildings.

What is LEED? The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high-performance green buildings. LEED gives building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings’ performance. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.

Several notable examples of new, or soon-to-be-completed, building projects from the children's museum world can be found in Pittsburgh, Brooklyn, and Helena, MT.

Unfortunately, green buildings and exhibit supplies are often more expensive than their "non green" substitutes, so it takes a real commitment on behalf of clients and designers to push green design. But, thanks to websites such as greenexhibits.org we all can have a better idea of what our eco-friendly design options are.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Small Giants (Is Smaller Better? Part 2)


In the excellent book Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big author Bo Burlingham contends that there is more to "growing" a business than getting bigger (and getting bigger quickly!)

As the subtitle of the book suggests, companies featured in the book (such as Ani DiFranco's Righteous Babe companies, Clif Bar, and Anchor Steam Breweries) have come to the conclusion that simply making a business larger is not nearly as important as keeping high standards -- and not confusing one goal for the other.

One interesting aspect of Small Giants is that the different companies came to their conclusions related to high quality not being directly related to business size by a variety of paths. Some companies and founders/directors/employees seem to have always had an intuitive sense of the mission of their particular business and were willing to pass up growth if that meant sacrificing their original principles. Other people running companies that grew too fast, or grew for the wrong reasons, only came to embrace "quality over quantity" after suffering personal and business disasters as a result of growth for growth's sake.

I often think of this constant tug of war as it relates to museum expansion projects.
Sometimes upon hearing of a campaign to make an existing museum "bigger and better" I often wonder if they couldn't accomplish increased visitation and income by "just" becoming better. Admittedly, that is hard and incremental work that doesn't lend itself to sexy capital campaigns.

What do you think?

What are some of your favorite museum examples of "small giants"?