But, as usual, the Whitney delivered in an unexpected and truly great way. I’m hard pressed to pick my favorite museum in New York City, but the Whitney is surely among the top contenders because of its size and general density of awesomeness – there’s just enough to keep you delighted during any visit, and not so much that serious museum fatigue sets in. One of the museum’s current exhibitions is Christian Marclay: Festival, and it’s quite innovative: a performance space houses daily interpretations of Marclay’s works by musicians, multimedia stuff abounds, and visitors are encouraged to participate in the creation of a collective musical score. All of this is cool, but I’m particularly excited by incorporation of Flickr into the experience: visitors are encouraged to photograph the performance space and upload photos to a group Flickr pool to document the exhibition.
Photography is one of those ubiquitous museum no-nos. And when photography is allowed, visitors usually engage in it for solely personal purposes – to say, “I was there. I saw THAT. I kind of now own my own piece/copy of it.” It’s exciting to me that the Whitney is extending Marclay’s collaborative and community-minded work to social sites – and encouraging visitors to create their own works with it. It’s so encouraging to see these tools used in such a way. I look forward to seeing even more of it.
I snapped a few pics with my Droid camera. They’re not great, but I enjoyed the experience and I’m glad to contribute my few images to this creative effort.
Introducing Zeitgeist, a new think tank/social club for digital people to to meet, learn, play, share, solve and grow.
“We are living in a science fiction novel that we all collaborate on.” – Kim Stanley Robinson
A few months ago, I was having brunch with my ubersmart friend Freyja Gallagher, reflecting on the energy and excitement of SXSW Interactive, and talking about all things digital. Freyja and I had the same conversation I’ve had a lot with people who work in various digital places and spaces: there just doesn’t seem be very many awesome and productive opportunities to meet and learn from all the cool people in digital media community. There are networking groups, and conferences, and unconferences, and events focused on thought leaders, and the like. But many of us are looking for a different kind of group experience: one that fosters cross-pollination of interdisciplinary knowledge, one that uses the tools we apply to client projects in the service of social change or creative fun, one that gives us the chance to explore digital culture, and one that gives us opportunities to grow in interesting and meaningful ways. Building a way to cultivate that experience seemed to be a challenge too good to pass up.
I volunteer each week with a group of teens who will be entering college this fall. As part of helping them get ready to make the transition beyond high school, I recently conducted a workshop for them about online privacy and responsible social networking. Almost none of them had ever reviewed their Facebook privacy settings, and many had no idea they even needed to worry about them. They assumed what they were posting was fairly private, and they were shocked to find out that most of their information online is public by default.
This is just one of the many reasons I’m excited about Choose Privacy Week, an initiative of the American Library Association (ALA) to help people understand why and how they should take charge of their digital destinies. Privacy is an important and complex issue, and I admire that the ALA is trying to open up more dialogue about the way that private companies and the government alike are using digital information.
Here’s the Choose Privacy Week video, featuring authors Neil Gaiman and Cory Doctorow (hooray!):
Holy smokes! South by Southwest Interactive was an amazing, inspiring, and absolutely exhausting couple of days. I’m so glad I wore comfortable shoes. (For all you future/potential attendees, the most important piece of advice anyone can give you is to wear comfortable shoes. Do it!)
Now that I’ve finally had some time to sleep, finish up client projects that were out in orbit while I was in Austin, and sort through my notes, I’d like to share some highlights of the big adventure…
I’m pretty darn excited to be heading to SXSW Interactive with Nokia this year, and I’ve been busy getting all scheduled up with our team of Nokians. Adventures on tap: a couple of great nights in the VIP lounge, panels galore, and even slinging some ice cream with Ice Cream Man. I’ll be posting updates and photos here and via Twitter. See ya soon, Austin!
A few months ago, I was having brunch with my ubersmart friend 
I’m pretty darn excited to be heading to 
