In this episode, the Punks dig into one of the “secret themes” that emerged out of Museums and the Web 2013: design. They talk to web strategy consultant and design thinking facilitator Dana Mitroff Silvers and Scott Gillam, Manager, Web Presence of Canadian Museum for Human Rights, about just how museums can think about design, and what role empathy plays in this process.

Thanks so much to Dana and Scott for taking the time to chat with us.

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Over the course of the past six decades, technologists have been building the perfect television. Black-and-white and vacuum tubes have evolved into internet-enabled and on-board CPUs. Pixel density is high, profile depth is low and HDMI connections flow with zero latency. Colors are bright and surround sound systems throw down some mean bass. We control these perfect televisions from remote locations via mobile devices and we live our lives unconfined to program schedules.

But for all the effort we’ve placed on building the perfect television, we have very little to show for it with respect to viewing experience. From network broadcasting to subscription cable to online streaming services, there are hundreds of content channels/streams available to us. Perfect televisions deliver unending content yet nothing is worth watching. We’ve iterated on the infrastructure to such a heightened level, the experience of watching television has fallen off the radar and remains virtually unchanged from its inception in the 1950s.

A compelling experience – one that keeps up with the technological advancements of the infrastructure – has not been designed for us.

In a way, I think this is also where we are with respect to museum technology. Koven’s thoughts fall into perspective when we consider content management systems, collections databases and institutional strategy as infrastructure (the perfect televisions) that can be not only built upon, but designed upon in interesting ways. We can see these elements of experience design taking shape in some of the projects Koven notes in his brief, thought-provoking post.

Innovation is nothing new. Museum technologists, like their counterparts working within other types of organizations, have been innovating for decades. It’s exciting, though, to think we may be in the midst of #MuseTech version 2.0, where institutions can stand tall upon the firm foundations of prior work and look confidently toward intentionally designed experiences that captivate, fascinate and delight users at every turn.

Now, where did I put that remote?

Today, I’m super excited to announce Museopunks, a podcast for the progressive museum. Museopunks will be published monthly and I’m very lucky to have an amazing co-host in Suse Cairns, who you may know from her thought provoking Museumgeek blog.

Each month, Suse and I will chat with some brilliant people who help push the museum sector forward in interesting ways. This month’s topic is “Museums and Scale” and we speak with Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy at the Smithsonian, and Paul Rowe, CEO of Vernon Systems. Both guests share some interesting thoughts about how and why museums, from the very large to very small, can and should begin to operate at web scale.

You can listen to the podcast on the Museopunks website or subscribe via iTunes and other Podcatchers. I’m really happy with how the first episode turned out and welcome any thoughts, comments, questions or recommendations you might have. Happy listening!

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Pittsburgh, along with many other rustbelt cities, is mostly content to fly under the radar. From Buffalo to Cleveland to Detroit, the rustbelt is home to vibrant arts, technology and maker communities. Naturally, the backbone to these communities is the network of talented people creating things within them. Often times, though, these people — these rustbelt innovators — go about their crafts with little fanfare or recognition.

Enter Rustbelt Almanac, an indie magazine concept currently in development and at the tail-end of a Kickstarter campaign. From the Rustbelt Almanac website:

While industry may have moved elsewhere, the work-ethic has not. The region is home to countless industrious people; artists, craftsman, laborers, entrepreneurs – Makers. That same void left by industry is the reason the region has such unimaginable potential for growth: there is room for the folks who want to take risks and start something new.

Right on. With a few days left in the funding campaign, these guys are close. I certainly plan to back them and hope they make it.

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Those who despise punk culture credit its sloppy facade, affinity for anarchy and ruthless idealism as touchstones for their dislike. Others simply point to Green Day or spiked dog collars. Touché. These critiques are warranted in my opinion, but I view punk culture in a distinctly different light.

The punk philosophy has impacted me dramatically over the years and it continues to inform the way I approach nearly every aspect of my life, from fatherhood to professionalism. Let me explain.

Innovation on a Shoestring

Punks often operate with little-to-no monetary or material resources. The ability to see different angles and make new, interesting things out of existing materials is of extreme value in the punk community. This forward-looking, innovate-at-all-costs approach has been a huge influence on contemporary society, including the modern hacker and DIY movements.

Speed Matters

Speed is a valued attribute in the punk community. Being perfect is good, but being first is better. One only needs to look to the imitation waves following the emergences of influential bands like the MC5 or Minor Threat or The Pixies to realize the significance of shipping early. The same goes for the technology innovators of today. Punk’s unique combination of speed and vehement originality differentiates it from all else.

Discomfort is Necessary

True innovation happens when artists and technologists operate with urgency and uncertainty. If a project I’m working on doesn’t make me just a little bit nervous, I know I’m doing something wrong. That pressure to make the thing work in the face of my unease drives the work to fruition, and powers the new and different. Routine inputs lead to routine outputs and punk culture frowns upon both.

We Stop at Nothing

Punks disregard money, time, status and possessions in pursuit of their passions. They follow their hearts to the ends of the earth to create their craft and it’s evident in the results. Often these projects are audacious and unconventional. Sometimes they take the shape of a song or an app or a robot. The remarkable projects, however, are always steeped with a noticeable passion. It’s in the fiber of the thing. You can sense it.

Authenticity is Paramount

People can tell when someone is faking it and merely throwing shapes. Punk culture is built on a foundation of authenticity and anything half-baked will be called out as such. Truth, honesty and compassion, along with authenticity and transparency, are keystones of the movement.

Punk drove it’s fangs into me as a teenager and has followed me ever since. It’s present when I talk to my kids about staying true to who they are in the face of peer pressure. It’s present in the writing on this website and in the writers I enjoy reading. It’s an elemental piece of my being.

It’s also present in my daily work at the museum. While I would never advocate for museum anarchism (okay, maybe this kind), I think museums as a whole benefit greatly from the growing sect of MuseoPunks who think differently, experiment freely, challenge preconceived notions and embrace the ethos of punk culture in their life’s work. While they may not self-identify as MuseoPunks (yet!), the community is coalescing around a growing number of progressive practitioners creating projects that push the museum sector forward in interesting ways.

MuseoPunks has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? More on that to come.

The Silicon Valley alternative to the control exerted over our cultural consumption by old-guard media once seemed refreshingly free. No more. It’s time to think more critically about what we have to lose and look for alternatives – maybe even before we have to.

– Barbara Fister for Inside Higher Ed

There is no mistaking it. The Googles, Twitters and Facebooks of the world want us operating within their walled social gardens. RSS stands in stark contrast to this mission by liberating content and distributing it democratically. Unfortunately, Google Reader is the latest, but not the last, casualty in the war over the open web.

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Big thanks to Nina for allowing me to hijack her most wonderful site.

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In his most recent post for Hyperallergic, Bartlett makes the argument that the internet as we know it today is a natural evolution from the coffee houses and salons of centuries past. He likens the modern concepts of following, tagging and platforms to the digital equivalents of these real-world, analog (for lack of a better word) gathering places and communities.

We are crafting our own cultural legacies, one post at a time. And these legacies are no longer relegated to locations (the coffee shops of Istanbul, the salons of Paris), but rather to platforms.

– Man Bartlett

A fascinating read. Particularly interesting are his thoughts on digital Post Artists using these platforms for creative expression. Check it out if you have the time.

RELATED: Man Bartlett on the now-retired Static Made Podcast

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The first article is the latest post from J.D. Bentley, one of my favorite writers on the topics of technology and society. In Gods of a Brave New World, JD expounds upon what he feels are the three greatest errors of modern America – Technological Worship, Hyperindividualism and Rebellion. Bently points to persistent marketing and advertising messages as the culprits fanning the flames of these modern personality attributes.

If you want to know who we are as a society, as a culture, pay attention to what the marketers are doing. Their job is to look inside of us, figure out what’s important to us, and appeal to those values in order to sell us something. Advertisements, then, say far more about us than it does about the products or the companies behind them.

– J.D. Bentley

Agreed. The example Bentley cites is a spot from a mobile phone provider that promises unlimited usage and the ability to broadcast oneself in totality. The advertisement takes the position that these things are personal rights, and if a user doesn’t have them they are somehow inferior. Bentley is effectively saying that marketers are preying upon our aspirations for bigger, better, faster and more.

Meanwhile, as Bentley is hitting "Publish," Jasper Visser over at The Museum of the Future is writing similarly about marketing and branding messages, albeit with a slightly different tone. In his piece Museums, the Aspirational 14% and Brand Identity, Visser examines the way museums should be telling their stories and positioning their brands.

The crux of Visser’s piece hinges on the concept of the Aspirational 14%, a term of which I was not aware. The 14%, as I understand it, refers to the percentage of the population that aspires to own luxury items (a $10,000 watch, for example) but never will. Visser makes that argument that this segment is a more appropriate target for museum marketers than the ubiquitous "everyone":

With a little twist of focus museums can easily appeal to the aspirational 14%. The luxury of the collections, the educational value of the expositions, the glamour of culture and art, the rich network of other visitors.

Aspiration is a convincing promise. Magazines such as Intelligent Life and most department stores understand this: they try to appeal to the people that aspire to know more, to travel more, to wear nicer clothes. This is not you, but we promise this could be you.

– Jasper Visser

Each article referenced here touches a nerve for me. Bentley and Visser come at the issue of marketing from distinctly different perspectives, but having lived a previous life as a marketer, I can identify with both positions. Either that says something about the complexity of the topic or it says something about me. Mostly though, I think it says something about the hyperawareness of my internal conflict surrounding the sticky intersection of marketing and technology.