Global Recap Panel

Join Ross Parry and Lauren Vargas in conversation with the track leads as they will attempt to synthesize the key takeaways, trends and insights from MCN 2021. Track:Plenary/Keynote

Transcript

Museum Computer Network 15:48
Okay. Oh my goodness. Welcome everyone. All right. Good. We're gathering in case you haven't noticed. And Amber. I'm going to kick it off in a couple of seconds. So good. That's good. So good count. All right, everyone. Eric Longo here, Executive Director of mtN I am pleased to welcome you to the final day of mtN 2021. Here we are at the end of this five week marathon that MTN 2021 has been as you've noticed, we shake things up a little bit this year, trying to be responsive to the challenges presented by the pandemic. Over the past year. We introduced some pretty bold changes to the format of the conference. You've noticed shorter days shorter session duration we introduced six main tracks organized in digital practice areas. We added a global track to the program inviting museum tech professionals from four global regions to share their experiences from their unique regional perspectives and we added a deli and a global recap based on the observation that often pearls of wisdom are generated during those events and conferences, but that we didn't always do a great job at capturing the learnings. And so this global recap aims to remedy this and so to help me do that recap today I've invited Lauren Vargas and Ross Perry, as well as leads from six of the main conference trucks who you recognize to join us. So let's right dive right in, shall we, Lauren and Roth's over to you.

Unknown Speaker 18:02
Thank you so much, Eric. Hello, I'm Dr. Lauren Vargas. I am an independent researcher currently affiliated with the University of Leicester one by one project, and I am for a visual description female in her 40s with glasses, a dark shirt gray blazer in front of a bookcase. Ross

Unknown Speaker 18:24
Thanks, Lauren. I'm Ross Perry. So I am Professor of museum technology in the School of Museum Studies at the University of less than preferred pronouns he him his and I'm in terms of visual description today. I have dark hair and glasses and I'm wearing a white shirt in front of a bookcase with snazzy coordinated LEDs the same color as Lauren.

Unknown Speaker 18:48
We

Unknown Speaker 18:49
are very privileged to be here and very honored to be here and have this opportunity to actively listen listen to those conversations, those tracks those narratives that have been weaving through the last five weeks. So what Lauren I want to do to start off with is to step aside and and to listen and to make room for those extraordinary track leads who've been giving so much generously. over this last month, and listen to their thoughts and to listen to the way that they're beginning to synthesize and to build some of those take homes and some of those learnings. So we're going to start our relay over the next sort of 20 to 30 minutes and so Victoria can play turn to you. Thank you very

Unknown Speaker 19:27
much, Ross. That's great. I was very excited when I was approached to be the CO lead with Chris Barr. And we had a wonderful learning experience doing that together. And I just wanted to say that in terms of what some of the highlights were for me, I really enjoyed the prop session on building user experience. And I also really enjoyed the visual exhibition presentation by Spencer university folks. And when one of my big takeaways was a question. I think a lot of people were asking this question, are we owning our own technology platforms? And what are the implications of a rented platform like Facebook, YouTube, in the communities that might go away? And what kind of archiving makes the most sense? So to me, that's a very large question that goes across MANY of the different sectors within museum work. And the other thing that was another big takeaway for me was this essential skills, soft skills Max matrix that was talked about at MCM, the senior mid career, an entry level, and how do we build that into our programming on an ongoing basis. So those are some of my key takeaways, and I thank everyone for this opportunity. And I believe the next person is Lynn.

Unknown Speaker 20:45
Hi, everyone. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, for wherever, wherever you're zooming from. My name is Leanne I work on Museum of Modern Art. So I co lead the track of business model financial system and sustainability and capacity building. That's a very long name with Martine Franzini, who is actually the chief of digital product and experience at the National Gallery of Art. And we have in our chat we have five extra extraordinary sessions covered the topics from digital publishing, to the survey of the education programs, and the revenue generation. And our key takeaway, I will say is the even we are the track in the track of business model. We are still have this dilemma of how musetech can make revenue, generate revenue by not decreased his accessibility. So there is a very rich and long conversation between people about how we can actually charge people but actually not make people make people still still have the still make the education programs accessible to most people. And additionally, we have very long conversation on the elf text is again is accessibility issue that how can we make an online collection accessible to the majority of people? So that's two to take away and to that and I will I will turn it over to Melanie for her track.

Unknown Speaker 22:25
Hi, I'm Melanie

Unknown Speaker 22:28
Garcia. Sympson and I work at the block Museum of Art at Northwestern University. I'm a Filipina and white woman in her 30s with dark hair and glasses and I'm here representing the interpretation storytelling education track which was co led with Vinci con the track had a wide range of topics. During the recap, we did a temperature check. And people were feeling both energized by colleagues work and overwhelmed and thinking about the past 18 months and where we're going. So a few key takeaways. If you ask different people to have different ones, but here's where mine one is. Our digital audiences changed. For those of us who work at smaller, more local museums, we found new international and national audiences who we don't expect to set foot in the museum. We're also thinking about how our in person and virtual audiences do and do not intersect to during the pandemic. There's been a real experimentation and openness with trying new things sometimes out of necessity to get content online quickly, or lack of resources. But there's also kind of a fear that will be less experimental as old processes return of three we're all excited about new forms of collaboration that are taking place, whether that's internally between departments, new forms of content creation with our audiences, and real relationship building with our partners and all of this kind of leads to for these kinds of deliberate changes have real budget and timeline implications and challenges that we're all navigating and that staff capacity is real and not infinitely expanding, as has come up in a lot of the tracks. So I'm looking forward to this discussion and passing the mic to Marty.

Unknown Speaker 24:22
Hi, thank you. My name is Marty Spellerberg. I am a light skinned male sitting on a sofa. So I'm a I was part of the ethical responsibilities of museums track along with SUSE Anderson I just called it ethics day. We had a five excellent panels we had a personal ethics versus institutional ethics. Discussion, two panels about accessibility and inclusive design. A follow up on museums VLM commitments that they made. Did they follow up and a panel on unionization? Lots of wonderful discussions, difficult questions such as what are the mechanisms institutional and personal that people use to identify and reflect on ethical issues in our field? How should museums assess possible harms and benefits of different technologies in their work? How do we surface ethical conflicts of interests that you may be aware of as an individual book individual, but your organization is not? Lots of questions about institutional accountability? Who's making decisions, what level of risk are they taking on? What kind of follow up do they perform? What is the public trust? Who is it for? This again, this gap between professional concerns and the concerns of board and leadership and discussions of how to talk about ethics inside the museum versus outside? What do you take out? What do you do you engage your audiences in? Are they ready for it? So this was my third by my account, my third ethics conversation that emcee and we've tended to have one of these each each year. My impression was it this year. Whereas last year, we were really talking a lot more about outside relationships. How do we deal with big tech and the ethical implications of that this year we we really looked inward which was which was amazing. There was there's a lot of talk about turning this into a year round discussion. It's great that we've had a few years of this but some participants expressed interest in developing a musetech code of ethics. And so looking towards the future we collected several, we said anybody who would like to talk about this going forward, please, please send us your info. We collected some names, and maybe we can turn ethics into something like ongoing SIG so, so thank you, Okay, on to Barry Joseph.

Unknown Speaker 27:18
Thank you, Marty. Everybody, I'm married Joseph. It was my pleasure to co lead the experience design and immersive tech track with Robin white Owen, co founder and creator producer of media combo, and Sam Minelli project manager of meta s RL. And together I want to share on behalf of the three of us the 10 key things that we heard come out of the individual presentations and the conversation that was held at the end. Number 10. We shared ways we can each stay informed about what's happening in our spaces. That's always important and we should all make sure we get to do that with each other. Number nine, we discussed how experience design and immersive technologies are crucial ways for museums to create relevance for their audiences. Number eight, we are concerned about the brain drain in digital spaces that nonprofit and often medium and small museums have to compete with regards to commercial opportunities for professionals working on the digital edge. Number seven a quote to share. I find that audience focused slash design practice seems siloed in digital, digital in museums in an okay, I'm hearing somebody want to make sure I'm all right. I'll keep going. I'll go back to the beginning of that quote for me, I find that audience focused slash design practice seems siloed in digital in museums in a super problematic way, and quote, the concern here is that these practices need support and buy in from senior leadership. So if it seems just one practice for one part of the museum, the practice can spread and its impact can't take hold. Number six, our work is all about promoting audience centered this audience dash center this number five exhibition designers must have a better understanding of their audiences, why they come to museums and what they're looking for. They must design for everyone from an inclusive and an accessibility standpoint. Number four, expect to see more AI used in museums. Number three, watch for the review and reassessment of current collection catalogs to address structural bias. Number two, expect to see climate changes and social topics addressed more frequently within exhibits. And number one, there's hope that new technology can help museum professionals to better connect with and understand their audiences. The trend is toward more immersive storytelling using MANY different technologies. Thank you like to pass it now to Lindsey green, who's going to talk about why museums.

Unknown Speaker 29:57
Thanks, Barry, I'm Lindsey green. Founder of frankly, green and web. I co lead the track. Why museums I'm a white woman with dark hair short length, and I'm setting my ASIC I was co leading with Widad and Catalina and possibly not surprising at the end of a a track that was called Why museums we actually ended up with more questions than we possibly did answers. I think the pandemic so I'm just going to summarize it in three points and I'm also going to just introduce Karolina she did a great discussion around reflection on this moment that we're in the question of why museums the pandemic has highlighted how centering the physical experience to some extent reduces our capacity to deliver online experiences, and how online experiences require us to think about what our value is and what we send her very constructively in order that we don't proliferate content that perhaps isn't as valuable to our audience as it is to us. And so this ask really the question about what we invest in in terms of what is important that idea of budget as political document as as something that states what our purpose and what it is that we value. And so when the pandemic ended, the pandemic has ended, but when the when lockdown ended, and we've started opening the physical experience again the idea of budget shifting to digital because it was seen as this very strategic moment where ditch online in particular was very valuable. In MANY instances, the budget hasn't kind of followed that initial incentive. And that brings us back to that question about what it is that we value in terms of being Museum and organization and what our purposes, there was another kind of key theme that kind of came up to me and it it was how is this cycle continuing? Kind of, I think, before the pandemic, we had lots of questions about how I can do better how I can be a better person working in a museum and how I can deliver things, things in a better way. And then there's gradually been a move to this idea of well, actually, this cycle, is it the organization that's kind of keeping this this cycle in place in terms of how we behave and how we treat our audiences and how we treat the people internally. And what I heard in these sessions in particular was actually as, as people who are part of the system about part of the museum system, what is our role both in keeping this system in place and this cycle in place? So as people who work in a sector, both what is our role in changing things, but also how can we pull levers make changes in our organizations, that that moves things forward? And how we and how can we individually start to think about new futures so that we can start to set new visions for what museums can be. And that kind of question about how we collectively work together? I think Marty just described it there. But how do we work together to change mindsets and behaviors in the sector? What is what is it when we come to collectively together and say, Actually, we're going to imagine a new space that centers very different things from what we have in the past. How will that change the systemic patterns that we're currently in and keep and move things and move to this use this transitional moment really to bring about a new feature? I'm going to just hand over to my colleague Catalina momentarily who will talk a bit more about how how the space felt. Thank you, Lindsay. So on my

Unknown Speaker 33:46
little dilemma seem professional with curly hair, light skin and a blurred background. And I just want to add that in our session, there was a lot of silence, but the silence was like full of like frustration and most of the people who participated express their frustration and how people are burned out in the museum professional could be because the digital environment because of the how things have speed up. So it also people are disappointed by the lack of accountability that the seams have had in terms of labor and social justice issues. So we it seems like people need more space to talk about this to speak out. It was a great opportunity to bring this topic to the forefront. Usually it is no one talks about it. So we've found that it's time to talk about labor justice in the museum sector and how we are more accountable, how are we more responsible of our work environment of our team members and also like the big invitation is to work together it's more in fellowship, because we are not alone. We are huge, like a bunch of people who are passionate about what we're doing, but we're not feeling comfortable in the environment. So the question is, how can we gather together to speak up and make sure that we are all happy and we're all having a quality in our in what we do, so I'm going to pass it over. To Lindsay again.

Unknown Speaker 35:06
And so thank you, camelina. Eric.

Unknown Speaker 35:12
Thanks.

Museum Computer Network 35:15
So, one of the probably most notable change that we've introduced or innovation really, that we've introduced this year, really taking advantage of the fact that we are virtual again, and virtual means there's no boundaries was to introduce in October. On Wednesdays focus on four regional areas. of the globe. And we started in October six with an Asia Pacific panel which was held late at night in our in eastern time zone, and we had three panels, one with Tim Kong and Leone Samu. Tui on the digital Pacific project, which helped basically have to Capture and celebrate the the cultural heritage of the people of Melanesia Micronesia and Polynesia which was really fascinating session and on how there are bridging worlds and communities over the Pacific region. Then we had to We The really interesting panel as well. With Chris fee of the National Gallery of Singapore the tanner, who is d the head of the I forget the museum 2050 In China, and then Takashi Kudo, who is a communications director at teamLab together with se knew who was a staff writer at Jing Culture & Commerce and what I've learned from this was was the you know, the digital maturity in Asia is very notable, obviously, especially there. There's, I think, when China was created 1949 To where like something like less than 50 museums, and they're now like, well over 2000 or 3000, if not more museums in China, which most of them are actually private institutions with a very different model. But the dynamism that came out of that session was really interesting and then Chris Lee talked to us about different experiments that he's done very successfully at the National Gallery of Singapore. And to close the Asia Pacific panel. We had a Kia Keir Winesmith And Lizzie Muller. From Australia, talking about digital cultural leadership and one of the quotes I like to mention on this is that they encouraged us to look at leadership as action rather than roles. Then we jumped to the following Wednesday was October 6, and this was Middle East in Africa. And the story there for me is one of contrast. I was in a session with four people from the Nigerian come National Commission for museums and monuments. And the challenges in infrastructure and bandwidth in Nigeria are are you know, really notable, and in contrast with the digital cultural landscape in the Arabian Peninsula, with two panels from Qatar and also from Abu Dhabi. And what was really striking there is the really advanced digital maturity and as well as the forward looking kind of digital vision that Qatar has for its future as a country and and there was another session on the cultural preservation in conflict zones that was led by Peter Eldridge, and obvious Rubin and this was a fascinating session on the state of preservation of antiquities in both those in Iraq and Kuwait. And I, you know, how they, the digital antiquities organization that Peter had leads in Washington is basically teaching communities how to digitize their own culture. And I think there was a parallel there with the digital Pacific project in terms of documenting the cultural heritage that is often oral and not necessarily artifact based. culture. So the story of contrast there for me, I think, then we move to Europe was kind of weird like we were Europe was kind of always included in the US, but it was its own region in its own right. And we had a few sessions there. One of the National History Museum of Denmark. Tutorial, Hagrid did two sessions in the hybrid museums and and these to me were about how the pandemic forced the digital pivot and it raised issues of sustainability and scalability of in first, you know, tech platforms and also infrastructure in museums. And yeah, that was that was also I think, something that that there was some parallels there with with some of the digital maturity in in Asia. And then we went to Latin America for the first time as well on the 27th of October, and we had three sessions one on building digital capabilities at Museo de Arte de De Lima in Peru. And I was in conversation with contract rota and Ana Marty on a small and medium museums that are thriving and digital. And then we had a fabulous panel with undress Rodin, and I'm already America, Christiane Florence Kress add on the kind of current or Eisenerz of cultural of Latin American museums and I was struck by the dynamism and forward looking experiments that were nobody's done in that region. And as well as the issues of accessibility in remote communities that is forcing practitioners to think beyond digital platforms and using, you know, transmedia, like television or radio or WhatsApp to reach different communities in that region. So that was also really enriching panel. And yeah, I hope you've enjoyed that that world tour or that that follow the sun tour, which was the idea initially, and I was really happy that we were able to do that and invite within to DMC and community you know, practitioners from other regions to share their perspective in their own words. So I will now pass it on to Ross and Lauren.

Unknown Speaker 42:27
Thank you so much, Eric. And I hope there's going to be a moment later on where the community gets to turn to you and everyone turns to you and says And so thank you, not just for everything you've done audaciously and creatively and ambitiously, over the last five weeks but all that you've done for me and I'm sure that moments coming but my goodness, you know, for for regional perspective, so five weeks, six tracks it's been it's been an extraordinary an extraordinary, unprecedented conversation that we've had over this last month or so. So, hmm, this is the bit isn't it, where someone who looks a bit like me and speaks a bit like me, and has my cultural identity and has my sort of job kind of grabs the microphone, and everyone having had their word, they synthesize it. This is this is the expectation that at this moment, someone like me summarizes it all and closes it down and gives you the right answer. And we all go away with a with a sound bites and a golden diagram, an acronym, hopefully three words and an alliteration across the three words that summarizes everything. We're probably not going to do that now. I mean, we're not going to do that now in the next 20 minutes, and we should stop doing that now. From this moment onwards as we come together as a community, the lorring let's, let's maybe respect the question we were set and let's let's respect the conclusions that that we're starting to form together because there are things we can say on that there are there are ways we can start to form some conclusions here.

Unknown Speaker 44:07
First, for sure, I mean, I know that there are definitely red threads that we saw and that all of you just heard across the various tracks. I think if we, if we start to think about what those red threads are, all of us are familiar with the three pillars of people process and technology. And this isn't a judgment of the past. But we have prioritized process and technology over people in years past through different means, right seasons change. We've looked at efficiency and effectiveness and you know, gone all the rage with whatever new technologies are coming up or are front of mind. And I think what we have heard across all of the different tracks is that everyone agrees people need to be prioritized over process and technology. Now, we don't have all of the answers. We know that this is tough work. It may be very tempting, you know at this last session of the conference to want to close one chapter and move on to the next. But we have to understand what it is we are trying to grasp and and better understand about people so that we can create better processes better technology, meaning what we heard over and over again, is maybe even before we start to get even more curious about our audiences, our visitors the communities that we serve, we have to first give notice, give respect, acknowledgement to the people within our own organizations. All of the museum workers, really thinking about how people influence process, what people need, their challenges, their issues, their desires, their needs, and let that influence the processes and rather than think about those processes that are purely based on efficiency and effectiveness, it's making space for communication and collaboration, making space for thoughtful and considered reflection. I think something that I personally heard across all of the tracks is that we've got this toxic relationship with time, because technology is moving so quickly. We are being expected to do more and more even before the pandemic right and and how do we make sense of that? How do we make sense of that in in what we do what we produce, but more importantly, what is our capacity? What is the emotional labor that is that is evident in in this approach. And that toxic relationship with time has also surface this toxic positivity. And that's like a key phrase that's come up during the pandemic where we want to just say everything's great, everything's wonderful. We're doing the best with what we can rah rah, let's move forward. And that's not that's not necessarily reality, right? Like we are. We are in the messiness, we are in the thick of things and we just have to maybe hit the pause button and understand our different contexts or different conditions, the different pace layers of change that we are having to reckon with. So as we talked about people, it's not just understanding our our our individual journeys it's understanding our journeys as a group as a team as an organization. How do we reckon with that so that we can create a better experience for our audiences for our visitors, where we can get to know more about them, we can create those better processes we can develop fit for purpose technologies, and even more importantly, how do we how do we find the time, the space and the courage to question how people are interacting with those technologies? What does experience truly mean? And getting curious about what are those unintended consequences of those experiences of those interactions with technologies? And I think that's something that I think we can all agree, people, you know, was a red thread through everything. There were no simple answers. There were no simple challenges or questions. I think we all left with maybe more questions than we had maybe coming in to the conference. And I think that's a good thing. And I think we have to think about those red threads within our own personal contexts and conditions. Ross, what

Unknown Speaker 48:48
about you?

Unknown Speaker 48:50
Well, I'm absorbing what you just said Lauren, because for a community in a subject and an area of practice that for so MANY decades was about getting the technology to work and thinking about the hardware and software and over the last generation has been thinking about process and business process and strategy and vision and policy and so on. To now hear all of our track leads just then and just you know, hearing across the five weeks, again, people just Carolina's last powerful statement still ringing in my ears. It's about people it's suddenly we're realizing there's there's a human dimension to all of this and that doesn't just mean our audiences it means our workforce as well. And we've started to notice that it's people in the museum but that drive is digital change. It's not just the machinery. But let's let's look at that question that question of what is digital now? Well, our wonderful panel here are wonderful leaders here have helped us to notice how diverse and complex our question now is to what is digital now. Victoria, you know, by that reference to the thing you know, who owns the thing, you've reminded us that for MANY years, digital is a noun, it's a thing. It's the asset, it's the record, it's the material, it's the content. But you know, Marty, you're referring on how we build trust within the ethical context. You're, you're helping us to see that digital it's another sort of dimension. It's a it's a quality, it's a characteristic digital is, is a is a thing that isn't tangible. It's something that something we're still trying to process within the museum. So digital isn't a noun. It's also an adjective. It's a thing that describes the quality of MANY of the things the characteristic of MANY of the things that we have, but my goodness, listening to Lindsey and taking that pan optic high across all of these conversations and thinking about you know, why and where and how museum, we hear digital is so so inextricably linked to change to to make into the realization of something and that's when digital is a verb. It's something we do. It's an act of transformation. Melanie, in what you said about those new forms of collaboration, and you know that place we might go suddenly we noticed that digital as well as an hour as well as an adjective as well as a verb. It's a preposition to extend this torturous grammatical metaphor to the point of a rupture. Yeah, it is. It is a dimension it is a medium it is it is also a place in which our work takes place and that we meet our audiences and and things are made and produced and explored. And that can be safe and that can be contentious, and so MANY other of those conversations we've had. Barry, you you said AI and machine learning, you know, how MANY times did we did we enter a room that over this last month and a conversation pinged pinged up that had you know, artificial intelligence in a referred in some way? And then we remind ourselves then, as you've done so helpfully to pay Barry, that, that digital is also it's becoming a logic, it's becoming the way that that ontology, that net that mesh that that that that connector between assets and descriptors and subjects and objects, it becomes, ah, a conjunction, it becomes actually the thing that's between everything else Digital's the glue digital becomes the the parks, the sockets, the things that connect our ideas, our thoughts and us together. But Lauren, that powerful statement about saying, you know, we have this toxic relationship with time. The sessions I went where I heard people talk about, you know, this digital age, this digital era this time. Digital is also a word we use to describe when we are not just where we are or what we're looking at. Digital is also now a tense, the digital age. It's a way of signaling a moment in human history, a shared moment was shared for MANY people. Not everyone in our digital histories as well.

Unknown Speaker 52:44
But currently in your comments at the end, Marcy and you're talking about, you know, identifying ethics issues, but Melanie, also your incredibly important qualifier and writer on what you said at the beginning, where you talks of how energized and yet how tired we are digital that reminds us that digital as well as being all those other parts of speech. It's also wrapped up now in a sense of community. It's wrapped up in a word I heard a few times, you know, this commons that we're part of now. It's wrapped up in our identity, how different people that we work with identify themselves how they they create their identity in the public domain, as a noun, as an adjective as a verb, as a preposition as a conjunction, as a tense, but maybe digital is also a pronoun now as well, so inextricably linked to who we are and how we present ourselves to the world. So digital is more than just those boxes now that we plug in and try and make talk to other boxes. We, we now know, through these five weeks, but also just hearing and listening so attentively and actively to each other. The digital digital is our grammar now. It is the parts of speech. It's the way that we make sense of the world, and it's now immersed within all of our working practices. Let's give ourselves that three word acronym though. This is what we're meant to do in a closing discussion like this. For me, it's been about hybridity, equity and sustainability. What we're hearing again and again, is negotiating the fact that our world is becoming layered and intersexual and multimedia, and blended and online at the same time as we were there with each other. Is that hybridity that we're starting to reflect upon, it was there before the pandemic, but it's now we're sensitized to even more. We now think about digital, and the equity and the inclusiveness and the diversity and the accessibility that must non negotiable be part of all that we do with all those parts of speech around digital. And it's about making sure that everything we do with that with digital, not just how we preserve the content for future ages, but actually, the energy drain the resources, the extraction that's required to power this machinery and this electronics that we're aware of that consequence. So it's about flexibility. It's about fairness, for tomorrow. Hey, Lauren, we could have finished it there, couldn't we? We could have just said that actually. There's our closing remark. And we could have left the stage and do what we sometimes do at events like this and say There you go, everybody, there's your answer. But something's changed this year. And something's changed in this conversation. So thank you, Eric, for framing this and making this possible with all of the MCM community because we're ready now to have different sorts of conversations. Lauren, maybe it's time that we don't close and converge and do what you and I just did. Maybe now it's time that we're ready at the end of a discussion like this and a coming together like this to not converge, but diverge. Maybe it's not about competing to who knows the most about what's coming next and what's new. Maybe we just need to stop and look and see how we are now. And maybe at a moment like this, especially when we're in this synthesis, kind of finallly, crescendo moment. It's not about performing what we know. Maybe it's about being vulnerable. About what we don't know.

Unknown Speaker 56:25
What do you think? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 56:27
yeah, I mean, it's not just about celebrating what we have achieved, because I think everybody has done a brilliant job over the last five weeks and doing just that. But at the same time, we're also acknowledging all of the work that still needs to be done for discussions that need to be had. There's that temptation, right, as we, as we said, when we open to this conversation, that just jump right into that call to action. And what we really need right now is to give ourselves the permission to pause and reflect the permission, look around virtually the room. Give permission to yourself, get permission to everybody here to take that time to take that space, to figure things out to question not to rush to judgment, not to rush to solution, but what does that mean? And in doing so, how might we move beyond you know, framing a set of shared conclusions, saying alright, this is the most ambiguous you know, broadest set of takeaways possible and understand that we have to reckon we have to rumble with with being able to give ourselves the space to understand the questions, the concerns, the challenges, the needs. What we were introduced to over the last five weeks to understand them on our own terms, knowing our context and conditions. What does that actually mean for us, so that we can make that change that we seek model the behavior that we seek. So that's noticing a lot of different things Ross about how we might reflect on what has been and what might be. So as we move into our final couple of minutes of our time together today, what Ross and I really want to do is we want to have you enter the next hour of open space discussion with a couple of prompts. Because as we said, there are no easy answers. There are no easy solutions. And we really need to think about when we come together like this, how might we come together in a different way? So some of the questions some of the prompts that we want you to consider over the next hour, the next day, the next month, week year, is what does it mean to have an inclusive conversation? What does it mean to have an inclusive conversation in a digital first or digitally augmented space like we're here in today? What does it mean to have such a conversation or to be in dialogue? When we are in an environment like this where we're constantly jockeying for position on the chat panel, you know, trying to get our thought or question our comments in rather than what does it mean to be in dialogue to actually have a back and forth conversation where we're taking in multiple perspectives? Ross, what's another prompt we might we might offer up?

Unknown Speaker 59:38
I think it's about understanding how we may need to self assemble now, as a community of practice. We we have in an A, as I say, in an unprecedented way, try to frame that MCM this year, a transnational conversation. So we were all probably exhilarated by meeting colleagues. We haven't met before, by hearing about projects and policies and infrastructures that we don't hear day to day. But when we choose to be in a transnational space, responsibility comes with that. We have to listen in different ways. We have to notice different things we have to challenge our own assumptions in different ways. And I'm not assume that the conversation will not only start in a particular place, but will be structured in a particular way. So when we excitingly start to bring in the opportunity of a transnational conversation so not international just you know, hearing someone in your national contexts from another perspective, but genuinely using the network space to have to have a kind of a boundary object where we can come together. We need to think carefully about how that's framed, even whether this the gridiron of portraits on a screen with certain protocols and codes of behavior around chat and raising hands into and forth and microphone and video, and who's got LEDs behind them and books to make them feel to kind of perform in the right way. We have to question all of those things. So Laura, and I think as we go forward we have an opportunity to think about not just how MC N and other communities of practice, create a clearing in the woods for a moment like this, but even whether the conference idiom is appropriate

Unknown Speaker 1:01:25
anymore.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:28
So we're not We're not ending with the big finale. Ross Did you know give you an acronym gave you a literation. And if you you know me, you know I never walk away from a good acronym. But I'm asking we're asking all of us to really take time, the space the energy to reflect on what we don't know. You know, what does it mean to truly be open and transparent? How do we heal from the inside out and the outside in? Once we better understand our own context and conditions. How do we you know, how do we hold space for multiple perspectives understand the contexts and conditions of others give people grace and compassion as we're we're learning at different speeds at different times in different places. And so the questions we want you to take away into the next hour, who is missing from these conversations? Why are they missing from these conversations? How might you continuously reflect on these questions not just in the next hour, but in the days and weeks to come? Who wasn't present from your organization or if you're a freelancer like myself and you don't have a team to rely on? Who can you go to? How do you make space to have you know, these difficult conversations where we have to show our vulnerability we have to say that everything is not great, or that we have, you know, a lot of areas that we have to learn ourselves. What do we do? To be able to hold that safe space in a community of practice like this? How do we question what a community of practice is? How do we start to build those bridges between different communities of interest or activism that can help further our conversations to help further our goals?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:20
So those are the types of questions that are going to lead to those pragmatic those practical those audacious actions as we move forward. Not just the the two people that rift for the last 20 minutes or even our six track leads, but it's all of you figuring out and maybe figuring out out loud together, what the next steps mean for all of us. And with that Ross and I are going to turn it over to Eric to close this out and move us into the next hour.

Museum Computer Network 1:03:54
Oh my goodness, I don't even know where to start. That was That was intense. Thank you both for doing this recap together. And with our six track feeds. We have a few minutes before the top of the hour. Where, which actually is really good. The next session, which is open space discussion, it's her first attempt to do this and Don Youngberg will lead that session but it dovetails perfect perfectly with this recap. It's about you know, continuing unfinished conversations and what other topics might you wish to explore during NCF 2021 But wasn't and are you looking for other attendees who might have the same questions as you so I think it just it's a it's a good segue, but since we have about 10 minutes before kicking off that session in earnest, and there are so MANY of you here present out one or two from you know, if anyone of you since this is a Zoom meeting, and anyone can can speak if you had any reactions or comments or what how would has this resonated with you in terms of your experience and just recap or

Unknown Speaker 1:05:23
to speak up and not it's too much of a Susie sunshine, but I got to say that there's some great people here and we have to have hope and we collaborative action. And I thought I just pipe in there. Like I realize there's a lot of things going on in the world right now. But I think museums have a place in terms of helping people make sense of the world and figure out next steps in their lives.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:53
Yeah, Victoria. Anyone else? And kind of

Unknown Speaker 1:06:05
to echo what Victoria just said, I feel like, um, throughout the conference in this session, I've just been really inspired to see and I wrote this in the chat but how MANY people are really committed to doing the work to learn and improve and be more inclusive and accepting and I know we have a long way to go, but people have been pretty open about identifying those problems, which I think is a great first step and I hope we can help hold each other accountable so that we actually put into practice these things that we're hoping to achieve.

Museum Computer Network 1:06:48
Either reactions or thoughts for the conversations that you may want to have in the next open space

Unknown Speaker 1:06:57
discussion.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:07
It looks like Marta has her hand up Marta. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 1:07:11
yes. Hello. I want to say I agree with MANY things you have to say before, I think it's all about people. You know, how how we can link the past and the present in museums, how we can link the objects with the agencies. With or people working in a museum. This is the most important thing, and how can we use digital to spread or collections or ideas or activities or, you know, helping? How can we engage people on site online? This is the idea. So I'm thinking in museums in a global way, physically and digitally, and used to engage people with all the the tools you have.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:03
That's my

Museum Computer Network 1:08:05
hybridity. Is that is that is that a word? Ross. I heard you say that. There was no it's hybrid. But the the the, the is that is that is that the word? You use hybridity. Did I hear just right yeah. Hi. Pretty. Yeah. I think that's what Marta was alluding to here. Any other reactions or comments about your experience at the conference?

Unknown Speaker 1:08:41
Yeah, that's financial viability and to Rossier call on how we're gonna self assemble. You know, there's so much about the in person experience that I know a lot of people have been missing. And, and, but I also know that the in person experience provides a lot of barriers to a lot of people. And I also know that the delivery of a lot of hybrid experiences, if they're meant to be, you know, the same time same similar thing are less than stellar. That being said, I would really love to be able to keep this global focus that we've had going with us and the and the, the, the digital has been the way that we've been able to do that. Right and then not in person is the way we've been able to do that. Right. And so, I'm, I'm wrestling with how can we retain some of those those things that are specific to an in person thing, but then also involve provide access to people who can't be there, right? For a number of reasons, whether there was distance, whether it's cost. Other things to consider, right. That's kind of thinking that I'm wrestling with

Museum Computer Network 1:10:11
Yeah, and it is for us Maxon everyone else here, you know, as we go into next year, we we still don't know if we, you know what, what kind of events we should be planning for. I think that what I'm realizing is that the very definition of what of conferences has shifted in some ways as atomized and how do you deliver different perspectives, invite different people to the table and still have conversations that are relevant across the board is is something we're grappling with internally at MC n in terms of what does an event next year look like? Hybrid? Yeah, of course. I mean, that's, that's a big word. It's you know, it's it's easy to do that. It causes also logistical challenges and business model challenges. If you do a hybrid conference, do you charge more for people who attend in person than people who attend remotely? It's it. I don't have an answer for it. I'm just asking the question here. And it's something that we were grappling with and we still don't have an answer. And so much of the, you know, future still looks, you know, it's very, very difficult to make predictions like more than three years, six months out in this current environment where it's still very, very fluid in terms of endemic travel restrictions, COVID restrictions, etc. And, you know, we obviously, we haven't booked a hotel like in our traditional model, like we had done in previous years and God knows that we actually you know, fought really hard to get out of our commitment of our previous without contracts or we're not ready to sign another one. You know, so what will an in person event look like? So when you talk about a hybrid? Yeah, it poses all these questions. Rachel has raised her hand.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:27
Yeah, I am. I just wanted to kind of stick in I don't disagree with any pretty much anybody's anything that they've said in this session. But one thing that I do want to reflect back is that I feel like what was missing this year was a sense of like the collective hive mind. That happens like in the in the looser and more like everyone's in the conference, hotel together and out running into each other around the city at all of the places kind of way. Again, I don't have solutions for this. And I I know that an in person conference is not necessarily a feasible thing for so MANY reasons. But I do think that that is one thing that I really missed this year, and don't feel like a distributed model like as convenient as it may be for everyone's lives to have shorter days and different time. Zones and shorter sessions. The collective joy and the thought sparking was really missing for me. And so I hope that doesn't get lost in the benefits of what the all digital and distributed model can bring. Is. The other things that an in person gathering brings that aren't just about being able to have the conversation in the same room.

Museum Computer Network 1:14:03
Rachel and Andrea just put a comment in the chat, which I invite you to read as well, which is a good point. Martin, March I did you have your hand brace before or that you wanted to add something else?

Unknown Speaker 1:14:21
Just curious.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:22
Yes. I would like to say about these events will be everything the future or not. I have been attending MANY events and I'm happy because being unemployed, if you have to travel you can afford to attend so MANY events. So for me 2020 worth a billion in the in the sense that it was possible for me to attend events that have been dreaming about and before it was not possible. So I think if you plan an event, you can reach more people that can travel because they don't want to. They want to fight against climate change, and they don't want to do to be, you know, pollute the environment that people can travel because they have they don't have money because they can abandon the idea of doing one week for the van and in the timetable. is different is different in the area they live from the bank is celebrated. They can combine the work on the on the event. So I think for MANY reasons. The events will be everything the future can be on site, because it's not a slicer. I prefer to meet people on site and on top and I have a coffee and things like that. But maybe you come for any reason and then you have this EBIT, possibility to attend the event. And maybe this year you choose the online event and then next year you will travel and you will be on site. You know, who knows?

Unknown Speaker 1:15:57
Well, I see.

Museum Computer Network 1:15:59
Yeah, I shall see. We're at the top of the hour. So I just want to say thank you, everyone for attending. Thank you, Ross. Thank you Lauren. And our six track feeds and over to open space discussion with Dunn, your host thank you

Unknown Speaker 1:16:22
thank you, everyone.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:23
Thank you. I was not

Unknown Speaker 1:16:27
just one quick thing. I need to do. So

Unknown Speaker 1:16:31
hang on. It makes somebody bear with me.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:51
Okay, now I think we're ready to go. So welcome, everybody to a new thing that we're gonna try and it's called Open Space discussions. I posted something in the chat. I hope you all take a look at it. My name is Don Youngberg. And I'm the board member, a board member of the Museum Computer Network. And I'm a older white male with graying hair and sitting in front of my back wall of kind of Bayesian book books back here. First I'd like to thank L two interactive for sponsoring today's session. openspace discussions I've been I know the folks at L two for a long time, and they are top notch partners in the arts and cultural sector. So I'd like to invite Sydney Lynch to say a few words I saw that you're on Sydney so just unmute yourself and get started.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:45
Hello. As Don said, I'm in Sydney My pronouns are she and her. I'm a white female in my late 20s have brown hair and I'm wearing a grey shirt. I'm the director of customer experience at El L2 and I'm really happy to be here and to be a sponsor of this event. LTE we started in 1989 and we've spent the last 30 something years evolving and growing to offer web design and development with web two marketing automation through our partner platform active campaign called prospect two and CART free transactions with donate to stream to and flex to, and no we have not run out of words to put it too long. We'll be doing that forever. At the start of the pandemic we really rapidly built donate to to make it easier for organiser organizations to take donations quickly. We saw how MANY of our clients were in need of a better way to raise funds. And this really quickly evolved into Team fundraising and events and memberships and monetizing digital content through streaming platforms like Brightcove. The majority of our clients in the last 20 or so years have been arts and cultural nonprofits with a main focus of our products providing a really deep integration with the testator a CRM, but through working with museums like High Museum and LACMA and North Carolina Museum of Art, in addition to all of our arts and cultural organizations, we see so much potential here. To expand our solution to help more museums save time, money, effort, energy, as well as provide a really fantastic experience for their patrons, whether they're able to be on site or they're at home on their couch. And that's why we're here and a sponsor, and I really hope that you enjoy open space sessions. This is one of my absolute favorite events. And the exchange of ideas in this format is just wonderful. So thank you all again and for having us here and we're so happy to be a part of this.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:44
Thank you very much Sydney, and I'm sure Sydney will be in sessions and maybe even calling session we'll see here. I don't know about you all, but I certainly have heard it during our discussion we just had but I really miss in person conferences, especially those times when you meet somebody by chance and you find out that they're struggling in the same way you are or even better yet they have solutions for you. And honestly, MANY of these meetings happen in the line for tea or coffee or in a room before a session starts or at lunch or breakfast table. Well, we're going to try and provide an opportunity for such encounters right now. I've been hosting these open space discussions at conferences for MANY years now. And I've consistently heard from people like Sydney, that it was the best part of their conference experience. And I know that this is a new format MC n so I just asked you all to keep an open mind and just relax and enjoy it here. And now I'm going to share a few technical tips with you and then we're going to take you through the open space discussion process. Well, first, we're gonna be using a shared Google Sheet to help us organize and navigate through our discussions. If you have not opened it up yet, you'll can find a link for it in the Zoom chat. The Google Sheet is where we'll be placing the discussion topics will determine which Breakout Rooms they'll be in and then a place to keep our notes as well. So take a moment now and open that Google Sheet and check out the Schedule tab and the marketplace tabs for now. Now it'd be great. I see some people getting into it and joining it now so that's great, but it's really going to be an important part. of the process that we're going through here. As you can see on the schedule after we build the marketplace, our agenda, we're going to with our discussion topics. We're going to go off into breakout rooms for MANY simultaneous discussions. Okay, at the bottom of your Zoom window, you will see you don't see it quite yet but you will see a little icon here for Breakout Rooms you're gonna see this not quite yet but when I when I create them, and that will be a key piece to what we do in this whole process. To move to a specific discussion room. You're going to click or touch that icon and then select the room that corresponds to the topic that you see in the marketplace. I'll kind of go through this all with you again here but that'll be kind of the key thing for us to do now. If you move to a discussion, and you're in a discussion and you would like to move to a different discussion room, just select that Breakout Room icon again and choose a different room. Or if you want to leave or take a break, just select the Zoom leave Breakout Room function and come back to the main session room and just kind of hang up for a bit at the end of the time of the allotted time for the first round of discussions. Everyone's going to be brought back here to the main session room, and then we'll start our next round of discussions. So are there any questions about accessing the Google Sheet or using the breakout rooms and hopefully somebody is looking at the

Unknown Speaker 1:22:52
thing here,

Unknown Speaker 1:22:54
Donna, I'm having a hard time myself adding something to it and might not be alone. I wonder if you'd be able to share your screen and show us the process.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:02
Yeah, when um Is anybody

Unknown Speaker 1:23:05
else connected with Yahoo?

Unknown Speaker 1:23:07
Yes, I've got only view only access to the doc

Unknown Speaker 1:23:11
it's deal only on mine to

Unknown Speaker 1:23:14
say well, that's a bummer.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:21
You know, I checked this of course which I obviously didn't. Okay, how about now Barry, can you give it a shot?

Unknown Speaker 1:23:30
Let me see I'm going to reload. Summit the same link that was shared. Let's load it build

Unknown Speaker 1:23:43
somebody. Yes. I think it's gonna work now.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:46
Someone else maybe I'm still waiting. So

Unknown Speaker 1:23:49
thank you. There's a group project and

Unknown Speaker 1:23:58
that looks good. Let me see. Let me add something.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:01
Excellent. I see a bunch of you in there already. That's great. If a few more of you want to join. That'd be great, too. Thank you. I'll share the Google sheet in a few minutes here too. Alright, so love that we've got some of the technical logistics out of the way. Let's actually begin the real process and bear with me for a second.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:33
As we start I want you to take a moment to see everyone who's here today and really look and acknowledge who's in our Zoom meeting. Now imagine that all of us are sitting together in a large circle like this. Feel feel the presence of the people sitting to your left and to your right. And just taking that energy. We're all here to bring our passion and expertise to the conversations that are about to unfold. Alright, I'm going to share

Unknown Speaker 1:25:06
Google Sheet

Unknown Speaker 1:25:10
All right. Now I want you to notice the empty market. It's not quite empty. People have been doing some tests, which is great. But that's our agenda. Our agenda. It's blank because we're more or less blank because it's about to be set by all of you right now. The theme for MCM 2021 is what is digital so that will roughly be our theme for the open space discussions today. But keep in mind, any topic is welcome. Also, we just had some great prompts from Lauren and from Ross. So those are wonderful. We also know that some of the discussions which started in conference sessions, they need to continue other new topics to surface and perhaps there's a topic that you wanted to hear about at the conference, but you couldn't find the right people to talk with. Well, this is your chance. In a few minutes, I'm going to ask you to identify an issue or topic that's important to you. And once you've got that topic in mind, please unmute yourself, state your name and in a few words, your topic for discussion. Then you're going to head to this Google Sheet. Pick a time slot, find an empty breakout room in the marketplace tab and enter your topic and your name. So for example, I'll just say my name is Don Youngberg, and I would like to talk with others about preserving authenticity in the world of digital. So I would come over here find an empty slot

Unknown Speaker 1:26:36
oh boy

Unknown Speaker 1:26:38
I was tough. Typing in front of others.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:44
You're doing great.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:46
Thank you you get the idea and then put my name and then once you're done, you can relax for a moment and listen up the other topics being offered up. Now the group may offer up as MANY topics as you would like. But if at the end of the day you do not see the issue that you want to discuss on the sheet. There's only one person to hold accountable right? And that's yourself. So please don't hold back. And once all the topics are in place in the marketplace and everybody be invited to review it and look at it and decide which of the conversations they want to be a part of. Now for those of you who are offered up a topic, you will assume two responsibilities one a willingness to hold space for your topic to be discussed. You got to show up. And number two to briefly document your discussion. In this in this Google Sheet. We look at it there. There are links to other tabs in the Google sheet so I'm going to go and this follow the link to room eight which is my session here. And then here you'll see a little worksheet where you can put some things in you can for each discussion room with created the sheet. So ask for a volunteer or someone to help you scribe or take notes, or you can all communally take notes together again, on a Google Sheet. It's pretty easy. And then to get back to the marketplace. Again, we have a link here and go back to the marketplace and see how things are going. So I'm going to stop sharing this but you should please continue to link to it and bring it up and look at it because that's going to be where we're going to be. Okay, now. There are five open space principles to help guide us through this process.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:41
And here they are.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:42
The first whoever comes are the right people. We have all the right people here the people who are just as passionate about your topic, you're going to show up another principle whatever happens is the only thing that could have, just go with the flow of what's happening here. Now don't worry about what should or could have. It's it's just fine. Third, principle, wherever it happens is the right place. We happen to be holding our conversations today via Zoom. But creativity can happen anywhere. And even in this virtual world. The fourth principle whenever it strikes at the right time, it might start late it might start early, who cares? It doesn't matter whenever it starts is the right time. And the corollary of course, is when it's over, it's over. And don't feel like you have to drag out a conversation if it only takes 10 minutes to come to a conclusion. And finally, there is one law of open space and that's the law of mobility or maybe at this point, the law of two clicks or two taps. This law says if you are neither contributing to a conversation, nor learning from the discussion, take responsibility for yourself. leave and go find a place that you can make a difference. A lot of mobility actually creates two very important characters, and you may become one of them. The first is the bumblebee. That's the individual that will buzz around from one room to the next cross pollinating the discussions. Remember, it's really easy and fine to leave the discussion the second is a butterfly. This is the individual you may see sitting around quietly on the edge of a conversation or in the main session room. So keeping these five principles in mind along with the one law, you should now have all you need for today's open space discussions. But before we start, are there any questions?

Unknown Speaker 1:30:41
Okay, let's get to work. If you have a topic you'd like to propose, unmute yourself. So those of you who have already put things in, please take a moment to voice them out loud or if you don't want to voice it out loud, just pop it in the chat and then somebody else will read it. Maybe myself or somebody else will read it for you. But let's get to work. So if you've got a topic, unmute yourself, state your name and topic area, access the Google Sheet pick up one or two time slots pick from one of the two time slots find an empty room type in the short title along with your name. So remember, there's discussion one and discussion two, which will happen about 40 minutes later.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:21
So it's all open. Come on. Hi,

Unknown Speaker 1:31:28
I'm great. I'm Rachel Ropeik and I am definitely interested in talking about what I a topic I'm thinking of these days as Karen keeping of cultural workers. What we need to be sustainable in the sector or what we need to get out of the sector or just how we keep ourselves going and all of this, so that'll be room for for the first round.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:54
And also in the first round, I'm Barry and I'm eating lunch. I'm not presuming that anyone else is also at a meal time knowing that you're hungry know that you have food for if you want to keep the company and chat about anything about what you might be doing as a museum professional, perhaps consulting supporting the industry. You want to chat about my book that's coming out and talking on digital design. I can ask you some questions. I'm also going to hear whatever you got going on because I'll be eating come come and chat. Let's hang out

Unknown Speaker 1:32:28
Hey, everybody, I put one there for room one on the second slot president's desk in discussion based on Lauren Marcus's session on soft skills. It's a idea I've been thinking about for a while that I really was able to give a lot of voice to it in discussion in our session around why are we calling these soft skills they're essential. These are essential skills right? And so I'm really and I want to make right something about this but I'd love to have your him put in like what we should talk about now. Give everybody credit. You're all coming up with this. About You know what how do we operationalize this I'm thinking oh, well, yeah, it needs to go into, into into job calls like Where else are we going to put this where where else can we should we be spreading this idea? And how can we make a case broadly to everybody that this is the way to frame it rather than

Unknown Speaker 1:33:17
soft skills. So dream of that conversation.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:51
Something I'm really interested in talking about oh, this is Kelsy. Brown is

Unknown Speaker 1:33:57
how we can

Unknown Speaker 1:33:58
implement kind of our goals for increasing diversity and equity and inclusion. I know there's a lot of talk about what's wrong and the problems and a lot of theorizing about what we can do but I'm interested in if anybody has found like concrete solutions or answers or steps that they've taken that they've found have really made a difference. And what are kind of actionable items that we can take as a community to help that.

Unknown Speaker 1:34:32
I'll just added my room eight, just to learn more about why people works in museums and kind of like, talk about that big idea of what MCM said, but more from a personal experience. So.

Unknown Speaker 1:34:54
I see people workshopping

Unknown Speaker 1:34:55
ideas in the chat, which is great if you want to pluck one up and put it in that'd be great.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:37
Well, there's, we're gonna get started on the first slate. Here. Thanks, everyone. We started with a blank agenda. And now look at all the wonderful topics we've generated. The space is now open. So take an opportunity to look at all these sessions that have been created in the marketplace. When you find the one that interests you, you're going to use the Zoom Breakout Room icon that you'll see momentarily to move to the desired room. And then we'll discuss and then we'll start the discussion Shortly. It's up someone just added one I think over here is that right? Someone's adding one.

Unknown Speaker 1:36:09
I just added one.

Unknown Speaker 1:36:10
Oh thank you Sydney.

Unknown Speaker 1:36:14
Membership, fundraising and streaming content for museums. What are you doing? What do you want to do? What could you do if you had better technology and integrations? Pretty much anything about any of those areas? Right.

Unknown Speaker 1:36:29
And during the course of our our sessions here, if you want to add some additional ones, especially to discuss in slot two, that'd be great. You can do that anytime. And I'll be I'll be staying in the main room here to answer questions that people might have. So the only thing I'm going to add now is as we go off in our discussions, be prepared to be surprised it will not it will not happen the way you think it's gonna happen, which is great, which is fine and wonderful. So I'm going to open up the rooms now and then you're going to go ahead and see the icon and go ahead and select

Unknown Speaker 1:37:07
which one you want to go to

Unknown Speaker 1:37:09
then we'll be back here in about 35 minutes.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:18
I think I missed something. How do I join a breakout room?

Unknown Speaker 1:38:21
Are you on a if you're on a computer at the very bottom, there'll be something that says breakout rooms a little icon. And if you click on that, then you can choose which room you'd like to join.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:34
Try that I click on the room number.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:38
Yep, I or the word join. I can't remember quite to be honest but

Unknown Speaker 1:38:45
not saying that option. Maybe that's my problem.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:48
Are you on a computer on a tablet on a

Unknown Speaker 1:38:51
computer? Okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:54
You might have a dot dot dot that says more Yeah, on your bar and you'll click on that and then one of those options might see a breakout room.

Unknown Speaker 1:39:05
Or if you tell me which one you want to go to, I can just send you there. Send me

Unknown Speaker 1:39:10
to room eight, please. You got it.

Unknown Speaker 1:39:12
Thank you no one's eating lunch with Barry. Anyone else needs help, please let me know and I'll be happy to try and help you up.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:05
This is the problem with open spaces is choosing a session that's the problem with anything we have to make a choice really.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:16
There you go. It's a metaphor for life, right?

Unknown Speaker 1:40:20
It really really is. Well, it looks like room for care. And keeping of culture workers. Is very popular.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:56
Hope you got a chance to work on your lunch or berry

Unknown Speaker 1:54:19
Very normal I can't hear you.

Museum Computer Network 1:54:31
So sorry. Done. Is it that's normal?

Unknown Speaker 1:54:33
Yeah, we're people are in breakout rooms and Charlotte and Tamila have just stepped away for a little bit.

Museum Computer Network 1:54:40
Okay, okay. So these are the different rooms that are currently like having conversations Correct?

Unknown Speaker 1:54:48
Correct. Room for five and eight.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:51
Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:54
So you can join any of those. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:54:57
fundraising. skills

Museum Computer Network 1:55:08
from one hour that hold on in discussion to like max maximum.

Unknown Speaker 1:55:14
Yeah, but that's not until a little later. Later.

Museum Computer Network 1:55:17
Okay. So the wiser, like so. Right, gotcha. Gotcha. What's, what, 10 more minutes? Correct.

Unknown Speaker 1:55:33
Um, a little bit more than that, where we started a little bit later. So there's 16 minutes left in the discussion.

Museum Computer Network 1:55:40
Do you think I can join room eight?

Unknown Speaker 1:55:42
Absolutely. Just so I think at the bottom of the screen, you'll see a little break breakout icon.

Museum Computer Network 1:55:50
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just go to room eight, right? Basically, just go there. Got it.

Unknown Speaker 1:55:56
And then if you want to go to a different topic, then you just gotta move. yourself.

Museum Computer Network 1:56:02
Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. Don.

Unknown Speaker 1:57:47
Hi, Tim.

Unknown Speaker 1:57:50
Morning dawn. So we are in the midst of our first round of discussions. And I think you should be seeing a Google Sheet. Yes, actually, let me actually even post the link to it. So you can grab it yourself.

Unknown Speaker 1:58:10
Here we go.

Unknown Speaker 1:58:14
Good morning, I should say to you. I've set my children eating breakfast before school. So if you want to join one of these three conversations because room, breakout room four, five and eight have conversations in them right now. Okay, cool. Those are the topics and there's about 13 minutes left in the conversation so there's plenty of time to join in. To do that. At the bottom of your screen is a little breakout rooms icon for boxes. You click on that, and then you choose what room you want. To go to five or eight and I figure All right.

Unknown Speaker 1:58:52
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:58:54
Thanks. Sorry Don, do I just click the

Unknown Speaker 1:59:52
breakout room?

Unknown Speaker 1:59:53
Yeah breaker room or join if the word join us there either. Well, okay,

Unknown Speaker 1:59:56
I can't quite remember.

Unknown Speaker 2:00:00
If it doesn't work. I can put you in one of the rooms. Yeah, can't seem to find the join button but if you could pump me into eight please You got it.

Unknown Speaker 2:01:43
If you haven't

Unknown Speaker 2:01:46
gone fine. We're in the middle of the first round. We've got about 10 minutes left in the first discussion. If you wanted to join one of the ones I think the share is on the screen you can otherwise you can just hang Sidney's in room

Unknown Speaker 2:02:04
eight, okay. So

Unknown Speaker 2:02:16
how would I if I wanted to go to a room what would I do?

Unknown Speaker 2:02:19
Um, at the bottom there should be a breakout room icon at the bottom of your screen.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:25
I see. Okay. Oh, and I think

Unknown Speaker 2:02:27
you just click on something to join or move to or click on the room number or something. And if it doesn't let me know and I'll I'll send you off to a room.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:38
Okay, cool.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:42
Me drop in and see what they're doing in there. Yeah. Alright, so I click on or there's a Join button. Okay, cool. I can figure this out.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:52
Oh, good. I knew you could Software

Unknown Speaker 2:08:28
Welcome back. Hi.

Unknown Speaker 2:08:34
Thanks for organizing guns very smoothly done.

Unknown Speaker 2:08:38
Well, thank you.

Unknown Speaker 2:08:43
I think I'm gonna have to head out Knight children's bedtime and I can hear them complaining.

Unknown Speaker 2:08:51
Just bring them to open space so you can set up a face to read a bedtime story.

Unknown Speaker 2:08:57
You would that would be the opposite one of Care and Keeping you've got two workers that would like be

Unknown Speaker 2:09:06
never people would love it. I have seen such interesting things. These sessions where people you know, not not too far from very doing lunch but like people will say I'm going to call a session and go for a walk. Come with me and they'll just walk for an hour and then come back. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 2:09:25
Nice. It's my be more like, you know, shonky amateur video of me like almost dropping my laptop trying to carry two children know they probably be fun for everybody else.

Unknown Speaker 2:09:43
They don't bring their videos they just go for a walk. Anyway, thank you very much for coming.

Unknown Speaker 2:09:50
And I'll see you soon done and I love the format. And my Tristan was sorry that he couldn't make it. He's a school open evening for his son, but he was very interested in knowing how this format went. And so it sounded really cool. And it was really cool. So

Unknown Speaker 2:10:08
I'd love to try it outside of the conference at some point too.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:11
Yeah. Yeah, me too. Cool. All right, John.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:17
IMLS me. Hello.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:21
The first round of discussions are just about wrapping up. So otherwise, I'd suggest you go join one but there's like a minute left in the timeframe. So

Unknown Speaker 2:10:31
okay,

Unknown Speaker 2:10:32
we were I was in one but we had we had to end early so I'm told,

Unknown Speaker 2:10:35
Well, you can go to another one if you want. Okay, but it's literally about a minute left.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:41
I'll just wait.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:44
crash it crashes. I'll just say you were you were in. Why are tangible actions, but a tangible action? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was reading some of your notes. That was pretty good. Yeah, it was it was it was.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:58
I was nice. That was sort of a smaller group to talk about that.

Unknown Speaker 2:11:04
It's funny when I've done these before, a walk by a group and there'll be only two people or three people in this ring of chairs, right and, and I'll come back to the guy who called it later and I'll say so how did it go? He goes, Oh my god. That was fantastic. It was the two people I had to talk to, and you know more people would have been probably bad for them, you know, and so, size is not necessarily a a good indication of a good discussion. You know, I used to I used to have reason why I introduced open space discussion is that I used to have conferences where I would have 300 people in a room for discussion, and it's like,

Unknown Speaker 2:11:44
can't happen. Well, that's a lot. That's possible.

Unknown Speaker 2:11:47
Yeah, exactly. It's just, you cannot what happens is the same three people do all the talking and nobody gets to ask the questions that they really want. So all right, people will be coming back. Shortly. We got one minute left here I see.

Unknown Speaker 2:12:07
Now if you have a different topic you'd like to offer up for the next slot you certainly can do that welcome back

Unknown Speaker 2:12:42
looks like room four

Unknown Speaker 2:12:46
is broken up, which is great.

Unknown Speaker 2:12:47
We are back. I'm somehow unable to turn my video on Dawn which is why I am am talking but not videoing. But we had a really excellent discussion and I think all of my fellow room for

Unknown Speaker 2:12:59
thankful occupants.

Unknown Speaker 2:13:01
I saw a ton of notes being taken. So that is wonderful.

Unknown Speaker 2:13:05
Yes, I took took MANY notes and thank you to those of you who were like the various anonymous Google animals also adding notes in

Unknown Speaker 2:13:13
there.

Unknown Speaker 2:13:15
I know the animals are really weird, right? Like okay, who's the mink who is the you know, but works. So welcome back, everybody. Hope you have some great discussions. It looked like you all were kind of going for it. I was checking peeking at notes from a couple of groups, which was wonderful. We're about to start our second round. But before we do that, I do want to invite anyone to add additional topics right now, again, the same way to state your name and your topic and we'll put it on to the or you can put it on to the Google Sheet and that way we can have additional topics to chat chat about so why don't we just take a minute or two before we open up the rooms again.

Unknown Speaker 2:14:03
And it's okay to continue a discussion that you started if you feel like it's not done yet. Alright, so I'm going to go ahead and open up the rooms again. And you all now have the capability of getting looking at the breakout room at the bottom breakout icon, Breakout Room icon at the bottom. And looks like we've got three sessions that are available to us Max, Anna and Sydney and have a good conversation and we'll come back here in about 35 minutes. Shawn I saw your note I'd be happy to add something I don't know how to like quite Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 2:15:39
thanks. I'm just I'll, I'll put it in the DMT what it's basically just add my email into the anyway, thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 2:15:51
Is it adding it into a sheet that you already brought in

Unknown Speaker 2:15:55
that yes for the one our for my name is they're just saying you know I it's saying view only so everybody's adding their email so I can't get my metaphor in there someplace.

Unknown Speaker 2:16:09
I didn't pick on you. I promise. Everyone, always so that's everyone except Shawn, right. That's the rule. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 2:16:20
There's got to be a setting for that somewhere.

Unknown Speaker 2:16:24
So sorry.

Unknown Speaker 2:16:26
It's, if that's the worst thing that happens to Oh, that's a good day.

Unknown Speaker 2:16:30
Amen to that. Yeah. Don, could you sorry, Don, could you drop me into room two? I still can't seem to join myself. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 2:16:41
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 2:16:42
And thanks, Don. By the way, this is a terrific idea.

Unknown Speaker 2:16:45
Great love to do. It's more outside of the conference. It'll be fun.

Unknown Speaker 2:16:58
Okay, you've been added to that sheet. So, thanks

Unknown Speaker 2:17:08
Caerleon, if you'd like help, I'd be happy to do that.

Unknown Speaker 2:17:49
It's bad to have my picture.

Unknown Speaker 2:17:54
The same time because you can tell how much better the picture

Unknown Speaker 2:17:59
Well If you hit the

Unknown Speaker 2:22:23
little breakout icon you can go back you can actually go directly from room to room

Unknown Speaker 2:25:56
Charlotte. Yeah, yes. The second sessions

Unknown Speaker 2:25:58
are run

Unknown Speaker 2:26:04
Yep, they are running Charlotte. Hi.

Unknown Speaker 2:26:06
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 2:26:09
I wasn't paying attention to my problem. No problem.

Unknown Speaker 2:26:11
I just had to step away so it's okay to join late right?

Unknown Speaker 2:26:15
Oh, absolutely. There's still 25 minutes left on those two pugs. Oh, great. Can you see the three that there? Are there? Yep. Yep,

Unknown Speaker 2:26:24
got it. Thank you. I'll dive in.

Unknown Speaker 2:26:27
Welcome back.

Unknown Speaker 2:26:29
Thanks.

Unknown Speaker 2:26:50
If you need me help me moving someplace I can do that. Yeah, Could you could you chop me into room to please? You bet.

Unknown Speaker 2:26:57
Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 2:27:05
Perfect. Thanks. Nikhil.

Unknown Speaker 2:29:04
Hop off for a quick meeting.

Unknown Speaker 2:29:08
See?

Unknown Speaker 2:29:13
This is going well, what do you think?

Unknown Speaker 2:29:15
Oh, I think so. I mean, it. I was envisioning something that might have gone quite so well, but that's the mechanics are working fine. And it's it's more fun with more people to be really honest, but it's not bad groups. I'm only concerned right now the group six

Unknown Speaker 2:29:37
Yeah, so it's like that and it can I should happen there.

Unknown Speaker 2:29:41
Yeah. I mean, maybe just good PR. And again, they're all from Chicago. Both Steven and sitting out. That's right. Yeah. Sydney is the one who went to ASC. So politically, it'd be great if you'd go. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 2:29:55
In the last one to like two rounds that were low attendance and just have to stop turn that one. Alright, I'll talk to you later.

Unknown Speaker 2:30:05
Thank you. So much. YEAH.

Unknown Speaker 2:35:37
Just a 10 minute reminder.

Unknown Speaker 2:35:41
Super.

Unknown Speaker 2:35:44
We're gonna run just a couple minutes one but not bad. And the other sessions are in webinar format, right?

Unknown Speaker 2:35:58
Yeah, but it's in the same Zoom Room. Oh, it is okay. The same Zoom account.

Unknown Speaker 2:36:03
Yeah, I'll speed things up.

Unknown Speaker 2:36:07
We'll get them done. Where are you? Based? Andrea. I'm in Austin. Oh, okay.

Unknown Speaker 2:37:20
We get some time off Andrey after this is over.

Unknown Speaker 2:37:24
I'm in Central Time. So and this is over. I still have a couple more work hours left.

Unknown Speaker 2:37:29
Oh,

Unknown Speaker 2:37:32
I don't know after this long, four or five, six week thing. It's I just feel like we need a break.

Unknown Speaker 2:37:39
Yeah, well we have Thanksgiving breaks. That's nice. Yep.

Unknown Speaker 2:37:57
Oh, so you're running the whole show today because there's only one session at a time.

Unknown Speaker 2:38:03
Yeah, so I was on the other one before this. The welcome or I'm in this one, the open discussion and also the closing as well.

Unknown Speaker 2:38:15
You doing a great job.

Unknown Speaker 2:38:18
Thank you Darcy.

Unknown Speaker 2:38:21
It's a great the way you can visualize everything with the chairs in a circle. That was really great. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 2:38:30
I'm so used to doing this process live with people like in a real room with chairs and pieces of paper and pieces of tape to put on the wall. It's just it's so informal. And it's so fundamental in here to see grown adults, not on their hands and knees. writing on a piece of paper with a marker is just it's really inspiring, but we don't quite have that capability. Here. So I just sent them a message saying five minutes.

Unknown Speaker 2:40:44
I saw that the blue pop up on my screen too.

Unknown Speaker 2:40:48
Okay. Yeah, it didn't pop up online but

Unknown Speaker 2:40:54
it did on my other.

Unknown Speaker 2:40:56
I have a second instance here on my iPad so I can see what other people are saying.

Unknown Speaker 2:41:18
So I don't think you have to share this anymore.

Unknown Speaker 2:45:23
I didn't mean to leave. Chad was in the middle of saying something great.

Unknown Speaker 2:45:31
So sorry, Anna.

Unknown Speaker 2:45:33
Hit enter. Like as I was writing a message, but it was right as the dialog popped up. Just left mid sentence.

Unknown Speaker 2:45:42
Oh, no. A dramatic exit. Yeah, for my own group. You're showing leadership, how it is to work you know, at this time in this field independently.

Unknown Speaker 2:45:56
Okay. If you can't storm out of your own meeting who Scandi storm out of

Unknown Speaker 2:46:01
there.

Unknown Speaker 2:46:03
It's like oh, what did we say? This her?

Unknown Speaker 2:46:07
I did not mean to leave y'all. I just I hit ENTER on a message to the chat right as the dialog popped up. And so I missed chat when you finished saying,

Unknown Speaker 2:46:18
well, welcome back. We're actually kind of at time but before we did anything else, I just wanted to say thank you all for being a part of this kind of first trial for MCM this kind of format. Love to hear your feedback in the survey of how it went for you and what kind of worked and what didn't, we will take the notes and synthesize that synthesize them, but well, we'll put them in a manageable size and they'll be attached to the session. And I'll have to turn to and to help me figure out how to do that. But that's not a problem and I also want to take this opportunity to thank el to interactive again for sponsoring this session. Really appreciate their help not only for this session, but the entire conference. Their support has been fantastic and very generous. Last minute, thoughts or questions before we kind of turn it off because we do need to get ready for a great closing keynote that's coming up and Max is going to be a part of that. So

Museum Computer Network 2:47:13
thank you, Dan, for doing this experimental session.

Unknown Speaker 2:47:16
Yeah. To the Great.

Unknown Speaker 2:47:21
Well, you guys are all awesome. So anyway, take a little break and come back and enjoy the last two sessions of MCs 2021.

Unknown Speaker 2:47:42
Bye.

Unknown Speaker 2:47:46
The only one who can end it since you're the host.

Unknown Speaker 2:47:49
I know I was good. I was gonna make you host again, or do you need me to do that or should I just close it out? You can just close it out. All right. Thank you again. vandrie. Very much. Thanks.

Unknown Speaker 2:48:00
See in the next one. Bye bye