MCN 2020 Closing Remarks

Mitch Sava (MCN incoming President for 2021), Yvonne Lee (incoming VP/President-Elect) and Eric Longo conclude MCN 2020 VIRTUAL and share some exciting announcements.

Transcript

Museum Computer Network 00:00
Thank you for attending MCN 2020 virtual that was our as you know, our first virtual conference ever. And yeah, we we made it I've heard there was a couple of little snafu here and there, but nothing bad can tell you that hundreds of hours and from so many people were poured into this, this, the organization of this event, so thank you for the seven 188 of you, who put your trust in us and attended this conference for six days, over six days in two weeks. We really didn't know we were freaking out to be honest with you, like a few days prior to the event, there must have been like 400 people registered and Matt and Yvonne were like, are they going to come or they're going to come and did it. So thank you for being here. We do have Oh, and I wanted to say like a lot of people, obviously one of the beauties of or upside of virtual events is, well, you don't have to travel. And we were able to obviously not charge their standard registration price. And we have people from Italy, we have people from a lot of Europeans, you know, people from all over, and people whose first time this conference was and I think because because it was accessible virtually. So really welcome to all of you. And thank you for taking a chance to attend a conference for the first time, I hope we didn't disappoint. Um, so we've got a lot of messages this week on various platforms. And when good I went, I'm not going to be able to get the recorded session of and I said after the conference, well, look at that. You have Anna and accurate I love italie. To thank for that. And for those of you who don't know her, she's a digital strategist. And I cannot thank her enough because really, this conference is kind of like your brainchild Anna, and we couldn't have done it without us. So really, thank you. So this beautiful, is a is a showcase. So it's a private space on Vimeo. And it is password protected for attendees or me. And it will be shared with you, I think in the chat as well. And so how did we do? We're going to be sharing this survey monkey link with you all so that you can give us your feedback. It's really important and we've made it much short shorter than in previous years. So please, make sure you take a few moments to give us your feedback. It's really important. Thanks.

Yvonne Lee 02:52
Thanks, I'd like to welcome everyone to our closing session. I'm Yvonne Lee, I use she her pronouns. I am a beige colored cisgendered woman of East Asian descent, I've got shoulder length black hair, I'm wearing a dark yellow sweater. And I'm seated in my dining room, which has been converted into my office ever since we got our remote work safer at home order here in California. So I'm logging on from the unceded territory of the gabrielino and Tomba tribe in an area known as hamana, or Pasadena, California. I want to recognize the obligation and commitment that we need to continue to make in our land acknowledgments. We're stretched across not only North America, but also around the world this year. And I urge everyone who's logging in to take direct action to support indigenous rights, and culture no matter where you're logging on from. I encourage you to think about who has been forcibly removed from the land that you currently inhabit, how you benefit from the resources that were once cultivated by other indigenous persons and to recognize where the descendants of these groups now reside and thrive in spite of the violence that's been committed upon them. So with that, in my incoming role as MC and Vice President, I want to thank our conference sponsors are listed here. And I want to give special thanks to Microsoft, our registration fund sponsor and axial or Ignite sponsor. Next slide. I'd also like to thank the incredible volunteers working to answer your questions, keeping an eye on Slack, keep an eye on the chat keeping an eye on Twitter and everything else and answering not just the tech questions, but other issues as well.

Museum Computer Network 04:56
Excellent, thanks.

Yvonne Lee 04:58
Also this year, the company program co chairs and committee faced an especially daunting challenge with the covid 19 pandemic, a mainstream racial reckoning here in the United States, mass layoffs and furloughs, parents and guardians taking on the education of minors, their children, the American election, and just the general up ending of so much of our day to day lives. So it's truly remarkable that these individuals got together and thought really deeply about what a timely, critical and relevant program would be in this climate. And to them, we offer our most profound thanks for putting together an amazing program. So thank you.

Museum Computer Network 05:45
And kudos to that. Absolutely.

Yvonne Lee 05:49
I would also like to acknowledge our SIG or special interest group chairs, a few of whom will be stepping down this year. SIG chairs are elected positions, and the call for nominations is coming up in December. So please reach out to us if you're interested in the role. And if you are currently a cig member, please remember to cast your votes to elect candidates for this truly vital role in our community. I would also like to personally thank our diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion advisory board members this year. Thank you for all of your work and energy in guiding the board in a number of projects and initiatives this year. Thank you. And finally, I would like to thank the MC and staff and the board of directors. This year, we're giving Special Thanks for those that are outgoing board members. And that includes Matt, Samantha. Here, Susan, and Desi. Thank you. And with that, I'm going to turn it back over to Eric.

Museum Computer Network 06:59
Thank you, Yvonne. And yeah, no. So 2020 was kind of an ironic or paradoxical year for MTN. As I've mentioned before, we started with being really concerned about our, our finances. And we, you know, we were very, very great. We're very grateful to the Knight Foundation for having founded our big vision project that's going to allow us to really turn this in organization into a fully, you know, online portal for the community. And in moments, Mitch is going to say a few words about that. And it's request foundation as well for funding our scholarship program this year. And these are fabulous. Scholars, I think there's 11 of them. And if you don't know, we redesigned the scholarship program this year, kind of on the fly, it was probably around March, April time timeframe. Because in years past, you know, press ambition would would cover for the travel costs of attendees of the scholars, obviously, there was no travel this year. So what they did was research in their own specific areas of digital practice. And those papers were are being peer reviewed as we speak. And they will be published in a kind of digital book, which we'll call like what's emerging in the field. So and I just want to say thank you to Isabel sense and Jessica broad Frank, our co chair and coordinators on this scholarship committee who helped as well as Andrea Ledesma and Beth Bulwark. Thank you to review this paper. So thank you and thank you to us scholars. I hope that you did the experience was was a good one. Just a last quick plug, the mentorship program a huge thanks to Laura Hoffman and Ryan King who have been leading this program over the year and mentorship applications are accepted through December December 4. So MTN that EDU slash backslash resources, backslash mentorship. Make sure you apply. Now, what's in store for you, Mitch,

Mitchell Sava 09:29
Thanks, Eric. First, allow me to introduce myself my name is Mitchell Sava and my pronouns are he him. I am a white middle aged although in the last session I attended it was reframed as awesome aged and I'm going to steal that one for the future. My white awesome aged sis male of Italian and Ashkenazi Jewish descent. I have dark hair that's got a purple tinge in it right now and I have a pandemic beard with with with gray. I'm rocking my purple MCs 50 t shirt. Now I'm in my home office right now, that has a fireplace in the background, and lots of little tchotchkes for my kids on the mantel. My day job is as the the VP of innovation and engagement with the Museum of life and science in Durham, North Carolina, which sits on the ancestral lands of the open ichi band of this apone tribe. So, thank you, Eric, for kind of passing that off. And as you may have seen in some of our emails and various other slack messages, we gave a little teaser, that kind of tweet we're seeing 2021 as a big year for us. Um, but what does that mean? First, I want to give a shout out to Cogan, who I think had it right when he authored the tagline, to our Ignite the Spotify playlist for our 90 thing and kind of see there that you hashtag MCN 2020 is made of people. So I want to thank him for that not just for the sci fi inspiration, because I did that. But also because MC n is indeed made of people. It's not it's not just words on the screen, that really is who we are. It's right in our name MCN. N is for network. MCN is the community and the community is MCN. I'm sure Eric wished he had a big beautiful headquarters somewhere with a giant bustling staff waiting on him hand and foot. But it doesn't, you doesn't have that. area, we

Museum Computer Network 11:28
do have a fabulous space, though.

Mitchell Sava 11:30
Beautiful space there. But those of us on this call those of our friends or colleagues, we are amsa mmcm, we are the community going to the next one? Um, so if I didn't know that before this year's conference, I certainly know it now. I mean, this I think was one of the major messages kind of unwritten messages. But for me that I really felt and all of the sessions and all of the engagement that I've had with with all of you, membership is at the heart of MCN. I'm so going to click again. So what does that mean? What does that mean for us? What does that mean, for next year? Well, first of all, we really want to double down, we really want to double down on this notion of membership and community focused on more connections. So first of all, want to make it clear that everyone is a member of the MCN community, the core elements that enable all of us to connect with one another, the website, email newsletters, MCN-l. And most importantly, as we have experienced this week, Slack, which is I think just taken off to a whole new level, all of that is available to everyone for the price of your email address, which we have to ask just so that we can keep in contact with you. You are part of this community. And we truly, truly, truly want to make that as open and inclusive as humanly possible. But we're going beyond that. So click again, if you don't mind. So as Eric mentioned, we received a well, we're really calling a transformative grant from the Knight Foundation this past year. And thanks that Knight Foundation, it's not just about creating something, although it's important to mention that, but it's really allowing us to take this notion of membership and community to a new level by creating this membership portal. So we're gonna finally after years and years of dreaming and scheming going to have a proper digital asset digital resource that will consolidate all of our various assets and capabilities all kind of in one place for our members. But in addition, their support going and click again, is allowing us to lower the price of our individual memberships. So again, everyone is part of the MC and community. But we do need to generate some funds to keep the operation running. And thankfully, the Knight Foundation really heard our call, again to really help us in our vision to lower the barriers to entry to and again, broaden, broaden participation as much as possible. So for $20 less than it used to, we were able to take the cost of a normal individual membership down to $70. And in addition to that, we're also introducing, thanks to again, a lot of feedback, a lot of input from all of you, a $30 student membership, and a new reduced rate membership on the details of which we're still working out. And we'll we'll let you know more on when we're ready to launch that in the new year. So again, real strong focus on accessibility and of the community of the membership to each other thanks to these these big interventions. And also a big thanks to you for helping us get there. And so to that end, one more thing that we're also doing is everybody who's currently a member. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We genuinely genuinely appreciate it. For you, again, as I said earlier, because those dots, that's part of what helps keep the the machine running, that's also part of how we're able to communicate to funders the value that we that we're able to deliver to to the network that we're able to create, enable us to really demonstrate how all of you are connecting with one another and supporting one another. So for all of you who are currently members right now, and by the end of 2020. In addition to everything I just mentioned, we're also going to have a 50% kind of reduced rate for, for renewal. So for $35, you'll also have a membership, your MCN membership taking you all the way through 2022. So anyway, 2020 to 2021 2020, I should say, behind us, ending with a phenomenal conference and a phenomenal event. And thank you to everybody that was mentioned earlier, as well. Thanks to all of you who've attended and participated. It's been magnificent for me to be to be part of that. But we're also really looking forward to a phenomenal 2021 with a with a really strong enhanced view of membership and community and engaging all of you like never before. So thanks again. And Eric, I'll pass it back to you if you want to give it

Museum Computer Network 16:19
Yeah, sure. And see you in 2021. wherever that may be meaning that it could be in person. It could be virtual again, it could be hybrid of both we don't know yet, but was you in 2021 for sure if we made it in 2020. There will be an MCN in 2021 Thank you, everyone. Really great conference. Thank you. Take care. Bye