One of the nice things about working for yourself is that you get to choose the music, its volume, and when it needs to be turned off (to maximise concentration). I have found that Rufus Wainwright is my favourite musical companion on days spent at home getting through slabs of writing/editing/report writing/thinking type tasks. His voice never grates, sometimes he sings in French, there are mini-narratives in the song writing when you need a 'mini-distraction' and the songs vary.
August 03, 2009 |
Posted in Art
That saying about cobblers' children having no shoes seems to be true - it takes a long time to do that which you are busy doing for others everyday...
Decided to celebrate my fourth year of working for myself as a content specialist (predominantly) in the online world, with a new look. Elliot from eliptus designed my much-admired business card, and I was so happy with it that I decided to ask him to extend the design to a letterhead and design for my website. Ben Bailey cleverly took the design and wrote nice clean html and css and integrated it into my CMS. So now you can read what I have to say against a backdrop of super hero flying Ms and that lovely swimming pool turquoise/blue. Thanks Elliot. Thanks Ben.
July 22, 2009 |
Posted in Webby stuff
One of life's pleasures is reading well written articles in newspapers and magazines. I really enjoy dipping into the local print media of wherever I am when I travel.
Famous for its diet of parochial, sensational news served up by the likes of Fox and CNN, the USA is also home to some really wonderful publications. I LOVE the New York Times (and am happy to admit that I might be influenced by the fact that it comes from one of my favourite places in the world). Why do I love it? Mainly for its tone and use of language.
I also love the diverse range of publications on the newsstand in this country. I tripped over Mother Jones while in Washington and was blown away by the quality of the writing and the ideas and issues tackled. Their claim on the cover of producing 'smart, fearless journalism' is confirmed as you flick through the formidable table of contents (March and April issue: articles about the why the US food system is rotten, Obama, the environment and the economy, adoption, inside forgotten psychiatric hospitals, and more) and for the low low price of $5.95.
April 26, 2009 |
Posted in Writing
I love Helen Thomas. She's an 88-year-old who is still working at the White House press pool as a reporter, who is not afraid to criticise the administration, the mainstream media and the journalists working for it, and says she has always planned to die in her boots. I found an interview by John Greenya in the free Washington Flyer that contained a few exquisite quotes:
"The more we know the better off we are. An informed people is very important to democracy - and we might be able to prevent some bloodshed."
"The day Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I'll kill myself."
"...So many presidents do not rise to the people's expectations, because to be president is top of the mark - ain't no other place to go..."
April 22, 2009 |
Posted in Writing
Saturday 18 April
I have started getting really interested in the educational opportunities that the Web offers students and their teachers.
For the past 18 months I have been project manager of the National Gallery of Victoria's Broadband Innovation Fund project (known as 'BIF'), which was funded to create innovative online resources for education audiences using works from the NGV collection.
Today at Museums and the Web, i attended a presentation about ArtsEdConnect is a particularly good example of the power of the Web and its benefits to education audiences. Its presenters claimed 14,000 teachers trained, 1 million users, and 200,000 art collector 'sets' devised by teachers since it launched in 1997. It will be great to see the new redesigned website when it launches on 4 May.
April 18, 2009 |
Posted in Webby stuff
Today, at the Museums and the Web conference, I finally got excited about the possibilities offered by tagging content. Thanks to Steve.
For ages tagging has provoked a big 'so what?' in me. Tag clouds are all very well for showing what everyone is searching for most, but what does that mean (other than other people looked for it too, you're normal...).
So who is Steve? I have yet to discover where the name cam from, but basically the US Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS) threw big $$ at The New Media Consortium to fund a project to further develop the Steve tagging application, a tool that simplifies the navigation of online museum collections by allowing viewers to tag an image with descriptive terms.
The team are dynamic and their presentation was provocative and I have a few ideas to test out when I get home...
April 17, 2009 |
Posted in Webby stuff
I was a bit disappointed in the sessions at the Museums and the Web conference today - a lot of 'what' has been done, not enough of the 'how'.
To end the day, however, the organisers performed an experiment in which they ran 'Un-conference sessions', for which attendees suggested topics for discussion and broke into groups.
I joined the a discussion about 'insource or outsource', which obviously attracted a few managers from public sector organisations who don't have the budget or workload to hire fulltime expert designers, IA, developers etc but who worry about exorbitant fees, not getting what they want and the IP walking out the door with contractors. It was great to hear a few other participants who were contractors (there were no other freelancers present and only two or three in evidence at the conference) confirming that they consider part of their job is to refine the brief with their client, to ensure that everyone is happy with the outcome, and to provide some education in the documentation of project outcomes, handing over of files etc.
An important outcome of this conference for me is confirmation that I am getting things right!
April 16, 2009 |
Posted in Webby stuff
Plenary session at Museums and the Web annual conference. Maxwell Anderson is a 'yes we can' sort of director who has guided the Indianapolis Museum of Art into exciting online territory. He delivered a paper describing his philosophy about the potential of the web to excite and engage visitors, to whet their appetites, educate and offer them an opportunity to go behind-the-scenes of a museum.
I have lots of ideas to take back to Melbourne about bringing artworks alive online. Not to replace a real-life experience (you can't substitute standing infront of an artwork) but enriching that experience by presenting supplementary information, helping visitors to interact on in a different way to find out more, and present related information (about artists, locations, genres, subjects, eras etc).
April 15, 2009 |
Posted in Webby stuff
Today's highlight at the annual Museums and the Web conference was finding out about the National Museums Online Learning Project - an ambitious undertaking in which UK museums collaborated to create e-learning resources for students and their teachers, and lifelong learners.
Hearing about the challenges and tactics used by project manager Carolyn Royston and the positive outcomes, as reported by stakeholder Steve Gardam from the Imperial War Museum, gave me hope as a project manager, business analyst and content designer and (informal) information architect for hire.
I am hoping to do more work in the e-learning space, especially in cultural organisations.
April 14, 2009 |
Posted in Webby stuff
There is a lot of discussion and speculation about contemporary society's apparent addiction to recording every aspect of it's waking hour, whether it be in 140-character grabs, via cameras on hats, in blogs or collages of images uploaded onto flickr.com etc.
In an article in USA Today on 15 April The popularity of Twitter has some relationships in a twist, the author suggested that we are forgetting how to interact personally, choosing instead to present ourselves via abbreviated virtual packages. She also described a few absurd situations, such as one man's experience in which his dinner date complained about the chicken via Twitter, not bothering to tell him personally, then proceeded to have a heated exchange with her ex-husband via SMS. A second date did not eventuate.
I spent this morning sitting in a conference about Museums and the Web in Indianapolis and watched with a Twitterfall with interest, as contributors tweeted (sometimes inanely) about attending the conference. I know, I know, the tweeting was not really intended for the people in the room, but it was a bit distracting and detracted from the really interesting stuff the plenary speaker had to share.
Not sure, unless you are a great thinker or famous or newsworthy person, how interesting all these tweets can be.
April 14, 2009 |
Posted in Writing
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