Guest Post: Preparing for the Deep Digital Media Dive

Guest post authored by Frances Lloyd-Baynes, Content Database Specialist, Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Original post published on LinkedIn Pulse

When we started our journey to “improved digital media management” at Mia (Minneapolis Institute of Art) four years ago, we knew what we wanted (long term vision? tick). Our problem? Missing and inaccessible digital assets, with no way to get at and reuse them without making a whole lot of phone calls, wasting time and resources. (See Douglas Hegley, “The Mystery of the Missing Map and Other Digital Disappearances”.) We knew the assets were out there: they’d been created and maybe used once, but where the heck were they now? So our task was clear: get in a new DAM, fill it, serve it up, problem solved.  We made our plan, submitted our grant, and received funding to make our vision a reality. (Thank you, IMLS!)

Life is never that simple, though, is it? Filling the technology gap with a new DAM has been easy, but it is turning out to be the less impactful part of what we are delivering.

Yes, we needed a home for the assets being churned out by our designers, videographers, photographers, and educators. It had to be easy to use, straightforward, and integrate with our existing systems (an enterprise DAM, a works of art database, and website CMS). We chose an open-source DAM -  ResourceSpace (by Montala) - so we could access the underlying code and  tailor it to our needs. Our grant allowed us to bring in a developer to work on both ResourceSpace and the final piece of our project puzzle: a new search interface to unify all of our digital content systems.

ResourceSpace has (since June) simply and beautifully delivered a place to house and provide access to all of those wayward digital assets. Yet the new unified search interface is turning out to be the star of our project, with the potential to change significantly our digital media landscape. ResourceSpace makes finding assets easy; our other, enterprise DAM is less user-friendly. Our works of art database is both complex and has seriously restricted access. And none of the content systems on their own can provide a complete overview of the content we have related to our collections and our activities.  Enter MetaMia.

 

So very Meta

 

MetaMia is the new, browser-based interface we created to join all this content for one deep, inquiring dive. How did we do it? We extended our existing APIs (application program interfaces) to draw out the content from the source systems, then brought in ElasticSearch and Kibana to index and deliver that content up via browser interface.

In MetaMia, every word is searchable, all fields discoverable. Users can choose any or all of the four underlying systems to search, filter for asset types (video, audio, collection records, etc.) and for data mapped across systems, as well as use a field-by-field advanced search option. Assets are not only discovered, but can be directly downloaded from MetaMia, removing the need for our less-tech-friendly users to interface with our more complex systems. For a museum of (mostly) non-techies, it’s pretty heady stuff. (We received a spontaneous round of applause when demo-ing MetaMia at a recent all staff meeting.)

Early in the project, based on information we gathered from stakeholders, our team developed a set of guiding principles for managing the organization’s digital content. The core principles are

• Simplification (of processes; discoverability; use)
• Maximized resource (staff effort; asset use/re-use; system use/re-use; re: asset value)
• Flexibility (of formats; systems; use contexts; access/discovery; input/output)
• Clarity (clearly documented assets; standardized metadata; intuitive systems; museum processes & policies; user awareness)
• Independence (of formats; of users (i.e. they are capable); of systems)  
• Commitment (of the organization towards staff, support, resource)

With ResourceSpace and MetaMia, we are confident we have largely succeeded in fulfilling these principles. There’s still work to do, of course.

 

Making Meaning

 

Now that we have the search infrastructure, the pressure is on to offer up meaningful results. That means providing consistency (of content, structure, and language) across systems in ways we have not had to deliver before. As a collections data specialist, this is the stuff I get excited about: capturing that data, structuring it and controlling it to make meaning.

‘Making meaning’ requires getting the data into each system and associating it with the assets, into the right fields, and using consistent language. Here we have issues. We have significant gaps in the data we’re capturing - things we know people want to search by, but cannot because it’s not there now. Some of our systems have deeply complex metadata structures, others have virtually none. Some have built-in authority controls, others not. There is indeed work to be done to level the field.

The project is now drawing to a close and my final, personal goal, is to build a layer across all our systems for linking to common vocabulary controls. We are still working out how to deliver this, but looking at linked open data (LOD) to help. We need tools that sit outside individual systems, but which can be shared, e.g. the Getty’s vocabulary tools (Art & Architecture Thesaurus, Thesaurus of Geographic Names, and Union List of Artist Names) now being released in LOD format. And we need tools that can extend the meaning of our content (e.g. via translations into other languages) to a global audience.

Focusing on implementing a solution with the widest possible reach will help us move what is now an internal-only service to deliver deep content to a world of potential users. As it evolves, MetaMia will serve its assets directly back to our website, enabling the world to see the media-rich content we hold related to art, culture, history and our collections.
Mia is committed to the open source movement. Be assured that all our developments will be shared with the community via the Mia Github site.

If you would like to hear more about our project, my colleague Josh Lynn and I will be presenting at the upcoming Henry Stewart DAM Chicago 2015 event in September, where we’ll be sharing our work and its results. Note: As a reader of this post, you can register for that conference at a discount by using the code MINNEAPOLIS100. We hope to see you there.

Reading List: June 2015

A sampling of what's been intriguing me this past month (June 2015):

Smartphones,selfies and salvaging art tradition: museums grapple with technology tension
by Jeremy Story Carter for RadioNational
I tweeted this one out, just because it's a relatively concise summary of what many of us grapple with daily at the intersection between fine art and digital technology:

Re: #musetech @sree says "let's work together & increase access w/out reducing scholarship" Could not agree more! http://t.co/zmJqSTIzmr

— Douglas Hegley (@dhegley) June 3, 2015

The Myers-Briggs Personality Test Is Bunk But I Don't Care | WIRED by Sarah Seltzer
The author points out that the popular and well-known Myers-Briggs personality test is reductive, simplistic, and based on a false assumption that we are defined by clear dichotomies. In addition - and for me this harks back to my graduate school training in psychology - the test doesn't meet the basic tents of social science:

• Lacks reliability (isn't consistent over time)
• Isn't valid (doesn't hold logically)
• Isn't independent (plenty of variables muddying the waters)
• Isn't truly comprehensive (doesn't explain everybody)

And yet ... the author argues that the test is still useful. "Any means for busy adults to take time to comprehend ourselves and see how our styles converge and diverge from others has a use ... "

I find this interesting. There are so many possible "personality tests" and/or organizational tools used by businesses to identify strengths and weaknesses in teams and/or individuals. Most of these would suffer in light of the same criteria. However, if the output of the instruments can be taken with the proverbial grain of salt, it can be argued that each has the potential to foster:

• Insight
• Tolerance
• Empathy
• Patience
• Embracing diversity

What Makes an Organization "Networked"? by Greg Satell for hbr.org
The author argues that the industrial revolution required bureaucracy to meet scale, then the information age engendered matrix organizations in an attempt to foster cross-functional collaboration. He goes on to argue that even the matrix organization cannot keep up with the rapid change of pace and the complexity of the marketplace " ... matrices, in a sense, led to the worst of both worlds, a cumbersome organizational structure and the inability to adapt to fast changing contexts." So what to do? So-called small world networks, which arise organically in any connected system, are seen as the next step in business evolution. Interestingly, he doesn't proclaim that flat organizational structures nor holocracy are necessary to achieve the most-effective networking. What matters most are clustering (small groups of individuals working together closely and focused on a goal) and path length (the distance, or number of links, between clusters). Shorter path length increases communication and enables alignment and productivity. Organizations must encourage networking, and leaders should instill passion and commitment. While this formula, in my humble opinion, is a bit of a simplification, I find it resonates with leadership styles that I attempt to embody. If anything, the article reminds me that success isn't based only on the raw number of connections across the organization, but on the inter-connectedness of the clusters within the organization. Achieving that is truly silo-busting.


8 Ways to Tell if You're a Good Boss, on Leading with Trust blog
Okay, so this blog post starts off with a rather silly Wizards of Oz reference & photo, but read on and perhaps find some food for thought about leadership and being a "good boss". It's based on the findings from Google's People Operations unit, in which they crunched a lot of feedback in an attempt to find out what makes a good boss. It's a summary of course, and perhaps lacks nuance, but when I read through, it made me pause for a moment to think about whether I consistently meet these criteria. I won't repeat the list here, please click through and read for yourself. I will say that I *think* I strive to meet these characteristics, although I'm sure that I fall short at times. I plan to share this post with my team and get their thoughts not only on the criteria but also on my/our performance. Might not always be easy to look in the mirror honestly, but in my opinion it's an extremely useful effort that can pave the way for better success. Am I a good boss? I have to leave the answer to that question up to those who work with me.

Image Source: http://bit.ly/1e4Qkz1

This is the Product Death Cycle, by @andrewchen

I think this article interested me so much because it seemed to argue against being customer-focused. However, as I re-read it, I think it's making a more nuanced point. While I suppose it's possible to emerge from some kind of intensive period of seclusion with "the next big thing", I also think it's much more likely that iterative cycles that include customers help most companies develop products that are more-refined, more likely to work, and capable of creating buzz leading to peer-to-peer marketing.

That being said, shirking the responsibility for designing products by simply polling the public isn't the same thing. If you are saddled with a poorly-performing product, then asking people what color to paint that thing isn't really going to move the dial. I'd argue that there must be a balance of some kind - take the poor product, redesign it with public input, then test it to see if the new product is improved (on whatever measure your company cares about). In short, it's less about "what features should we add?" and more about "what are our customers trying to accomplish and how can be help them?"


Making Decisions Transparent, by Joan Baldwin on Leadership Matters blog
The author makes strong points about the importance of a transparent style of leadership. I was particularly struck by the ties made to trust, learning, and respect for alternative points of view that arise from effective transparency and sharing. I also agree wholeheartedly with the point that a " ... closed-door process left everyone else free to fill in the narrative. And narratives, whether created at museums or schools, whether about policy, personnel or change, take on a life of their own." I was discussing my decision-making with a colleague last week, and reflecting on my discomfort at making any decisions completely on my own. I much prefer to sound things out and explore the ripple effects of any decision with other people, before "deciding" - I put that in quote, because to me it often feels more like a consensus + commitment than it does a decision. By sharing the process openly and honestly, everyone has an ownership stake in the decision itself and (I think) more skin in the game to help reach successful outcome. Like collaboration, transparency isn't a magical pill that solves all problems - handled poorly it can lead to suspicion of incompetence! But applied professionally and thoughtfully, true transparency empowers an entire organization.


Back to Basics: Setting Priorities on @lifehackorg
The author of this post makes the very important point clearly: "When we don’t set priorities, we tend to follow the path of least resistance". We are all susceptible to this. When feeling overwhelmed, it's a lot easier to deal with your Inbox or check out the latest Twitter feed than it is to really dig in and figure out the hard stuff.

To overcome this problem, the author lays out three potential strategies, and advises us to try each in order to understand what works best for each of us individually. I'll summarize briefly here, but I recommend you read the article (it's short) to learn more.

1. Eat that frog: Tackle the hardest, least-pleasant task FIRST, every day.
2. Move big rocks: Prioritize, then focus on those priorities. 
3. Organize tasks using Covey quadrants: This enables you to see clearly what you should be working on, instead of constantly reacting to whatever crosses your plate.

Three potential strategies, and not a comprehensive list, but at least thought-provoking. I think at the core it's about having an intentional and thought-through approach to your work, whatever form that may take. People who've worked with me probably get sick of me interrupting meetings by saying "Wait, what are we trying to do here?" Each time I ask that question, I'm trying to reframe the discussion to focus on the meaningful goal(s) and then make sure that we're driving toward that set of goals, instead of getting mired down in details or spinning off into scope-creep hell. That's what "Back to Basics" is ultimately about for me.