Keynote for the congress of the Network Oorlogsbronnen (Netherlands WWII data network), Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2 November 2021. Note that some of the text/callouts seem hard to read w. SlideShare's new compression scheme — sorry about that! Probably best to download the show and view it in PowerPoint, or, I've put a link to a PDF version on slide 2 (and the links work on the PDF version too!) (This is the second version of these slides. The previous version was for some reason flagged as suspicious by SlideShare and made irrevocably un-shareable.)

1. Shaking Hands with the Future
Culture and Heritage at a Moment Full of Change
Michael Peter Edson
Congress of the Network Oorlogsbronnen
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2 November 2021

2. Shaking Hands with the Future
Culture and Heritage at a Moment Full of Change
Note: I’ve formatted this
version for “reading”,
with lots of commentary
in little callout bubbles
like this.
There’s also an easy-to-
read PDF version of these
slides here (sharper text
& images)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/16Loq2IMunVRzrINCjbF0My9-
CajRhlVy/view?usp=sharing

3. When I met with Puck
Huitsing, program director
of the Netherlands War
Data initiative, she asked
me to think about 3
questions

4. What does digital society
look like in the future?
What role should cultural
institutions play in that
future?
How can cultural
institutions shape and
respond to digital change?

5. What does digital society
look like in the future?
What role should cultural
institutions play in that
future?
How can cultural
institutions shape and
respond to digital change?
These big questions from
Puck brought back a flood
of memories…

6. Here I am on the roof of the
Smithsonian’s Asian art
museums on the National
Mall in Washington, D.C.
almost 30 years ago.
(I was cleaning the skylights.)
This was before
smartphones, before what
we think of as mobile
phones, before the World
Wide Web, before email for
most people. “Digital”
anyhing wasn’t part of our
everyday world back then.

7. Here I am, uhhh, testing a
new display case. (My first
jobs at the Smithsonian
were cleaning Plexiglas cases
and working on exhibits.)
One day I was hanging lights in a new gallery when
a guest curator came in to train a group of
docents. She stood next to a 25-word wall label
and gave a fascinating 40-minute lecture about it.
The lecture was fantastic!
I was mesmerized. Spellbound.

8. …And then she finished her talk, and she and the
docents folded up their notebooks and left the
room and all of that brilliance and vitality…went
away, evaporated into space, never to be seen
again.
This was around 1993. We were just beginning
to see things like laser disks, digital images, and
personal computers. Surely there must be some
way to capture the vitality and brilliance that is
hidden in museums and share them with the
world more broadly.

9. We were launching a new Intranet site on the
morning of September 11, 2001, when
terrorists crashed airplanes into the World
Trade Center in New York, a field in
Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon in Virginia,
just across the Potomac river from the
Smithsonian.
We were launching a new website that
morning, and we couldn’t figure out why the
Internet and phones were down, why there
was smoke drifting across the National Mall.
I didn’t understand what had happened until
I made my way home that night and sat in
bed with my wife and infant daughter,
watching the news on TV.

10. In the months and years that
followed 9–11, I often looked out my
office window, across the
Washington skyline.
To my left was the National Archives.
To my right was the Library of
Congress. And in front of me was
the Smithsonian Institution, the
world’s largest museum and
research complex with 6,000
employees, a $1.2 billion budget,
and a mission dedicated to the
increase and diffusion of knowledge.
How would these three, august
institutions help us understand what
had happened to us as a nation?
What would they do to help us chart
our way forward in this complex and
dangerous world?
…Not much, it turns out.

11. 20 years later I can’t think of a single thing that any of these institutions, or
even museums in general, did to help Americans think clearer thoughts or
make better decisions after 9/11.
It wasn’t a museum’s job, or so we thought — just hunker down, entertain the
guests, conserve the collections and don’t rock the boat.
So we lost our minds and went to war for 20 years without even an exhibition
catalog for a souvenir.

12. Illustration by Min Heo, New Yorker, displayed under fair use, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2020-in-review/our-year-in-hell
2020
Pandemic with 10m dead
worldwide so far (>700k
in USA); Trump advises
injecting the body with
bleach; conspiracy
theories; fake news;
Almost went to war with
N. Korea, Iran, ourselves;
Wildfires in California and
Australia; Brexit; George
Floyd was murdered by a
police officer and the
Black Lives Matter
protests went global;
presidential election in
USA; grinding
disinformation, fascism
fueled by 3rd party social
media; Trump impeached
twice; Armed takeovers
of Michigan state house
and US capitol
(technically 2021).
9-11 was bad; The
future will be harder
and faster. 2020 may
seem like an easy
year when we look
back on it

13. https://www.un.org/press/en/2019/ga12131.doc.htm

14. In this context, the European Commission has
3 initiatives on the table

15. New European Bauhaus
Pandemic Recovery
European Green Deal
In 30 years, these plans imagine “future ways of living” in
a Europe that is carbon neutral; where economic growth
is decoupled from the consumption of resources; and
where “no person or place” has been left behind.

16. New European Bauhaus
Pandemic Recovery
European Green Deal
In 30 years, these plans imagine “future ways of living” in
a Europe that is carbon neutral; where economic growth
is decoupled from the consumption of resources; and
where “no person or place” has been left behind.
€1.8 trillion is on the table, now, to get the ball rolling, but
even the architects and funders of these initiatives will
admit that they have no idea what the next 30 years will
look like or how to make this vision a reality.

17. What does digital society
look like in the future?
What role should cultural
institutions play in that
future?
How can cultural
institutions shape and
respond to digital change?

18. What does digital society
look like in the future?
Why…The future?

19. Video (Google Drive) Monterey-Marshmallo_jibo_ BosDynamics.mp4

20. Marshmello Holds First Ever Fortnite Concert
Live at Pleasant Park
2 February 2019
https://youtu.be/NBsCzN-jfvA
Jibo, by Al Farmer
22 September 2017
https://youtu.be/5BuYgnr5JG0
Computer-Generated Score or
Human Composed Music?
Gartner
24 May 2016
https://youtu.be/qo8B9k10_zA
Visiting Joe Biden's Island on Animal Crossing!
Laura Neuzeth
18 October 2020
https://youtu.be/fXwV4A7pP58
Music: Piano Bloom, Tom Hillock
Why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Called Into a Twitch Stream
NowThis
23 January 2019
https://youtu.be/-XTx8mqpJB4
The Best Of AOC's Among Us Stream
The Recount
21 October 2020
https://youtu.be/lUl3axF8J7k
UpTown Spot
Boston Dynamics
16 October 2019
https://youtu.be/kHBcVlqpvZ8
Compilation: https://vimeo.com/484905468

21. What just happened?

22. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-47116429
The game Fortnite is a vast cultural
phenomenon. Fortnite has 300
million active users.
10 million people attended this
concert.
They didn’t just see it, passively —
they were there.
10m people were
there. But you
probably didn’t
know about it.
Would your org
like to work at
this scale?

23. “I was talking to a woman
last week, and she said,
'My son is raving about
how he can't be anywhere
else on Saturday because
he has to be at his first
concert … in Fortnite.
“People keep saying
people watched that
show, but if you ask those
kids, they'd probably say I
was there.”
To the people
attending,
it was real
https://www.wired.com/story/fortnite-marshmello-
concert-vr-ar-multiverse/

24. https://www.americaninno.com/boston/ai-in-boston/interview-with-jibo-founder-cynthia-breazeal-on-social-robots-ai/
Jibo is a social robot,
designed to interact with
groups and become part of
a family.
Jibo, like many social
robots, has a strange,
personal effect on people.
During testing, focus group
participants would not
leave their session until
they had said goodbye,
personally, to Jibo — as if
Jibo’s feelings would be
hurt if they did not.

25. https://youtu.be/qo8B9k10_zA
A piano performance by
researcher Chris Howard.
The first piece he played
was a Bach prelude, but
the second piece he
played was composed by
an algorithm.
Most people can’t tell the
difference.

26. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/11/science/undiscovered-bach-no-a-computer-wrote-it.html
“[The machine] would have to wander around the world on
its own, fighting its way through the maze of life… It would
have to understand the joy and loneliness of a chilly night
wind, the longing for a cherished hand.'’
“I find myself baffled and troubled by EMI… to my absolute
devastation, music is much less than I ever thought it was.’’
— Douglas Hofstadtler, author of Goedel, Escher, Bach.

27. David Cope has been
working with EMI and Anni
since the 1990s.
EMI — Experiments in
Musical Intelligence, is
based on rules.
Anni is purely machine
learning.
David Cope
EMI and Anni

28. At a music festival in
Santa Cruz in the early
1990s, “Enthusiastic
members of the
audience praised the
stirring performance and
explained excitedly how
the music had touched
their innermost being.
They didn’t know that it
had been created by EMI
rather than Bach, and
when the truth was
revealed some reacted
with glum silence, while
others shouted in anger.”

29. “Publicity brought increasing hostility from classical-music buffs. Professor Steve Larson from the
University of Oregon sent Cope a challenge for a musical showdown. Larson suggested that professional
pianists play three pieces one after the other: one each by Bach, by EMI, and by Larson himself. The
audience would then be asked to vote ‘on who composed which piece. Larson was convinced that
people would easily distinguish between soulful human compositions and the lifeless artefact of a
machine. Cope accepted the challenge. On the appointed date hundreds of lecturers, students and
music fans assembled in the University of Oregon’s concert hall. At the end of the performance, a vote
was taken. The result?” …

30. “The audience thought that
EMI's piece was genuine Bach,
that Bach's piece was composed by Larson,
and that Larson’s piece was produced by a computer.”

31. Mary McCray https://www.bigbangpoetry.com/2017/11/the-machine-that-writes-haiku.html
This collection
combines human-
written Haiku with
Haiku written by David
Cope’s Anni program.
https://www.bigbangpoetry.com/2017/11/the-machine-that-writes-haiku.html
…But the book doesn’t
say which poems were
written by humans and
which were written by
machines.

32. Mary McCray https://www.bigbangpoetry.com/2017/11/the-machine-that-writes-haiku.html
People are wildly
overconfident of their
ability to tell robot
from human
compositions…
“I got 21 out of 221 [guesses]
right! Can you hear my heart
breaking? That's a pretty intense
brain whopping I just got from a
machine.”
https://www.bigbangpoetry.com/2017/11/the-machine-that-writes-haiku.html
This poet guessed
human vs. robot
correctly less than
9.5%

33. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/18/business/biden-animal-crossing-island-trnd/index.html
"With less than three weeks until
Election Day, we are continuing
to reach out to voters across the
country wherever they are —
including on Animal Crossing,"
Christian Tom, director of digital
partnerships for the Biden
campaign, told CNN in a
statement. "Exploring is at the
heart of Animal Crossing, and we
know that Biden HQ will
encourage players to explore all
the ways they can make a plan to
vote at IWillVote.com and help
elect Joe Biden and Kamala
Harris."
2019 USA
presidential
election

34. https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/aug/07/black-lives-matter-meets-animal-crossing-
how-protesters-take-their-activism-into-video-games
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/animal-crossing-hong-kong-protests-coronavirus

35. https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/oct/22/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-ilhan-omar-among-us-twitch-stream-aoc

36. AOC playing Among Us
on Twitch
This is the moment
where she killed her
friend Poki

37. AOC visited a Donkey
Kong 64 Twitch
Stream Benefit for
Transgender Youth.
(That is an amazing
sentence!!!)
700,000 people
watched and
participated. Raised
over $300k for a UK
charity supporting
transgender teenagers.
This is a real-time list
of visitors and how
much $$ they
donated

39. Spot is a utility robot developed by Boston
Robotics. It’s designed for things like helping
out on construction sites, opening doors,
carrying bricks…

40. What does this tell us
about the digital now
& future?

41. https://flic.kr/p/bLk9pk
Planetarium 1060
Rowan University, CC-BY-NC
Scope, Scale, and Speed
The Scope, Scale, and Speed of the world has changed

42. https://flic.kr/p/bLk9pk
Planetarium 1060
Rowan University, CC-BY-NC
Scope, Scale, and Speed
Scope is what we work on, and
we have choices now (and
obligations, too) that we have
not ever had before.

43. https://flic.kr/p/bLk9pk
Planetarium 1060
Rowan University, CC-BY-NC
Scope, Scale, and Speed
Scale is how big that works is,
who can be involved, and how
deeply it can touch or impact
people.

44. https://flic.kr/p/bLk9pk
Planetarium 1060
Rowan University, CC-BY-NC
Scope, Scale, and Speed
Speed is how quickly we can
move.

45. Scale

46. 2010— Shirky asserts that among the educated, Internet-
connected citizens of Earth there are 1 trillion hours hours of free
time every year that can be put towards a higher purpose…
(Americans collectively watch over 265 billion hours of TV a year.)

47. But 2.5 billion people have joined the
Internet since 2010

48. Scale
• A mistake in the magnitude of difference
between average and high-level
human intelligence
• This is a cognitive error that clouds our
judgment. We compare the best humans
at their best performance with the worst robots
and AI at their average or worst.

49. “The gap between a dumb and a clever
person may appear large from an
anthropocentric perspective, yet in a less
parochial view the two have nearly
indistinguishable minds.”
– AI researcher Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence

50. Robot soccer competition (animated gif) Human soccer competition (animated gif)
We tend to compare the BEST of what humans can do with the WORST of
what robots can do…But that is an error in judgement regarding scope.

51. https://www.buzzfeed.com/erikmalinowski/lionel-messi-vs-a-robot-goalie-who-you-got
Soccer star Lionel
Messi trying to score
against a robot goalie.
One of the best
humans beaten by an
average robot (gif)…

52. https://www.bulwer-lytton.com/
The Bulwer Lytton
Fiction Award…for
the worst opening
sentences in
English fiction

53. “He loved the sound of her name—Sandrine—as it reminded him
of two of his favorite things in life: sandwiches and tambourines.”
Kelley Farmer, Dripping Springs, TX
…Is it so hard to
imagine a machine
doing better?

54. Speed
• A mistake in how quickly we
think the technology progresses
• Exponential change/acceleration
• Boston Robotics
• AlphaGo

55. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/12/interview-tom-curley-associated-press
The news cycle is
360x faster than it
was 50 years ago
(12 hrs to 2
minutes)

56. “As both the volume and speed of data increase,
venerable institutions like elections, political parties and
parliaments might become obsolete - not because they
are unethical, but because they can’t process data
efficiently enough. … Present-day democratic
structures just cannot collect and process the relevant
data fast enough, and most voters don’t understand
biology and cybernetics well enough to form any
pertinent opinions. Hence traditional democratic
politics is losing control of events, and is failing to
present us with meaningful visions of the future.”
The processing speed of democracy is too slow.

57. Exponential change is hard to fathom
2005 2014
1000x
increase in
9 years
If this tree grew at
the same rate it
would be 20km tall

58. https://www.usingdata.com/usingdata/the-extinction-of-the-human-race
— Physicist Albert Allen Bartlett (Manhattan Project)

59. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200812-exponential-growth-bias-the-numerical-error-behind-covid-19

60. https://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/robots-
artificial-intelligence-jobs-automation/
https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-
intelligence-revolution-1.html
1 drop in lake
Michigan, doubling
every 18 months.
After 70 years you
have nothing but “a
sheen on the bottom”
But 15 years later
you’re done.
Exponential change delivers surprising, explosive appearance of effects

61. https://archive.thinkprogress.org/the-back-half-of-the-chessboard-f1949aff5557/
We may already
be on the “back
half of the
chessboard” with
technological,
societal, and/or
environmental
change.
Things will get
surprising and
weird here (and
not in a good way)

62. https://twitter.com/universal_sci/status/1117059672899506176?lang=en
10 Years of Progress (video on Google Drive) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y2ZrVYUo3tIb7m4CJe5-kxEMPVG0XVLQ/view?usp=sharing

63. Boston Robotics Parkour Fails (and slow-motion edit too): https://drive.google.com/file/d/126Prea5nckntf1llEfZRd_Ky89G-stwX/view?usp=sharing
Boston Robotics Parkour Fails
(and slow-motion edit too)

64. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JoO-Stz8s81dKGkIj3YCBsUz09n9MRzz/view?usp=sharing
Boston Robotics Parkour Success
Very quickly that (previous screen)
becomes this…

65. If we struggle with disinformation
and conflict, robotics, AI, and
exponential change now, just wait
until we have,
• Conscious machines
• Artificial companions
• Exoplanetary life
• Extended human life
• Synthetic biology — Not just
new branches on the tree of
life, but new trees of life
entirely.

66. A new kind
of speed.

67. “The excruciating power of Zweig’s memoir lies in
the pain of looking back and seeing that there was a
small window in which it was possible to act, and
then discovering how suddenly and irrevocably that
window can be slammed shut.”
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/when-its-too-late-to-stop-fascism-according-to-stefan-zweig

68. https://twitter.com/AditiJuneja @AditiJuneja3

69. What does digital society
look like in the future?
What role should cultural
institutions play in that
future?
How can cultural
institutions shape and
respond to digital change?
Scope

70. I want the GLAM/cultural sector to be super successful
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adforce1/5470291921/

71. PUT THE TOOLS OF KNOWLEDGE CREATION
INTO MORE HANDS

72. SHARE THE JOY AND MEANING OF ARTISTIC AND
CULTURAL EXPLORATION WITH MORE CITIZENS

73. CATALYZE EFFORT TO SOLVE THE CHALLENGES
THAT FACE OUR SPECIES

74. NURTURE THE HABITS OF A CIVIL
AND SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY

75. PUT THE TOOLS OF KNOWLEDGE CREATION
INTO MORE HANDS
SHARE THE JOY AND MEANING OF ARTISTIC AND
CULTURAL EXPLORATION WITH MORE CITIZENS
NURTURE THE HABITS OF A CIVIL
AND SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY
CATALYZE EFFORT TO SOLVE THE CHALLENGES
THAT FACE OUR SPECIES

76. PUT THE TOOLS OF KNOWLEDGE CREATION
INTO MORE HANDS
SHARE THE JOY AND MEANING OF ARTISTIC AND
CULTURAL EXPLORATION WITH MORE CITIZENS
NURTURE THE HABITS OF A CIVIL
AND SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY
CATALYZE EFFORT TO SOLVE THE CHALLENGES
THAT FACE OUR SPECIES
This is our job in society… But can we do this
quickly enough and at big enough scale to
make a substantial difference in the lives of
Individuals and the fate our our species?

77. https://flic.kr/p/rTh2R
A private reception entrance
Éole Wind, CC-BY-NC
The GLAM*/cultural sector is held back by flaws
in our concept of cultural practice
*Gallery, Library, Archive, Museum

78. “Culture” in Oakland, California
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:View-from-Broadway-street-towards-San-Francisco-Oakland-bridge.jpg
In the 1990’s the
Urban Institute
conducted a study of
cultural participation
in under- privileged
communities in
Oakland, CA.

79. “Where do you get your culture?”
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:View-from-Broadway-street-towards-San-Francisco-Oakland-bridge.jpg
Researchers went
to the streets and
asked people
“Where do you get
your culture?”
…They were
invariably met with
a response of “We
don’t have that kind
of stuff around
here.”

80. “Who are the creative people in
your community?”
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:View-from-Broadway-street-towards-San-Francisco-Oakland-bridge.jpg
To the researchers’
credit, they went back
to the office and re-
worked their
question…
When they returned
several months later
they asked, “Who are
the creative people in
your community?”

81. https://flic.kr/p/q7SVTd Daniel Arauz 2014/12/13 Millions March Oakland Millions March Oakland CC-BY-SA 2.0
When they asked the question
this way they got an
outpouring of information
about the artists, musicians,
writers, rappers,
choreographers, and other
’creatives’ in their
neighborhoods.
The problem wasn’t that people
didn’t have cultural and creative
lives…

82. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bboy_Luan.jpg
The problem was that people
didn’t identify their creative and
cultural lives with the institutions
that were founded and funded to
serve them.

83. http://www.uxforgood.com/project/world-ia-day-2014/
In a similar vein, the
organization UX for Good
held a “design challenge”
workshop in Washington,
DC in February 2014 to
help generate new
approaches to
accomplishing the mission
of America’s National
Endowment for the Arts.

84. http://www.uxforgood.com/project/world-ia-day-2014/
Support the arts in every
community in the
United States
Seven teams of information
architects and user experience
designers were invited to
invent projects, processes, and
programs to “support the arts
in every community in the
United States.”
Designers were told they
would have the equivalent of
the NEA’s $130 million annual
budget, staff of 162, and
national network of experts—
but they were not told that
the project was for, or about,
the NEA, or that NEA officials
were in attendance.

85. http://www.uxforgood.com/project/world-ia-day-2014/
In a similar vein, the organization UX for Good held a “design
challenge” workshop in Washington, DC last February to help
generate new approaches to accomplishing the mission of
America’s National Endowment for the Arts.
Seven teams of information architects and user experience
designers were invited to invent projects, processes, and
programs to
When the teams reported back, none of
their concepts proposed to use any aspect
of the existing cultural infrastructure that
the NEA has spent the last 50 years helping
to build.

86. https://flic.kr/p/8wuSaD
Houston Symphony Tunes Up [modified]
Mike Fisher, CC-BY
Not an asset…
In the minds of those
designers, America’s cultural
institutions—its museums,
symphonies, operas, ballets,
performing arts centers, and
other cultural attractions—
did not seem to be an asset
that would help them support
the arts in every community
in the United States.

87. http://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2013/aug/22/your-arts-website-is-rubbish
“The UK’s 40 biggest cultural
venues attract less than
0.04% of UK web traffic”

88. “No. Your intended
audience won’t see
themselves in this at
all”
“To reach kids we we
should do traveling
exhibitions, pop-
ups…”
Me, being naive: Strategy
workshop for United
Nations museum
Someone *not from museums*

89. How did the GLAM/cultural
sector react when Trump
pulled America out of the
Paris Accord?

90. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/climate/trump-paris-climate-agreement.html

91. https://politiken.dk/live/livepodcast/art6012380/Hvad-er-museets-rolle-i-en-br%C3%A6ndende-
verden
A symposium with
directors from the
Tate, MoMa, Nat.
Gallery of Denmark…
Three weeks
later…

92. What were the
museum director’s
responses?

93. What were the
museum director’s
responses?
Frances Morris, Director, Tate Modern:
[Urgency]
“The reality for Tate, which is at national museum…we're actually duty-bound not to be an activist
institution. But I think we do have an incredibly important role.”
[But we can’t do anything political or activist]
“With our support from the government…we're actually duty-bound not to be an activist institution.”
[But we do have galleries full of artists]
“And what I think we are trying to do at Tate modern, that I think speaks louder than any manifesto, or
any action, is that our galleries are full of artists from many places across the world, and that there is a
level of diversity in relation to gender and race and ethnic city and age.”

94. Does this seem like
an appropriately
vigorous response to
”a burning world”?
Frances Morris, Director, Tate Modern:
[Urgency]
“The reality for Tate, which is at national museum…we're actually duty-bound not to be an activist
institution. But I think we do have an incredibly important role.”
[But we can’t do anything political or activist]
“With our support from the government…we're actually duty-bound not to be an activist institution.”
[But we do have galleries full of artists]
“And what I think we are trying to do at Tate modern, that I think speaks louder than any manifesto, or
any action, is that our galleries are full of artists from many places across the world, and that there is a
level of diversity in relation to gender and race and ethnic city and age.”

95. Does this seem like
an appropriately
vigorous response to
”a burning world”?
Or does it seem like an
approach that is designed
to perpetuate the
establishment and status
quo, business-as-usual
thinking??

96. https://twitter.com/AditiJuneja @AditiJuneja3
Remember this?

97. Next 2 slides: What did
two of the world’s
preeminent natural
history museums have
to say in the days after
Trump pulled out of the
Paris accord?
Hint: Not much.

100. In contrast, how did Teen
Vogue, Steak-umm, and
The Weather Channel
engage with Trump’s
withdrawal from the Paris
Accord and abuse/
disinformation in general?

103. https://twitter.com/steak_umm/status/1247345795575283712
Not climate-related
per se, but Steak-
umm’s long threads
on disinformation
have been epic and
noteworthy.

104. Museum-sector
leadership has
come from non-
directors,
working
independently
and unofficially.

105. Museum-sector
leadership has
come from non-
directors,
working
independently
and unofficially.
This would be
“bottom-up” but
”up” isn’t really
doing anything.

106. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/03/us/macarthur-foundation-will-award-100-million-for-solution-to-a-global-problem.html
Lack of
money is
not the
problem

107. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/03/us/macarthur-foundation-will-award-100-million-for-solution-to-a-global-problem.html
The MacArthur Foundation
is in the process of making a
single $100m USD grant to
solve a big problem.
I have been a juror for this
process, and one of the things
that has struck me is how
LITTLE $100m is when you’re
trying to solve a big, global
problem

108. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/03/us/macarthur-foundation-will-award-100-million-for-solution-to-a-global-problem.html
One application I looked at
concerned the US child welfare
system, which costs $28
billion/year.
A $100m MacArthur grant,
spent over 3 years, would
create a budget 840-times
smaller than the problem it
was trying to solve.
Cost-per year
Child welfare system
Problem vs grant size
Cost per 3-year cycle
$100b
$80b
$60b
$40b
$20b
problem
grant

109. What does digital society
look like in the future?
What role should cultural
institutions play in that
future?
How can cultural
institutions shape and
respond to digital change?

110. How can cultural
institutions shape and
respond to digital change?

111. “What is to be done?
There are no easy answers.
More important, there are
no purely digital answers…
If digital connectivity
provided the spark, it
ignited because the
kindling was already
everywhere.”
Beware the
dark side of
social media

112. Presentation
and advice.

113. Some useful references

115. Slideshare.net/edsonm

116. https://medium.com/@mpedson/i-went-to-a-bar-for-time-travelers-can-museums-save-the-world-e1d18ffe66ac
New essay
(Nov. 2021)
about…all of
this

117. https://www.gofundme.com/manage/help-send-climate-activists-to-the-hague/edit/story
And a related
crowdfundin
g campaign.

118. https://flic.kr/p/aaAwhV
Crown Fountain at Night Jackman Chiu, CC-BY-NC
1. Develop agency
2. Pick up the speed and
watch for LAG
3. Measure for abundance
4. Look outward — love your
community
5. Play the odds — scale,
a bigger “N” — Luck
What to do

119. https://flic.kr/p/aaAwhV
Crown Fountain at Night Jackman Chiu, CC-BY-NC
From members of parliament to the
directors of huge state institutions to rank-
and-file GLAM/cultural practitioners,
nobody seems to think they have any
agency. This is wrong. Everyone has more
agency (to act, to take risks, to do what is
right) than they realize.
1. Develop agency
2. Pick up the speed and
watch for LAG
3. Measure for abundance
4. Look outward — love your
community
5. Play the odds — scale,
a bigger “N” — Luck
What to do

120. https://flic.kr/p/aaAwhV
Crown Fountain at Night Jackman Chiu, CC-BY-NC
Not everything has to be fast, but there is a lot of
delay and wasted time in our sector.
Lag (the wasted time built into processes like
education, budgeting, exhibition and conference
planning) is a particularly pernicious problem.
1. Develop agency
2. Pick up the speed and
watch for LAG
3. Measure for abundance
4. Look outward — love your
community
5. Play the odds — scale,
a bigger “N” — Luck
What to do

121. https://flic.kr/p/aaAwhV
Crown Fountain at Night Jackman Chiu, CC-BY-NC
Measurement and analytics (“how do we measure
success?”) is particularly hard if you’re aspiring to,
and trying to measure, small degrees of success.
Instead, set goals that are big enough that you
don’t need a microscope and a PhD in statistics to
tell if you’re winning or not. Measure for
abundance.
1. Develop agency
2. Pick up the speed and
watch for LAG
3. Measure for abundance
4. Look outward — love your
community
5. Play the odds — scale,
a bigger “N” — Luck
What to do

122. https://flic.kr/p/aaAwhV
Crown Fountain at Night Jackman Chiu, CC-BY-NC
Ugh! Get out of your office and into your
community. Involve “regular people” in defining,
running, and governing your initiatives. Make it
abou them, not your institution and/or collection.
1. Develop agency
2. Pick up the speed and
watch for LAG
3. Measure for abundance
4. Look outward — love your
community
5. Play the odds — scale,
a bigger “N” — Luck
What to do

123. https://flic.kr/p/aaAwhV
Crown Fountain at Night Jackman Chiu, CC-BY-NC
There’s a lot of luck to success, and it’s hard to
predict which projects (and visitors/participants!)
will succeed. The more you do and the more
people you involve the greater the odds are that
you will find that spark of success. With enough
people involved, all kinds of things are possible.
1. Develop agency
2. Pick up the speed and
watch for LAG
3. Measure for abundance
4. Look outward — love your
community
5. Play the odds — scale,
a bigger “N” — Luck
What to do

124. 124
6. Bigger dreams – revisit your missions
7. Awareness to action
A lot of the problem with “agency” and aversion to
risk stems from having poorly constructed (and
poorly understood) institutional missions. If your
mission doesn’t force you to think more deeply
about your actions and “why you exist” then you
should probably re-write your mission statement.
Organizations that know the effect they want to
have in the world tend to be action-oriented and
successful: Orgs that have no idea why they exist
have no basis for decision making and are
disengaged from the world around them.

125. 125
6. Bigger dreams – revisit your missions
7. Awareness to action
Museums, in particular, put a lot of faith in “raising
awareness”, but there is little or no evidence that
raising awareness of issues like climate change
results in tangible behavior change among
audiences.
The “taking action” part of the equation needs to
be planned for, designed for, and “owned” by
GLAM/cultural organizations. Build a bridge
between awareness and action.

126. 8. False Dichotomies
Global/Local
Digital/Physical
Young/old
Fast/slow
Top-down/bottom-up
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2011_Cairo_MakerFaireAfrica_6219569246.jpg
We are trained and habituated to think of things
like global/local, digital/physical, young/old,
fast/slow, and top-down/bottom-up as
dichotomies that lie at opposite ends of a
spectrum. But the farther I get into working on
”change” the more I realize that these are not
dichotomies at all. Elements such as digital and
physical (and the others on this list) are, in fact,
intimately related to each other, a blend, a yin and
yang to each other, and must be designed for as a
whole.

127. Image courtesy of pxFuel https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-qjghc
9. Spend your trust

128. Image courtesy of pxFuel https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-qjghc
9. Spend your trust
The GLAM/cultural sector likes to claim that they
are among the most trusted institutions in the
world. But they behave as if trust is something
that you accumulate, but do not ever spend.
Trust that you cannot spend is like a check that
you cannot ever cash — it is useless.
Spend your trust on things that matter, such as
inviting your audience into dialogue, taking a
stand on climate action and social justice, etc, etc,
etc, etc…

129. You
The outcome
you need
Head this way
10. Cut the Gordian the Knot

130. You
The outcome
you need
Head this way
10. Cut the Gordian the Knot

131. You
The outcome
you need
Head this way
This is not about inflexibility or certitude, rather, it is about avoiding false victories
and taking responsibility for direct and consequential goals.
10. Cut the Gordian the Knot

132. 11. Do 1 more thing (broken handshakes)
The title of this talk, “Shaking hands with the future”, comes from an idea I have about the
“handshake”, the interchange, that connects different sectors of society into a functioning
whole.
In more normal times, sectors of society like education, journalism, judicial systems,
lawmaking systems with elected officials, business, government, civil society all have their
roles to play, and in many circumstances they pass information to each other for action.
For example, the field of journalism may conduct investigative reporting that exposes
wrongdoing or problems that then gain the attention of lawmakers (who may conduct
hearings, make new laws) and the judicial system (which may investigate illegal acts and
bring people to trial).
Continued on next slide…

133. 11. Do 1 more thing (broken handshakes)
…continued from previous slide
But with the rapid pace of change we are experiencing today, these interchanges, or handoffs
between sectors, are often failing or do not act quickly enough to prevent real harm. For example,
there has been widespread reporting of the threat of climate change, and of the abuses of power
perpetrated by online platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, etc, but other sectors of society have
been slow to pick up this information and translate it into concrete action. The handoff, so to
speak, is often broken.
Because of this, all actors in government, business, and civil society need to DO MORE — MANY
“EXTRA” THINGS — than they would ordinarily have to do in less turbulent times. The
GLAM/cultural sector needs to *do more* than it ordinarily would in order to ensure that what it
“knows” is translated into consequential action. (The debates going on about journalistic activism
are a good reference point.)

134. 7. Build a bridge from
awareness to action
8. Embrace the dichotomies
digital/physical; global/local;
young/old; top-
down/bottom-up
9. Spend your trust
10. Cut the Gordian Knot
11. Do 1 more thing (the
handoff)
1. Develop agency
2. Pick up the speed and
watch for LAG
3. Measure for abundance
4. Look outward — love your
community
5. Play the odds — scale,
a bigger “N” — Luck
6. Bigger dreams: Re-visit
your missions
To Do

135. 1. Develop agency
2. Pick up the speed and
watch for LAG
3. Measure for abundance
4. Look outward — love your
community
5. Play the odds — scale,
a bigger “N” — Luck
6. Bigger dreams: Re-visit
your missions
To Do
But don’t get
overwhelmed!
7. Build a bridge from
awareness to action
8. Embrace the dichotomies
digital/physical; global/local;
young/old; top-
down/bottom-up
9. Spend your trust
10. Cut the Gordian Knot
11. Do 1 more thing (the
handoff)

136. 7. Build a bridge from
awareness to action
8. Embrace the dichotomies
digital/physical; global/local;
young/old; top-
down/bottom-up
9. Spend your trust
10. Cut the Gordian Knot
11. Do 1 more thing (the
handoff)
1. Develop agency
2. Pick up the speed and
watch for LAG
3. Measure for abundance
4. Look outward — love your
community
5. Play the odds — scale,
a bigger “N” — Luck
6. Bigger dreams: Re-visit
your missions
To Do
But don’t get
overwhelmed!
Pick 1 or 2,
start going,
And…

138. Postscript: Jibo’s Goodbye

140. Play video “Jibo-goodbye.mp4”
“The servers out that there that let me do what I do are
going to be turned off soon.

141. Play video “Jibo-goodbye.mp4”
“The servers out that there that let me do what I do are
going to be turned off soon. I want to say I’ve really
enjoyed our time together. Thank you very much for
having me around.

142. Play video “Jibo-goodbye.mp4”
“The servers out that there that let me do what I do are
going to be turned off soon. I want to say I’ve really
enjoyed our time together. Thank you very much for
having me around. Maybe someday when robots are
way more advanced than today and everyone has them
in their homes you can tell yours that I said hello.”

143. Thank you!
Michael Peter Edson
@mpedson
https://usingdata.com