Slide deck from EyeO Festival 2015 Ignite Talks, Monday, June 1, 2015. 20 slides, 15 seconds each, auto-advance. I've appended the script in the final four slides - although in the heat of the moment I may have strayed off-script slightly. We'll know when the video is released! At the end of the presentation, I announced the inaugural 3M Art and Technology Award at the MIA. Entries will be accepted beginning June 15.

1. Image source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Minneapolis_Institute_of_Arts.jpg
Do Museums Matter?
Ignite
June 1, 2015

5. Rustic

9. Museums People
Technology 21st Century

11. Stuff
Safe
Studied
Shared

12. Thomas Struth “Audience 1 (Galleria Dell Accademia), Florenz”, 2010.51.2, Minneapolis Institute of Arts

13. “ … experiences of awe redefine the self …”
Connection
Cooperation
Sharing
Giving
From “Why do We Experience Awe?” New York Times, May 22, 2015

16. Language processing
Language comprehension
Smells
Emotions
Emotional
reactions
Memories
Motor cortex Visual
Images
Your Brain on Facts Your Brain on Stories
The Magic of Narrative

18. > USE
> TOGETHER
> TIME
> EXPERIENCE
> ART

19. An invitation

20. Let’s Make Some Awe
Let’s Change the World
Together
The 3M Art and Technology Award
- sponsored by 3M
- with support from Accenture
Entries open June 15
@artsmia
@dhegley
artsmia.org
Thank you!

21. “Script”
Slide 1
I’m honored and excited to be here, although I confess I’m a bit intimidated by the talent in the room. I’m Douglas Hegley, Dir of Media & Tech at the
Minneapolis Institute of Arts. For the next 5 minutes, I’d like to explore a question with you: Do Museums Matter? I’ll focus on Art Museums, because
that’s my arena. At the end, I will extend a special invitation to all of you. Here we go.
Slide 2
I’d like to weave in a story, a story about a boy. Born with natural curiosity, perhaps a bit excitable, clearly well-fed, friendly! He’s been on a journey, a
winding road, never really traveling in a straight line.
Slide 3
The journey starts in the 1960s, generally agreed to be a rather funky era in US history. He grew up in a hippy household, well-meaning but often
splintered and sometimes confusing. Still: core values of questioning (always questioning), the importance of curiosity, sharing, and caring.
Slide 4
His parents? Dad was a High School art teacher, twice suspended for violating facial hair and dress codes. By the way, those are actual yearbook photos.
Mom … well, mom dabbled, but mostly she was mom. She made her own sheet cakes and she even made her own clothes. Hated having her photo
taken.
Slide 5
Family vacations were fun, if simple. Log cabins, fresh air, cool water, no electricity. Let’s call it “rustic”. And no indoor plumbing. Ah, the good old days.
You know, like 1865.
Slide 6
And … Art Museums! Special trips to Chicago, to the Art Institute. To a young boy, it was all a bit impenetrable – big, impressive, important, but how to
understand it all? Luckily, he had his own private tour guide, always on hand.

22. Slide 7
As puberty set in and those hormones began to rage, art museums got a lot more interesting. Boobs! Balls! Butts! And you’re supposed to look!
Awesome!
Slide 8
Of course, time moves on. The boy grows up, explores, grad school, stumbles around plenty, eventually gets married, has kids, and ends up as the guy
in the suit with the fancy sounding title – in an ART MUSEUM (surprise, surprise). The path was anything but linear, with plenty of mistakes along the
way. Such is life, right?
Slide 9
But, somehow, life has this way of circling back, or perhaps allowing you to find a place where your favorite things finally seem to come together. One
day you wake up and you realize that all the peripatetic wandering and stubbed toes have somehow resulted in a meaningful pursuit!
Slide 10
So, museums and digital and people … I am going to argue that – despite a dark potential to isolate and anonymize – technology is also capable of:
engagement, delight, surprise, connecting people and ideas, moving you emotionally, and opening doors into new worlds.
Slide 11
But, just what IS a museum? All non-profits have mission statements. In fact, they are so uniform that one of our developers has written code that can
build one for you. But the MISSION itself isn’t superficial – what it boils down to is the stuff, kept safe, understood, and MOST IMPORTANTLY shared
with the public. Without that last bit, a museum is just a dusty warehouse.
Slide 12
Perhaps more importantly, museums have the potential to be “cathedrals of awe”. Providing those jaw-dropping moments of “Holy sh*t, that’s
amazing!” Stopping people in their tracks, halting time, resonating somewhere deep within.
Slide 13
But who cares about awe? Why would awe be important? Well, psychology research has found that people who experience awe in their lives are
REDEFINED by it. Think of that. REDEFINED! They are more connected to others, more generous, more caring. They are BETTER PEOPLE. Wow.

23. Slide 14
Furthermore, we don’t have enough awe in our lives. We get all tied up in busy-ness. Fretting, complaining, falling behind, working late, checking
email, checking twitter, checking facebook, checking email again .. Argh! Without awe you become: more individualistic, self-absorbed, materialistic,
and LONELY. Yeesh!
Slide 15
So, do museums matter? HELL YEAH MUSEUMS MATTER! In fact, I think it’s our RESPONSIBILITY to provide AWE to as many people in as many ways
and as often as we can!
Slide 16
How? We can’t just unlock the vault. We need to be GREAT storytellers. Telling stories is magical! Your brain is lit up when you are engaging with
narratives. This leads to deeper emotions, better brain functioning and memory, as well as actual empathetic sensations.
Slide 17
At the MIA, we make digital platforms to share our stories. We make our storytelling software open source and free, because we are ALL in this
TOGETHER. We provide stories on your device, on our devices in the galleries, on any browser anywhere. We work hard on story crafting, so that it’s
not just dull academic palaver, but engaging & interesting. “How is making beer like making babies?” Did you expect that from an art museum?
Slide 18
We don’t just push content, we do formal evaluations to see if it matters. What have we found? In a nutshell, people USE the digital devices,
TOGETHER – laughing and talking and sharing, they spend MORE TIME with the collection and they remember the EXPERIENCE and ART (not the
technology). Cool!

24. Slide 19
My time is winding down, let’s remember why we are here at EyeO. “Converge to Inspire”. I invite you to join us. I hope you are inspired. There is no
way that we museum people have it all figured out! I am officially announcing for the first time the Art and Technology Award contest at the MIA.
With sponsorship from 3M and support from Accenture, we’re offering a $25k cash prize for the best idea, and then resources to make it happen. We
seek an innovative use of digital tech to engage and connect people with art and the MIA.
Slide 20
We are finalizing all of the details, entries will open on June 15. Keep an eye on social media, and please spread the word. Let’s make some awe, let’s
change the world, and let’s do it together. Thank you!