Community: bloggers@brooklynmuseum

Summer’s Target First Saturdays have been great and I’ve loved watching everyone stream into the Museum’s parking lot to dance under the stars.

West Indian-American Carnival 2008 - Brooklyn, NY by David Berkowitz via Flickr.

This is just a reminder that there’s no First Saturday in September, but there will be plenty going on around the Museum with the all events surrounding the West Indian-American Day Carnival Association’s Labor Day parade that will be taking place.

My colleagues and I are not taking a break, however, and are busily preparing for the next season of Target First Saturdays. We’ll be kicking things off on October 3rd with a collaboration with the Hungarian Cultural Center as part of their year long Extremely Hungary festival. We’re excited to offer a night of art and culture beyond visitor’s expectations that will include a performance by Vertical Players Repertory, an Opera Open Mic with Brooklyn’s beer swilling, jeans wearing opera singers from Opera on Tap, and a soulful dance party hosted by Brooklyn’s DJ Reborn and a top Hungarian DJ.

If you just can’t wait for October, you can join me on the Brooklyn Museum’s Facebook page during the month of September where I’ll be asking questions about visitor’s experience at and thoughts about First Saturday. Please join me. I’d love to hear what you think!

When 1stfans launched with the Swoon printing event on January 3rd, it was a pretty crazy night. Though Shelley and I didn’t get to meet every 1stfan who attended, we were able to meet a few. One of the people we met was a guy named Matt Held. He said he was a painter and had this project on Facebook. He and his wife live in Brooklyn, he said, and had been regular Museum Members for a couple years. He joined 1stfans because he thought it was a cool idea, and he talked a little about his project, in which he paints people’s Facebook profiles as portraits. He got his print (you can see Matt and his wife Joelle in the photo above) and was on his way. Shelley thought it would be cool if we could get him to speak at a 1stfans meetup, and I agreed. We approached Matt, and he liked the idea too. Like our last 1stfans presenter Lisa Bruno, Matt was a good fit to speak because he’s a 1stfan Member and Museum supporter.

Fast forward a month or so, and Matt Held has become something of an internet phenomenon. His project, which he chronicles on a blog in addition to the facebook group, was picked up by several art and museum blogs (<— 5 links). Last week, Matt even made it into the “lowbrow-brilliant” quadrant of New York magazine’s weekly Approval Matrix and this week he’s profiled by Gillian Reagan in The New York Observer. When Shelley and I visited Matt at his studio last week, he seemed excited and a little overwhelmed by the attention he’s received as of late. Since we were used to seeing these paintings online, I was surprised at how spectacular they looked in person (granted, I’m no curator). It is for this reason that we are particularly excited to have Matt speak to 1stfans at Target First Saturday on March 7th.

At 7pm, Matt will be giving a talk exclusively to 1stfan Members about his project. He is going to bring a few of the portraits for 1stfans to see, and then afterwards he’s going to pick one far-away 1stfan’s Facebook profile to do as part of his project. If you’d like to hear Matt speak and you aren’t already a 1stfan Member, you can join right here.

It’s funny, if you know me, I’m sure you can imagine that I would have had a total fit if someone came into my office pitching an “web 2.0″ membership (yes, yes, go ahead and LOL at the thought of my reaction), but when Will came in for our meeting he wasn’t pitching an online membership or a tech/electronic/web2 membership—he was pitching something personal. Rooted in visitors coming to Target First Saturday, many of whom live right down the street and come every month, his aim was to make personal connections with this group and create a package that would encourage them to get on the membership escalator sooner by combining a low cost to entry with a very personal interaction.

It was this idea of personal interaction that piqued my interest. Whenever I speak at conferences, one of the first things I try and get across is Social Media…or Web 2.0…or [insert whatever you want to call it here] is not about technology, marketing, or PR—it’s about people. When we establish a presence on social media site for the Museum our goals are simple: put a personal face on the institution and make personal connections with our visitors. This extension to communities on the web is just one part of a larger mission-driven synergy that begins with making these same connections within our building, in nearby communities and, now, with 1stfans.

Given that the crowd at Target First Saturday tends to be connected via the web, we started to discuss ways to utilize the social web to get to know and communicate with this new group. Rather than relying on the standard e-mail newsletter (which is more of a standard push relationship), why not reach out and go directly to these new members in places where they happen to be and deliver updates tailored to their own preferences. Just as important as delivering content is the idea that this is a social exchange, where we can better get to know the 1stfans at the same time.

We are calling 1stfans a “socially-networked membership.” To us, that encompasses the in-person, social aspects of the events planned for this group at every Target First Saturday and the way we intend to socialize with these new members on the web. At the end of the day, I think we will have done our jobs well if 1stfans get to know our Membership team, just like many of our current followers on the social networks have come to know me.

A little later today, I’ll be posting about the 1stfans Twitter Art Feed and look for posts from Will about Swoon and a few other things in the coming weeks. If you signed up this morning and have not heard from us, we are just starting to catch up and you’ll be hearing from us very soon.

Update - in case you missed them, check out Will and me introducing 1stfans in a couple of infomercial-style videos! part 1: hello and part 2: the launch now up on YouTube

Working in Membership means my job is to get people excited about and involved with the Museum. In that way, my job is just as much community-builder as it is fundraiser. Though our Membership base is sizable and diverse, I’ve always felt that there is a large group of Brooklyn Museum visitors that would like to be more involved with the Museum but do not view the traditional Membership structure and benefits as appealing. I wouldn’t be following the Museum’s mission if I didn’t make an effort to reach out to this group. The bottom-line part of my job (monthly income goals, budget projections, cost/benefit analysis) is important, but not as important—or as fun, I might add—as growing our Museum community and making personal connections with our Members. It is with the Museum’s community in mind that we are pleased to introduce a new Membership program at the Brooklyn Museum: 1stfans.

What is 1stfans? a 1stfans Membership is an interactive relationship with the Museum that will happen in the building and online. We call it a “socially networked” Museum Membership, but what does that mean? The word has two meanings, which is why we picked it: it means developing face-to-face relationship with Museum staff and other Museum Members (literal social networking), and a strong, exclusive online relationship through social networking sites (you know them as Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter).

What do 1stfans get? Firstly (pun intended), exclusive events at monthly Target First Saturdays, where you’ll be able to interact with other 1stfans, Museum staff, and contemporary artists. Oh, and you can skip the ticket line for movies, which is pretty sweet. Secondly (no pun there), we will send updates to 1stfans via Facebook, Flickr, or e-newsletter, whichever you prefer. These will tell you what’s going on at 1stfans events, give you behind-the-scenes insight from Museum staff, and provide you with links to other cool stuff going on in the art world. Finally, 1stfans will be the only ones with access to the Museum’s new Twitter Art Feed, an extremely awesome way of engaging contemporary artists that Shelley will describe in greater detail on this blog soon. All of this for a tax-deductible $20 per-year. Not bad, right?

Who is 1stfans for? You, for one. With 1stfans, people who enjoy the Museum on-site and online now have an appealing (and did I mention inexpensive?) way to join the Museum as Members. If you come to our monthly First Saturdays and want a way to learn more about the Museum while interacting with Museum staff and making new friends, then you’ll enjoy 1stfans. If you like the Museum and have an account on Facebook, Flickr, or Twitter, 1stfans is also for you. Not only will we keep you updated via those sites, but we’ll also provide you with cool content and give you a shoutout when you post your own cool stuff.

An installation piece by Swoon in the Brooklyn Museum’s collection. Photograph by Sam Horine via Flickr. All Rights Reserved.

1stfans will launch formally at the January Target First Saturday on Saturday, January 3 with help from the artist Swoon (18,000+ Flickr pics here). Swoon’s studio has very generously agreed to do a live printing event for 1stfans Members, so anyone who signs up for 1stfans between now and January 3 can come with their own piece of paper and walk out with a Swoon print. Stay tuned to this blog for details, which will be coming soon.

The artist for the Twitter Art Feed will be announced in the middle of each month for the following month, so keep a close eye on this blog in the next two weeks for the announcement of the January artist. If you’re a fan of contemporary art, you won’t be disappointed….

If you have any questions about 1stfans, please e-mail me.

Facebook upgraded the design of the user profiles and we knew some action would be required on our part to overhaul ArtShare along with it.  We could only devote a few days to adjustments and this meant making some hard choices about what could be implemented at this stage and what would have to wait for a future round. So, what’s new? (more…)