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with Census data for a demographic snapshot,
and real-time data from cards that encourage
members to “check in” to galleries during their
visit. This enables the museum to engage with
members in a more interactive and personalized
way, and to compile a detailed and
compelling story to tell funders about whom
the DMA is serving, how they engage with the
museum and what they learn.
Big data has an aesthetic side as well.
THE ALBUQUERQUE MUSEUM OF ART
AND HISTORY features Agnes Chavez &
Alessandro Saccoia’s (x)trees—a “socially
interactive virtual forest” generated from
search words found in tweets and text messages,
making it an experiment in data visualization,
video mapping and participatory art.
“learning organizations” Museums can
seek capacity-building grants from funders
to improve their ability to gather and manage
data in a way that improves their ability to track
impact and improve their bottom line.
Further Reading
Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt, The Human Face
of Big Data (Against All Odds Productions, 2012, 224
pp.). This impressive coffee-table sized book presents
images, essays and articles based on the conclusions
of the Human Face of Big Data Project, which used
a free mobile app to create a week-long “snapshot
of humanity” from information contributed by over
300,000 participants worldwide. (Merging print with
digital media, the book uses the Aurasma mobile app
to trigger video and other content by using a smartphone
or tablet camera to read icons on selected
pages.)
Anthony Lilley and Paul Moore, Counting What
Counts: What big data can do for the cultural
sector (Nesta, 2013, free downloadable PDF, 3.77
MB).
for geographic information” that enables any
user to share maps in a cloud environment.
Many are calling for a “data commons” where
even commercial companies would contribute
data stripped of personal information.
Museums would do well to identify who holds
the data they would most like to access for
their own analytics, and play nice about sharing
their own data, too.
Audit their approach to collecting and
using data, and focus on doing data-centric
work, becoming what are sometimes called
Tony Hey, Stewart Tansley and Kristen Tolle
(editors), The Fourth Paradigm: Data Intensive
Scientific Discovery (Microsoft Research, 2009).
Available as a free download from Microsoft
Research, this collection of essays explores how data
analytics will shape 21st-century research.
Paving the Path to a Big Data Commons (World
Economic Forum and Vital Wave Consulting, 2013,
free downloadable PDF, 7 pp.). This briefing explores
personal data and how issues of privacy and data ownership
can be balanced against the good that can be
realized from the open use of such data.
Phil Simon, Too Big to Ignore: The Business Case
for Big Data (Wiley and SAS Business Series, 2013).
Presents an overview of how businesses and municipalities
are using data analytics to make “astute and
otherwise impossible observations, actions and
predictions.”
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