LT: Until they’re connected to culture as a whole-why not? I think artworks are history.
They teach us about who we are, about truths that I want to make accessible” JK: So you won’t stop until all 3.7 billion internet connected people are connected to the Met? We work with social-media outlets, Wikipedia, Google Cultural Institute, ArtStor and Khan Academy, and we want to expand our audience. We probably reach another 100 million through third-party platforms. We reach about 31 million people through our website. There are 3.7 billion people who we can reach online-that’s our audience-let’s go! That excites me. The Digital team is privileged in terms of the collection we have available to us, and the team has the digital tools and expertise to make connections between our collection and people around the world. LT: We have over 1.5 million artworks from 5,000 years of world history our collection contains artworks that can inspire every person on this planet. JK: What did you see as the big opportunity at the Met, the exciting challenge that you couldn’t wait to sink your teeth into? In that time I’ve restructured the Digital department into three functional teams: a collections information team focused on how we manage our data a content team, to translate the stories of the museum into a digital space and we’ve introduced a product management discipline to the Met with the formation of a dedicated product development team. I’ve been the chief digital officer at the Met for about a year. Now, of course, no one needs to put the word mobile in their job title anymore, but mobile was one of the first disruptors in the digital space.
Loic tallon how to#
That position really taught me a lot about helping people adapt to change: how to navigate colleagues through areas of digital discomfort by acknowledging what was and wasn’t being altered, and making scalable and sustainable strategic decisions within that context. I started there as senior mobile producer. Loic Tallon: I have been at the Met for about four years. Julia Kaganskiy: How did you end up at the Met? That’s more than 375,000 images of artworks that are now available to use, share, and remix without restriction. And in February of this year, the Met launched its Open Access policy, which made all the images of public-domain works in its collection accessible under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licensing.
In 2014, the New Museum founded NEW INC, the first museum-led cultural incubator. Photo: Ajay Suresh.įor a special two-part “Invention” interview, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s chief digital officer Loic Tallon sat down with NEW INC director Julia Kaganskiy to discuss the recent developments in the digital role of museums and the future of their digital presence and influence.