However, our museum is still trying to establish itself as an economic engine within our local economy. The museum brings many new visitors to the area for the first time, thus it’s become an entry point for many into the Arab American community. Yet we haven’t developed a business plan to address how we can monetize information and experiences through new services. We need to transform our way of thinking. Once we begin perceiving our institution as a major player within the local economy, new opportunities will emerge to strengthen our relationships with local businesses and other establishments.

Currently, we are looking at several ways to venture down this path. First, we are looking at building a digital directory of local businesses. This would be a great tool for visitors and it would help local businesses as well. If we had a dollar for every visitor who asked where to grab a bite to eat after a visit, we’d have a financial surplus! Speaking to this, we are conceptualizing ways to provide relevant information to our patrons utilizing various APIs and mashups on our museum website. Image a resource directory built on the Google and Yelp APIs that provide guest with information on local restaurants, complete with reviews. Perhaps business would pay to buy a listing within such a directory. In this way, the museum would serve as a cultural facilitator between patrons and businesses.

Second, we are exploring the idea of providing cultural immersion tours for our patrons. One might take an abbreviated tour of the museum and then get led into the community to experience in greater depth the information presented in the exhibits. Imagine learning about Arabic food and then smelling and tasting the cuisine at various local establishments (a bakery, restaurant or market). Additionally, one might get led into a neighborhood, religious institution or another part of the business district.

Third, we are looking into news ways of marketing our institution in cooperation with other local businesses. At this time we are looking at a joint opportunity with a local business utilizing Groupon. One might get a discounted museum admission with a deal at a local eatery. Perhaps another way to meet this same goal is through offering reciprocating discounts with local establishments. Or, we could partner with local businesses to provide experiential classes at the museum (a local baker leads a food class or demonstration).

Yes, some of these programming and business ideas are quite simple, while others are more advanced. The bigger point is that we are in a unique position to reestablish the role of a museum within a community. To succeed, we need to envision our museum not only as a cultural institution, but as an important economic engine within our local economy.

Radio Tahrir Interview, 24 August 2010

This project has garnered a fair deal of attention from the media, as articles and interviews have been featured in both local and national journalism outlets. We are now on the final leg of the project. There are 17 remaining days in the campaign. Overall, we are pleased with the way the project is progressing. I will reflect on Kickstarter in greater detail at the end of the campaign.

Foursquare is now offering businesses an excellent new service as well. The service, a business dashboard, is exciting in that it allows business managers the opportunity to re-imagine the concept of a customer loyalty program. Rolled out earlier this year, the new business dashboard lends itself well to rewarding loyal customers with discounts and prizes. Further, it provides business managers with excellent real-time information on customers.

Getting your business setup on Foursquare is really quite simple. When visiting a venue on the popular location-based social networking site, a button asking “Do you manage this venue? Click here” appears above the check-in statistics. If you’re an owner or employee of the business, you can click this link and begin the (relatively simple) process of claiming the business on Foursquare. After completing the verification process – which takes a total of about five minutes – business managers can begin creating rewards programs for visitors who check-in at the location.

Currently, there are four types of rewards that a business can offer:

• Mayor Specials: unlocked only by the Mayor of your venue. Who’s the Mayor? It’s your single most loyal customer! (the user who has checked in the most in the last 60 days)
  (“Foursquare has deemed you the Mayor? Enjoy a free order of french fries!“)
• Check-in Specials: unlocked when a user checks in to your venue a certain number of times.
  (“Foursquare says you’ve been here 10 times? That’s a free drink for you!“)
• Frequency-based Specials: are unlocked every X check-ins.
  (“Foursquare users get 20% off any entree every 5th check-in!“)
• Wildcard Specials: always unlocked, but your staff has to verify some extra conditions before awarding the Special.
  (“Show us your foursquare Swarm badge and get a free drink!“)

In addition, the business dashboard provides excellent real-time statistics. This includes information on most recent visitors, most frequent visitors, the time of day people check in, total number of unique visitors, histogram of check-ins per day, gender breakdown of customers, and portion of foursquare check-ins broadcast to Twitter and Facebook. That’s not a bad set of analytics.

The business challenge for this new program is to find interesting and exciting ways to energize customers. Further, it could prove to be a useful tool for developing and managing promotional campaigns. I’m curious to watch and see how businesses, particularly museums, embrace the dashboard. Further, I’m interested to know if businesses will work together to promote other businesses or offer reciprocating benefits for customers in a particular location. For example, a museum could partner with a local restaurant to offer discounts on meals or other rewards.

We started a business profile for our institution earlier today. Our first reward is for visitors who check-in three times. Further, we are exploring the idea of creating a small quiz or scavenger hunt in the “tips” section. If guests can complete the task correctly, we will offer additional rewards as incentives. There is much potential for Foursquare’s inherent game mechanics.

Kickstarter provides an intuitive platform for launching a fundraising campaign. As a campaign manager, you establish the parameters for your Web-based project. This includes the duration on the campaign and the amount of money you seek to raise. Once the campaign begins, you need to raise all of the funds by the deadline or the project doesn’t get funded. Yes, it’s an all or nothing funding scheme. It’s that simple.

Now, for those familiar with fundraising, this might not seem like the most desirable approach. It takes a lot of time and energy to run a successful campaign. So, why would you want to proceed in this fashion when you run the risk of losing those hard earned dollars? And why not host the campaign on your own website?

The Advantages

Kickstarter offers several major advantages. The first is that the format creates a sense of urgency for both the campaign manager and the backers. There is X amount of time to raise Y number of dollars. Both parties want to meet the goal because both are passionate about the cause. Campaign managers need to provide updates on the project while mobilizing supporters and reaching out across the web to potential donors. Backers want to see the project succeed and they help to build momentum and spread the word about the project.

The second advantage is the rewards-based format. Kickstarter promotes the idea of offering “something of value” to all backers, big and small. In fact, the majority of donations on Kickstarter are $50 or less. According to Kickstarter, “Projects without a reward less than $20 succeed 35% of the time, while projects with a reward less than $20 succeed 54% of the time.” In short, give ALL donors something of value and make the gifts fit the donation level.

The third advantage is the Updates page. Here, campaign managers can keep the audience up-to-date on the project’s developments. Are there news articles on your project? How about some new pictures or video? Keep backers and potential donors hooked. It’s really hard to do this with appeal letters and other forms of traditional fundraising.

The fourth major advantage is the back-end for managing the campaign. Campaign managers have access to several beneficial tools and simple services listed on a “Manage Your Project” toolbar. The first is an Activity page. Here, information including donations and updates to the campaign are displayed in chronological order. Next is the Backer Report. This contains the names of the backers at each level with the corresponding reward. Additionally, there is a button that allows managers to export the data as an Excel-compatible spreadsheet. Next is a Messages page that allows managers to directly communicate with individual backers. Following that is a button to Edit your campaign. And, last but not least, is a button to post a new update to the Updates page.

The Campaign Page

Let’s take a quick look at the anatomy of a Kickstarter campaign profile. On the Project Home page, information is arranged in two columns. On the left, campaign managers can display a photo or video of the project. Below this is the location for the “About the Project” narrative. There are three additional tabs located above the project’s photo/video: Updates, Backers, and Comments.

The right column includes real-time information on the status of the project and a pledge button. Below this is the hierarchy of rewards and the number of backers at each level.

The “Updates” page is essentially a blog. This is a place to provide emerging details on the project. The updates keep backers connected with news and information while also providing prospective donors with additional details on the project.

The Backers and Comments page are quite basic. The Backers page lists the profiles of those who have supported the project in order of their pledge (i.e. first person listed is the first donor). However, the amount pledged by each donor is not visible to the public. This information is only made available to the campaign manager.

The Comments page is simply a place for people to leave feedback on the project. From what I have gathered so far, it is not possible for campaign managers to moderate comments. I think this is somewhat troubling, especially if you are running a perceived “controversial” campaign.

The Fine Print

If you’ve read this far and you think you might me interested in utilizing Kickstarter, then I think you should begin with the FAQ page. Keep in mind that Kickstarter is still in beta format, so you will need to submit a project idea through the Kickstarter website for approval (we heard back with a response in less than a week).

While there is no maximum amount a project can raise, donations can only be made in the range of $1 to $10,000. To begin a project, you will need to setup an Amazon Payments account. This will require a credit card and a bank account for depositing funds. Furthermore, if the project is funded, Kickstarter will charge the project a 5% fee. Additionally, Amazon will charge credit card processing fees (note: there is no Amazon fee for backers!). As for duration, projects can last from 1 to 90 days. However, we were advised that campaigns lasting 45 days or less have a higher rate of success.

More To Come

We launched our 45-day campaign to raise $10,000 on Tuesday, July 27. We are now 10 days into the campaign and we’ve managed to raise 31% of the funds. I’ll follow up in a few weeks at the conclusion of the fundraiser with more information on the actual project. I also look forward to posting additional thoughts on Kickstarter as a campaign platform. Until then, take a peek at these additional resources:

• Nina Simon’s article on why museums should consider Kickstarter on her Museum 2.0 blog.
• @Kickstarter on Twitter
• Google News

Do you still believe that the camera makes the photographer? i.Phoneography believes in the creative power of the gaze, in a new way to describe contemporaneity. Organized by Arteaparte, iPhoneography is the first Italian contest of photographs taken and edited with an iPhone. This is a language for images that becomes an art laboratory, and that involves a growing number of iPhoneographers from all around the world.

The rules:

1. The contest is cost-free for contributors, but participation is restricted to iPhone’s taken and edited photographs.
2. Each participant can send a maximum of six images through the submission form.
3. Maximum size accepted 1536 x 2048 px.
4. All material must be submitted online by 30 August 2010.

Here are my entries into this juried exhibition:

Here’s a link to my gallery at iPhonepgraphy.com.

You can find more of my iPhoneography on Flickr.

- Devon Akmon

Be sure to check out earlier collections:

• iPix 365: iPhoneography for March 2010
• iPix 365: iPhoneography for February 2010
• iPix 365: iPhoneography for January 2010

What does it mean to be a national museum? Whose stories do we reflect? What do we aspire to be? These are all common questions that I receive when people first learn about the Arab American National Museum (AANM). Understandably, the word “national” in the title can be a bit ambiguous. However, when understood in the context of the Museum’s history and its operations, things become much clearer. Read more…

Founded on May 5, 2005, the Arab American National Museum (AANM) will soon celebrate its fifth anniversary. People are often curious about the Museum’s origins and its location. Although the Museum is still very much a startup, its roots extend back to the late 1980s. In fact, the AANM is a part of the Dearborn-based Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS). In 1987 the agency developed a cultural arts department to educate the public on Arab American culture and to provide affordable and accessible arts programming. Today, the AANM is an extension of this program and it remains a vibrant department within ACCESS. Although it is very uncommon for a museum to be part of a social service agency, ACCESS considers the arts to be just one part of a multi-component approach to providing comprehensive services for living an enriched and fulfilling life. Read more…

Upon arriving back in Michigan, I participated in a panel presentation at the Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan (CASM) 2010 Annual Meeting. The presentation, entitled Socially Awkward: Learning to Navigate Web and Social Technologies, focused on the Arab American National Museum’s approach to using social technologies and raising unrestricted funds online. We were pressed for time, so there was no opportunity for questions and answers at the end. If you’ve arrived here as a result of the presentation, please do leave a comment or question, or feel free to drop me a message vial email. Thanks for stopping by!

- Devon Akmon

1. Images must be taken with a mobile phone camera
2. Participants may enter up to five pictures free of charge
3. Both mobile as well as desktop applications are permitted for retouching images (I’m not too keen on allowing desktop editing)
4. The deadline to enter is April 25, 2010

The winning images will be exhibited in Berlin and the finalists will be featured in an exhibit book.

Here’s a link to the images I submitted to the contest.

EYE'EM Submission by Devon Akmon