Art of the NYC subway

These photos were taken during a walking tour of New York City subway art. Some if it so special, it brought a tear to my eye.

More photos can be seen in the set on Flickr.

Union Square subway: Names of the 9/11 victims (artist unknown). The woman in this photo was in my tour group, and she was scanning the names (which were in alphabetical order) for the name of her cousin. When she found him, we had all caught up, and a quiet and teary moment came over our small group.
Times Square/42 St station: the tourist
‘Losing my Marbles’, by Lisa Dinhofter, 2003, Glass Mosaic
42nd Street — ‘Times Square Mural’ — art by Roy Lichenstein
28th St Station, in honour of what once was the ‘toy district’
Man contemplates escaping the grind and running away to the circus — ‘The Garden of Circus Delights’, by Eric Fischl, 2001, Glass mosaic
‘Life underground’ bronze sculptures by Tom Otterness. A comment on capitalism and the little people.
Famous hats at 28th Street — Lillian Russell, Prima Donna Soprano
One line of a poem, beam by beam
Times Square Subway/42nd St subway station: ‘Return to Spring’ by Jack Beal, 2001, glass mosaic

You can read more about the tour here.

My five must-visit NYC museums

I don’t expect the names on this list will really shock anyone, as many of them are familiar, but here are the five I love to visit, and why (in order that I visited them): MoMA: The ‘Museum of Modern Art’, as the name suggests, does not have Rubens gracing the walls, but it does have floors and floors of the best paintings, photography, sculpture, drawings, furniture, film and design. You will see Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, Rousseau’s The Sleeping Gypsy, and Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother, to name a few. For me, it was hard to leave the room with the giant ‘mural’ of Monet’s Water Lilies — the colours were beautiful.

MoMA -- The Museum of Modern Art
MoMA — The Museum of Modern Art

The Guggenheim: The day I went was a special exhibition of Picasso’s black and white paintings, which was impressive as you might expect. There are also smaller side galleries with pieces on display. If you aren’t into art, but your travelling partner is, just go to see the Frank Lloyd Wright designed building. The continuous spiral is not to be missed, not standing on the inside, watching the people move like ants and hypnotise you.

IMG_3295
Inside the Guggenheim

The Met: ‘The Metropolitan Museum of Art’ has art, and sculpture, and mummies, and Greek statues and everything else in between. For people wanting their European Masters fill, there is plenty to enjoy here. If Japanese silk screens, Indian rugs, Syrian ceramics, or Italian furniture are more your thing — the Met has that too. My favourites (aside from the Masters) is the specially built Moroccan Court, the American Mansion, and a swathe of beautiful things thanks to Louis Comfort Tiffany.

The Met -- the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Met — the Metropolitan Museum of Art

American Museum of Natural History: Slightly faded and dusty, if you have time for little else, just go and see the stuffed animals in huge glass cases and feel like a little kid in a children’s book. They are magnificent. The dinosaur (bones) collection will excite paleontology lovers, and the American-Indian section is also very good.

American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History

The Frick Collection: The place you might take your grandma or mum for their birthday, but where you should really go to celebrate yours. This once lived-in mansion on Park Avenue is filled with Mr Frick’s (dec) — the son of a whiskey distiller who went on to be an industrial giant —  private art collection which includes Turner, Titian, Renoir, Rembrandt. Furniture is arranged as it was, rooms are much as they were when the owner sat by the fireplace and wandered the rooms. A beautiful legacy for a very interesting life once lived.

The grounds of 'The Frick Collection' museum
The grounds of ‘The Frick Collection’ museum

Honourable mention — International Center for Photography (ICP): This little-known gallery (for tourists) has regular exhibitions of great modern photography, as well as courses and classes. Special note: All of the above have an entry price starting at ~$20 for adults, with the exception of The Met, where you actually only have to pay what you would like to donate (although they recommend $25), and ICP, which is normally an entry fee, but on Fridays from 5-8pm, you pay what you like. Also be sure to check opening hours, as each tend to take a ‘day off’ during the week.

The Met in black and white

Photos from a day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. More, including photos in colour, on Flickr.

Picture of a picture
Egypt hall
Revealing
Statue of Diana
Through the Indian doors
She, he and Olde England
Rest
At his feet

A picture tells a thousand words #SMSS13

As mentioned previously, I’m ‘attending’ the Social Media Success Summit (#SMSS13 on Twitter) this month, and the good stuff to share keeps on coming.

This time the topic is Instagram, and specifically, ‘How to succeed on Instagram: A brand panel’. This photo-sharing smartphone application started out as a tool for individuals to share images ‘instantly’ but it is now a serious social media platform for businesses building their brand and engaging with customers.

Led by three people who are working professionals in the area of communicating brand through social media, specifically Instagram, today’s presenters were:

  • Stephanie Shkolnik — Director, Social Media, Digitaria (a JWT Company)
  • Bryce Kristensen — Associate Director, Digital Media, E! Entertainment, NBC
  • Kathleen Ngo — Social Media Specialist, Sony Electronics

Here are more notes on what Stephanie, Bryce and Kathleen talked about:

Why are you here?

As have multiple other speakers so far, this trio was quick to point out that lots of brands jump onto a social media platform simply because it is the latest thing, and not necessarily because it aligns with business (e.g. growing sales) and brand objectives (e.g. raising awareness, positive feedback). It is important that brands decide what is, and isn’t the role and function of all of the channels they are on. It is not a case that everyone should be on everything, and that everything does the same thing. This is especially important as social media use for business is in a phase of moving away from being a broadcasting machine, to instead being a place for two-way conversation.

The top performing content

There is a theme to what works (gets lots of ‘likes’ and comments) and what doesn’t on Instagram, and it boils down to these four things:

Lifestyle — images that endorse users’ lifestyle. The example given was an image of a brand posting photo of a girl’s hair at the beach, with the simple caption along the lines of ‘messy top knot, not a care in the world’. This tapped into what people love about summer, holidays, and relaxing — users could relate, and they endorsed back.

Behind-the-scenes — anything that gives users a glimpse into scenes they won’t be getting elsewhere is a big win on Instagram — backstage of fashion shows, on-locations filming, setting up for an event, a delivery of new marketing material or products in the office, in the car with colleagues on the way to an awards night. The is a lot o scope here.

Hashtags — get these right, and don’t over do it. If a certain hashtag is trending (e.g. #AFLGF in Australia, or #Emmys in US), and your brand has an image that can relate, can leverage, use it.

Captions — the picture has the power, but the caption is the finishing touch. Be interesting, be relevant, be original.

The do list for Instagram

  • Do share exclusive content that you aren’t publishing elsewhere — give followers a reason to stay with you.
  • Do use Instagram to extend brand voice.
  • Do take cues from current events, holidays, trends.
  • Do always include a call to action in your comment to get others following.

The don’t list for Instagram

  • Don’t overwhelm followers with multiple pictures in a short time (I once read that never more than three at a time; ever).
  • Don’t use the account to advertise. People want to see photos, they don’t want to see a product with a price tag on it.
  • Don’t post a URL with the image as users can’t click through to the app so it is redundant. If they want to find you, they will find you.
  • Don’t post for the sake of it — each post should have a purpose.

Look to the in-crowd

The final tips the presenters gave was that to get onto the ‘popular page’, users aren’t considered unless they have at least 1000 followers (and that is just to begin). However, for anyone with an account with a low number of followers, this is a great place to browse and monitor to see what works, what is popular, and get ideas for what might work for your brand. The people and brands featured here are doing something right, so learn from them.

This was a really great presentation with practical advice about using Instagram for brand awareness, and stripped-back common sense. The experiences and examples shared by the presenters were also a big plus.

For anyone interested, I have an Instagram account.

Rethinking social media marketing #SMSS13

Today is the first day of the Social Media Success Summit — the biggest online summit of its kind in the world, and I’m attending.

There are more than 3000 participants signed-up from around the globe, and it runs for a 11 days throughout October. I’m ‘attending’ in the sense that I am signed up, paid up, and logged in here in New York — but there are no conference venues with early-90s decor, dry biscuits, weak coffee or queues for lunch — because naturally this is all taking place online.

So some quick notes about today’s first session: ‘Think again: Why you need to rethink your social media marketing’. The session was presented by Jay Baer, and I thought it was very good. Jay is an American author and marketing consultant, and generally expert on all things social media.

Among many interesting things Jay had to say, there are three points I’m going to quickly share as I think they are especially important to be aware/reminded of:

Customer service

Unlike the old ‘we will get back to you in 3/5/10/30 days’ line that many organisations have when responding to customer queries, when it comes to social media, you have to respond to everything, and faster than you think. Social media isn’t necessarily a participant sport, it is really a spectator sport — there might just be one participant who has asked a question or made a complaint publicly, but there will be dozens, hundreds, thousands of spectators watching and waiting to see the response. This was especially the case for the recent British Airways traveller who lost luggage and was unhappy with the service — he made mention on Twitter and paid to promote the mention, and thousands on Twitter logged in and watched.

A recent survey by Edison Research, it was found that 42 per cent of people who have complained on social media expect a response within 60 minutes.

Main takeaway — Customers are customers whether they are on social media, or appearing at your office, and they expect a lot. Are you prepared?

Strategy before tools

When it comes to social media, ‘help beats hype’ and good content, useful content that creates a positive experience, will always beat content that aims to ‘sell’. Jay says it social media is ‘about the wizard, and not the wand’ — don’t get caught up in buying social media software only to have poor content and knowledge. ‘Who’ is running the social media you have is what makes the difference.

If you decide to (or have to due to managerial expectation) invest in software, ask yourself what process are you trying to manage; who will use it; what approvals and data will be needed.

Main takeaway — Don’t find reasons to use software. Don’t be led by software — be led by strategy.

Content driven

Content and social media work together and they are not separate  entities. Use social media to drive awareness of content — not company name — and make the content about products and services. And don’t just communicate about yourself or your company — think big and cover themes and topics outside of the business.

Main takeaway — Be interesting; be aware of the world around you. 

There are plenty of great experts scheduled for the summit, so I’ll share more about them in the coming days and weeks. In the meantime, if you are a Twitter user, you can follow along or look at what has already happened using #SMSS13.