It is great to see the Contemporary Museum’s exhibits being so well received at other museums. Joseph Grigely’s St. Cecilia opens tomorrow at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. (A very cool museum!)  The preview for the exhibit was Wednesday night — lots of “aha!”s over the innovative mix of video and sound that the Baltimore museum visitors enjoyed last summer.

That’s how Donna Hamilton introduced Jennifer Franciotti’s story on WBAL-TV yesterday about the opening of the Margaret Jenkins House.  The Women’s Housing Coalition and Homes for America have renovated the historic home in Charles Village to provide housing and support services to 22 formerly-homeless women.  Great organizations, great story, and great hope for women and their children

Contemporary Museum director Irene Hofmann will be speaking this evening at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.  MOCAD is currently showing the exhibit Broadcast, which Irene curated and which ran at the Contemporary last Fall.

Here’s the info about tonight’s lecture… in case you happen to be in Detroit:

MOCAD or Motown Writers Network

Yesterday’s launch of the new Arts Every Day website (www.artseveryday.org) not only generated great coverage (check out the WBAL-TV story and the Baltimore Sun’s Inside Ed blog) but it engendered excitement about the energy in City Schools.   The new website helps teachers, school administrators, and parents find the organizations and event which can supplement curriculum and engage children in the arts.  The launch was a great celebration – swing dancing, Broadway show tunes, James Bond theme songs… and all performed by city elementary and middle school kids who were clearly proud of their showmanship. It was a great way to spend a Monday morning.

We are pleased to welcome Rebecca Messner as an Associate.

Rebecca has been a writer for Time Out New York, Urbanite, and Johns Hopkins Magazine, and most recently was with the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance.  She is well spoken (fluent in Portuguese and Italian) and well traveled (including a year in Italy and four months in Brazil), and well prepared to enhance our clients visibility in traditional and new media.

We love the City Paper.  The editorial staff has a clever way of busting our chops, but we don’t mind if it’s for a good cause – like visibility for a client, in this (upper) case, the opening of the new Madagascar film at the Maryland Science Center’s IMAX Theater.  THANKS GUYS.  Click on the thumbnail below.

Good role models are often difficult to find, but when you have them – wow!

The students at Baltimore’s National Academy Foundation High School were treated last week to a lively and inspiring presentation by Rock Harper, the winner of the Fox reality show “Hells’ Kitchen.”  Rock told more than 100 students in the Academy of Travel, Tourism and Hospitality about the perseverance he needed to go from a childhood in a less-than-ideal neighborhood to becoming the head chef at a swanky Las Vegas restaurant.  He also told the Baltimore Sun’s Laura Vozella.

We all recognize the growing impact of social computing on our everyday lives, but it’s nice to have statistics to back it up.  Last year, Forrester Research published its Social Technographics Ladder, which categorized surveyed online adults based on their level of participation in social computing.

Last Monday, Forrester’s Groundswell blog released the 2008 survey which showed that 75% of respondents are at least “spectators” (the first “rung” in the ladder of social computing participation), compared with only 56% last year.  That’s quite a jump but not hard to believe considering how these technologies continue to revolutionize almost every aspect of our lives.

The whole really is greater than the sum of its parts. More than 500 volunteers had a huge impact on Saturday when they turned out to eight sites throughout Baltimore for the fourth annual Make a Difference Day service event, organized by Business Volunteers Unlimited Maryland’s Volunteer Central. Volunteers worked at five schools and three public parks to plant trees and gardens, paint classrooms, and revitalize libraries and playgrounds. Make a Difference Day provided $50,000 worth of services to Baltimore.

WBAL came to Cherry Hill Elementary/Middle School to capture the volunteer effort for their weekend newscast.

The proverbial two birds with one stone…

An added bonus of attending last week’s Sugarloaf Art Fair in Novi, Michigan was seeing Broadcast at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. The exhibit was developed by Baltimore’s Contemporary Museum, where it was on exhibit last Fall.  It looks spectacular at MOCADetroit; the huge, open warehouse-like space is a great setting for the multiple video installations, particularly the dedicated space for Dara Birnbaum’s Hostage, and the radio/DJ tent in the dimly lit and cavernous gallery.