Hello All:

I am broadcasting this fairly widely, so please pardon any cross
postings.

The New York Hall of Science is creating a new exhibition with the
working title "Connections: an Exhibition about Networks"  For this
exhibition, we are conceiving networks quite broadly:  the overarching
theme is that networked systems occur in many contexts.  So, we are
looking at social, biological, ecological networks as well as
communications networks.

As part of the exhibition development process, we are trying an
experiment:  using the Internet for exhibition brainstorming.  To that
end, we have created a web-based forum at www.connectionsnet.org.  The
purpose of this email is to invite you to come participate in this
forum.

The specific *types* of participation we are looking for include, but
are not limited to:

1) I have this great idea for an exhibit....
2) I saw this great exhibit....
3) I know someone who you should talk to...
4) Have you thought about *this* kind of network...

We are past the concept development stage, which culminated in a report
which is available for viewing at www.jeffkennedyassociates.com or
downloading at homepage.mac.com/etsiegel.  This report has been
superseded in many respects, but it lays out much of the research and
conceptual structure.  So we are not as interested in tinkering with the
concept, but looking for great ideas for exhibits.

In order to encourage participation, we are offering the following
incentives:

1) Any ideas that are brought forward in the forum will be freely
shared, including those that we have posted in the introductory messages
in the forums.  Ideally, this will be "open source" exhibition
brainstorming, and will disseminate whatever good ideas emerge.  Because
the exhibition is publicly funded through the Informal Science Education
program of the National Science Foundation, we will also disseminate
drawings, scripts, and software created for this exhibition for nominal
fees.

2) If that isn't enough, we are offering another more tangible
incentive:  to the best contributor, we will give a 10gb iPod.  Did that
get your attention?  Either MacOS or Wintel as the winner prefers.  The
winner will be decided by the exhibition development team, and cannot
include either staff of the NY Hall of Science or consultants.  We do
reserve the right not to award this prize if the whole enterprise falls
flat (if there are fewer that 20 participants and 100 posts, as a
general target).

3) To the top 20 contributors we will give a cool NY Hall of Science
Connections T-Shirt, same criteria as number 2.

The forum is open for business, so come over, register and let us know
what you think!

Any questions or offline comments can be directed to
[log in to unmask]

Thanks.

Eric Siegel
Director, Planning &
Program Development
Connections Project Director
New York Hall of Science
47-01 111th Street
Queens, NY 11368
(718) 699-0005 x 317
(718) 699-1341 fax
[log in to unmask]
www.nyscience.org

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