Observe the fall migration of birds in Central Park with naturalists Stephen C. Quinn (Tuesdays and Fridays), Joseph DiCostanzo (Wednesday and Thursdays, 7 am), and Harold Feinberg (Thursdays, 9 am). Learn how to use field marks, habitat, behavior, and song as aids in identification. Walks start across from the Museum on the northeast corner of Central Park West and 77th Street and take place rain or shine.

I produced/shot/edited this video for the American Museum of Natural History on August 26, 2010.

Providing turn-by-turn directions, AMNH Explorer takes visitors from the edge of the universe to the age of the dinosaurs. Choose from a variety of Museum-designed tours or create your own from a list of popular exhibits, specimens, or artifacts. AMNH Explorer also lets you share your adventures with friends and family by linking directly to your Facebook and Twitter profiles.

I produced/edited/narrated this video for the American Museum of Natural History on July 28, 2010.

In the first of a new series of behind-the-scenes looks at the collections at the American Museum of Natural History, Melanie Stiassny, Axelrod Research Curator in the Department of Ichthyology, takes us through the Museum’s vast collection of fishes.

Stiassny has carried out studies throughout the world’s tropical waters to research the evolution, behavior, and conservation of fishes and has played an active role in raising public awareness of the biodiversity and conservation crisis. Her current projects include an exploration, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, of the freshwater fishes and mussels of the Congo.

I produced and edited this video for the American Museum of Natural History on June 10, 2010.

Race to the End of the Earth, the major new exhibition now open at the American Museum of Natural History, recounts one of the most stirring tales of the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration: the contest to be the first to reach the South Pole in 1911-1912.

The exhibition focuses on the challenges that the two leaders – Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and British Royal Navy Captain Robert Falcon Scott — faced as they undertook their 1,800-mile journeys from the shores of the Ross Sea to the Pole and back. Race to the End of the Earth also spotlights modern scientific exploration in the Antarctic and the latest research on this unique continent.

I produced/edited/narrated this video for the American Museum of Natural History on June 8, 2010.

Race to the End of the Earth recounts one of the most stirring tales of Antarctic exploration: the contest to be the first to reach the South Pole in 1911-1912. The exhibition focuses on the challenges that two competing explorers — Norwegian Roald Amundsen and Captain Robert Falcon Scott of the British Royal Navy — faced as they undertook their 1,800-mile journeys from the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf to the Pole and back.

I produced/edited this video for the American Museum of Natural History on May 4th, 2010.

So many friendly recommendations. But, wait a minute. I’m a theatre reporter. Why haven’t I seen an alert telling me someone is seeing La Cage aux Folles or Hair? After all, Broadway has just experienced an onslaught of show openings and the Tony Awards are coming up. Yet, none of my Foursquare friends are checking in to a show tonight, which is the case mostly every night.

Since this year’s South By Southwest festival, it seems like every news outlet has been latching onto Foursquare, a social networking tool that hipsters in New York City have been playing with their friends since it debuted in March of last year. A person could hardly consider themselves digital insiders, up until now, unless they were checking in to a location around town that was swarming with other in-the-know individuals.

There are Foursquare badges for checking in to a venue with photo booths (“photogenic”), being a frequent gym user (“gym rat”), and eating at 20 different pizza places (“pizzaiolo”). Bravo, Zagat, and the New York Times have all joined forces with the social networking company, awarding their own special badges to select users. Yet, at the time of writing this article, there is no Broadway badge.

Broadway marketers have finally harnessed the power of Facebook. A Twitter campaign for last season’s musical Next to Normal was so successful that it earned a Webby Award nomination. Now, with Foursquare gaining so much buzz, it is time or Broadway’s 21st century Mad Men to boldly go where the internet’s trendsetters are now playing, location-based applications.

“In this next year, there will be a lot of movement on this notion of connecting with people based on where they are,” said Damian Bazadona, president of Situation Interactive, the digital marketing agency behind the Next to Normal Twitter campaign. “To me, the opportunity is that moment when someone walks in or out of a venue, when they are in their high, to capture their high. Foursquare provides that opportunity.”

That opportunity comes in the form of more than one million Foursquare users, a number that recently increased by nearly 25,000 users over a single weekend, according to a tweet sent out by the company. As users continue checking in to venues around the city, conversations amongst their social networks now include recommendations for restaurants, bars and movies, a trend that both local and national companies are beginning to harness.

Foursquare rolled out a business dashboard last month, a new aspect to their service allowing venue owners to track activity involving their businesses. Once someone has been verified by the service as a venue’s purveyor, they are given access to real-time venue statistics, including information about the most recent and frequent visitors, peak check-in times, gender breakdown of customers and which users send their Foursquare check-in information to their Twitter and Facebook feeds — a digital word of mouth.

And word of mouth is something marketing agencies are eager to track and ultimately control, especially with it accounting for 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions, according to a new study by McKinsey & Company, a leading global consulting firm. In an attempt to measure word-of-mouth effectiveness, the research found that a message from the elite group of influencers — eight to ten percent of consumers fall into this category — is four times more powerful in swaying a recipient’s purchasing decision.

“It is kind of like a badge of honor for a brand to have someone say where they are, basically giving you an endorsement,” said Bazadona. “If someone goes to look for a show, they are going to look at consumer reviews.”

Knowing how to properly market to theatregoers on Twitter and Facebook requires an understanding of social networking etiquette — nothing is worse than reading one-way conversations about a product. However, when it comes to Foursquare, it requires little more than showing up to the game.

“What’s so excellent about Foursquare is that all a show really has to do is get on it,” said Jim Glaub, of Art Meets Commerce, a theatrical advertising agency that runs campaigns for such Broadway shows as Rock of Ages and A Little Night Music. Glaub first noticed Foursquare a couple months ago, and quickly realized that users were slowly beginning to connect it to Broadway theatres. “Only a couple people had checked in. So, one of the things we decided to do was put the shows we represented on there as actual venues. So, for Promises, Promises, we created the venue Promises, Promises Broadway Theatre.”

Now comes the test. Will theatregoers, a demographic traditionally skewing older than the twenty- and thirty-something crowd predominately using Foursquare, Gowalla and the like, adopt the idea of involving Broadway in their social conversations? A quick glance at Broadway venues on Foursquare on a recent Saturday night showed a handful of people checked in to various theatres.

“I’m proud, and also a bit embarrassed, to say that I was the mayor, for a week or so, of the St. James [Theatre] after American Idiot started previews,” said Allison Broder, a 24-year-old theatregoer and social networking user.

Despite Broder’s willingness to check-in to a Broadway theatre on Foursquare, she voices a concern that advertising and marketing firms should pay attention to. “There is nothing to really accomplish through checking in to venues, but it can help connect you to people who also love theatre.”

Beyond providing theatre enthusiasts an opportunity to connect with their own kind, why not create a greater incentive? If The Roxy, a concert venue in Los Angeles, can offer a free CD to anyone showing the merchandise booth that they checked in to the venue on Foursquare, Broadway can certainly offer similar promotions. After all, a Foursquare check-in can result in a tweet, or Facebook update, which helps create a word of mouth campaign.

Another feature of Foursquare is the push notification system, the latest way companies like the Wall Street Journal, the History Channel and VH1 are informing users about nearby venues or points of interest. They are adding to the conversation. Check-in to the Richard Rodgers Theatre, for instance, and a push notification might recommend another Broadway show.

“I think this is the most exciting time to be on Broadway,” said Bazadona. “If you look at our client list, the biggest shows are working with us. They are really trying to accept [online marketing] and embrace it.”

Broadway has the opportunity to get cutting edge. It’s time to start playing Foursquare.

I wrote this article for the Huffington Post on May 6, 2010.

In 2000, the American Museum of Natural History launched OLogy, an innovative website for kids based on the premise that “everyone wants to know something.” Designed as a place for children to ask questions, get answers, and meet real “OLogists,” the award-winning site features hands-on activities, articles, games, and OLogy “cards” that kids can collect and use in online projects. OLogy invites children to explore the Museum’s rich and diverse content, including its scientific research and collections.

In the video, the team behind OLogy looks back over the last 10 years.

I produced/edited this video for the American Museum of Natural History on May 7, 2010.

Tuesday night’s return of the singing and dancing series scored its best ratings ever, pulling in 13.7 million viewers, which is a vast improvement over its series premiere numbers last year (9.6 million).

News of a ratings smash should come as no surprise to the millions of dedicated fans, otherwise known as “gleeks.” Social networks are constantly abuzz about the Fox series and watch parties are popping up all over the country.

Perhaps the most obvious fan base is the Broadway community — last year the New York Times mentioned that the teenage cast of Bye Bye Birdie gathered after their show was over to watchGlee. Similar gatherings are still taking place, including amongst college students, as happened last night at an outdoor screening of the show on Columbia University’s main campus.

Who knew that a show that followed a dysfunctional high school glee club, complete with stereotypical characters straight out of a John Hughes script, would turn into a major phenomenon, one that spawned CDs, a national concert tour and a performance at the White House? Certainly not the show’s co-creators, Brad Falchuck and Ian Brennan.

“I thought that it would kind of be like a niche hit that was good and people liked,” Brennan said. “But, somehow it just struck a chord with people, and that is a real, real pleasant surprise.”

What might come as a real surprise, however, isn’t the ratings success or number of record sales, rather a “real world” change that has been occurring in schools around the country.

With increasing educational budget cuts sweeping the nation, arts education is often one of the first programs to get slashed. Just as Glee was airing on Fox Tuesday night, the community of Fowlerville, Michigan announced it would be cutting band and art programs due to budget reductions.

In steps Glee.

“I actually heard from a guy who worked I think in the public school system somewhere in Washington state and he was like yes, we’re having tons of problems,” Brennan said. “He was like the one thing no one is touching now is Glee Club, which is such a fascinating blow back from this show.”

An elementary school principal in Utah sees Glee’s musical message as a way to inspire students to sing, despite the fact that their budget has no place for choir.

“It’s a great teaching opportunity to get two songs and mash them together like they do on the show,” the principal told the Salt Lake Tribune. “It would be an awesome thing to find the right parent who could form a glee club and do some modern music.”

While most prime-time programming is filled with cookie cutter procedural dramas and a seemingly endless number of Law & Order spin-offs, all merely teaching kids how to dispose of a dead body,Glee has quickly turned into a show advocating for a positive change in America, even while maintaining its cotton candy sweetness.

As President Obama and his family watched the cast of Glee perform at the recent White House event, an idea occurred to Falchuck. “I would encourage [the Obamas] to get Congress to mandate it as some kind of a law that everyone in the country has to watch [Glee]. Call it the Glee Reform.”

If that Glee Reform called for arts funding in public schools to be increased across the country, it would certainly have my seal of approval.

I wrote this article for the Huffington Post on April 14, 2010.

The real monsters, dragons, and basilisks are back! More than 60 live lizards and snakes from five continents are now displayed in exquisitely prepared habitats. In addition to the live animals, the exhibit uses interactive stations, significant fossils, and an award-winning video to acquaint visitors with the world of the Squamata, the group that includes lizards and snakes.

Join Darrel Frost, curator of Lizards & Snakes: Alive!, as he walks through the exhibit and describes some of the fascinating traits these creatures possess.

I produced/edited this video for the American Museum of Natural History on March 10, 2010.

With Madagascar containing nearly two-third’s of the world’s chameleon species, Christopher Raxworthy, Associate Curator of Herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History, recently embarked on an expedition to the island in search of these special lizards. His hope was to track down the lined-chameleon in order to further study speciation on Madagascar.

Having recently returned from Madagascar, Raxworthy brought back video footage of his research trip to give everyone a glimpse into his studies and what life is like for scientists in the field, including camping in remote villages, searching for specimens in the jungle and traversing the varied island landscape.

While Raxworthy’s recent findings must remain in Madagascar until the end of this current collection season, once he has the chameleon specimens at the Museum his work to classify and study the DNA will begin.

I produced/edited this video for the American Museum of Natural History on March 5, 2010.