Robin Good
@robingood
The *curation guy* - indie author, speaker, advisor - focus on empowering subject-matter experts, artists, creators.
robingood.substack.comRobin Good
Over the past year, working on a book on curation, I have interviewed more than 30 curators—art and conference curators, creative directors, Instagram influencers, radio hosts, coders, and genetic engineers—and all agreed that saying no is at the core of the curatorial ethos . Saying no defines what matters.
Can We Still Curate This World?
There is something deeply offensive in knowing not only that hundreds of thousands of my words have vanished, but that some LLM is probably crawling through the tattered fragments to churn out mockeries of the very real sources, research, and energy that once backed those words. They’ll be vomited back on the shores of my browser, squirming and... See more
s.e. smith • What happens when the internet disappears?
Thomas P. Campbell: Weaving narratives in museum galleries
ted.com
Curating = Unpacking for a General Audience
Thomas B. Campbell, Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, shares in this TED video, his journey to become a respected museum curator, and the valuable discoveries and insights realized along the way.
This passage, in particular, struck with me louder than a thousand words:
"We live in an age of ubiquitous information, and sort of "just add water" expertise, but there's nothing that compares with the presentation of significant objects in a well-told narrative... what the curator does, the interpretation of a complex, esoteric subject, in a way that retains the integrity of the subject, that makes it -- unpacks it for a general audience."
But the deepest form of trust, Potter argues, is when “a prediction of being well-treated... is grounded in a belief not only in the other’s good will toward oneself but in a belief that the other’s good will is part of a more general disposition that extends beyond the context of this particular relationship” (p. 5). In other words, the reason... See more
"Why Don't Some People Trust My AI?"
I am noticing how maxed out people’s mental bandwidth is these days- for every online creator the struggle is very real (subscription fatigue & co.)
Many of us still want to read, comment and engage, but there’s simply too much of everything all the time. And so we mentally “save” it all for “later” that never arrives.
But at the same time, the need... See more
Many of us still want to read, comment and engage, but there’s simply too much of everything all the time. And so we mentally “save” it all for “later” that never arrives.
But at the same time, the need... See more
Anna | BACK TO SENSES • Anna | BACK TO SENSES (@backtosenses)
Your original thinking is your moat.
People don’t follow writers for information (they can get that anywhere). They follow writers for interpretation .
People don’t follow writers for information (they can get that anywhere). They follow writers for interpretation .
Nicolas Cole • The one thing AI can't do for you
But taste requires subtraction. It means not participating in every viral moment. It means not resharing something just because it’s getting attention. It means opting out of the churn.
That doesn’t mean being contrarian for the sake of it. It means noticing when the culture’s default setting no longer reflects what’s true for you—and walking away.
That doesn’t mean being contrarian for the sake of it. It means noticing when the culture’s default setting no longer reflects what’s true for you—and walking away.
stepfanie tyler • Taste Is the New Intelligence
Curation gives even mundane objects value by connecting them with a point of view, heritage, a subculture or purpose that makes them stand out in the vortex of speed, superficiality, and newness.
andjelicaaa.substack.com • Move Over Influencers, Here Come Curators
The ancients anchored it in kinship. Modernity anchored it in law. Our digital age anchors it in verification and verified data. Perhaps the future lies not in replacing one anchor with another, but in braiding them — A trust that is both verifiable and humane, both algorithmic and moral, both scalable and soulful. Because in the end, the goal is not merely to make trust work — but to make it worth something.