ten. discuss these things for one hour and 15 minutes. >> i think we are ready. good afternoon, thank you for being you. i am the director of the aspen institute arts program read it is mm. it is my pleasure to curate the roundtable series, sponsored by michelle smith. thank you for supporting these conversations. the conversations i curate naturally deal with the arts, but the arts and society. and how they intersect, how they can be productive, and evermore interactive partners with all of the areas of society, which is very much of course in keeping with the mission of the aspen institute. today, we are very happy to welcome dr. david skortom. n. the new secretary of the smithsonian, who comes with us building on a distinct career as a cardiologist. and president of the university of iowa and cornell. he was appointed the 13th secretary beginning this past summer. and i can say that as an artist who visited the museum's since a child on the mall, an endless source of inspiration is at your disposal. and also a tremendous source of work. i'm proud to serve on the committee for the arts and humanities, along with others in this room. stevens is george here. one of the earliest things we did was partner with disaster recovery in haiti. it is an activist role of sorts that the smithsonian took on in that instance. far be it from the idea of things we go to look at. in that spirit, we welcome you here. i'm proud to say that my boss and great leader, walter isaacson, will be moderating. he needs no introduction. but to say he is a chronicler of great men and and inspire her of many. >> thank you very much for putting this together. michelle, nice to see you here. and i asked earlier whether i should call you dr. k skorton. >> everybody here and call me david. walter, call me your excellency. [laughter] >> that was a line from henry kissinger. he said that will do. in your case, and actually fits. inaugurated or installed, it was -- i read the speech. you give a wonderful speech about this is magic, in some ways. but you also allowed someone to play louis armstrong's horn. tell me about the inauguration and the idea that this is magic. david: the official title -- let me interrupt. i want to thank you damian. he is a fellow flute player. he is an officia but it is wonderful to be here. thank you. i do want to a knowledge mind partner -- acknowledge my partner, richard curran. he was a source of a lot of good ideas. henceforth, they will be considered my ideas. [laughter] so the installation which my colleagues are calling here at the smithsonian, i want to set the stage. the currency we deal in, just as you said, is inspiration. whe currency we dealing, higop we deal about it, it is inspiring people to understand more things, dream bigger, to make things, create things, understand things. so the word i used his magic comment to reflect the many different ways we bring that together. some of that is based on being face-to-face with an object, a painting, something that has historical significance. increasingly, it has to do with the dynamic interplay of ideas. which might or might not need to be in the context of an object. i try to touch on those areas in the speech. the speech is available, and if you have trouble sleeping -- and who doesn't these days -- if you read it, you will fall asleep quickly. you will stay asleep for 6-8 hours and awake with no bitter aftertaste. try it out. [laughter] walter: you talk about being in the presence of an object. whether it be a horn, flag, you can see all of those things digitally online now. where does the museum of the future go in the digital age? david: as you know, but you are tonight to say, i really do not know much about the museum world. andme from a career lifetime spent in the life sciences. i am a cardiologist. i took care of young people, teenagers, young adults with inborn heart disease. i'm comfortable in that world. i am an amateur musician, comfortable in that world. and i'm just learning about the museum world. that is a sort of disclaimer. but i'm reading avidly, three different books on museum studies of various kinds. very frequently, as you may have noticed, there are articles about the so-called 21st century museum. the most recent one i read was four days ago in the times. in those articles, there are sort of three themes sounded. i want to be clear that i'm not saying these are the three most important. these are the ones i absorbed. number one, as walter eloquently raised, moving from an object based encounter to one where you do not have to be on site. that could be visual, could be auditory, could be some other way that doesn't require to be in front of the object. i believe right now, from my own experience just as a museum goer, and a few weeks at the smithsonian -- a few months at the smithsonian -- institutions that are large, broad, and respected will for the for seeable future should have a foot in both worlds. we need to preserve the objects we recognize as part of the american and international tradition and coulter. and yet, as richard and others have been doing for some time, begin to push the boundaries of what can be done. my predecessor, formerly president of georgia tech and a great creative person, began the process of more aggressively digitizing those parts of the collection that can easily be digitized. is 138 million things. and some of the museums, i believe the sackler's digitized. the verb he used was to democratize the collection. you do not have to be among the relatively small people worldwide who will ever get to the mall. unfortunately, even in our city, there are people who do not get to the mall. that is one theme that it sounded. the second theme, which resonates with me and i'm very concerned about, is the issue of diversity writ large.. and the audiences we are serving, the employment at the museum, diversity in the programming we are offering to whomever. diversity in the themes we are willing to touch. i would not mind coming back to the controversy later, as one of those things related. that is the second theme that sounded. in the third one really has to do with an underlying issue that i think our society is dealing with. and that is, how much do we focus on the stem disciplines and the non-stem disciplines. the smithsonian is an unusual institution that touches the gamut. a friend of mine, a cornell graduate, he is a lifetime washingtonian. and what he found out i was appointed in 2014, let me give you a quick description of the smithsonian -- everything under the sun. astrophysics to art. so the institution absolutely, positively needs to make sure we do not overly focus on the stem disciplines. despite the fact we think about it in vocational, economic terms and leadership and security terms. all of that is important and necessary, but not sufficient to work our way through a troubled world. walter: you seem suited for that because you have a science background as a cardiologist. and even in your cardiology, you are most renowned for imaging and how to use it to understand things better. then you have also been a flute player. you have loved the arts. instead of seeing things as the arts or the stem disciplines, used it at the intersection. is there a way to make sure that people can get to that combination, of the two cultures/ ? david: i'm a cheerleader, not an expert. not to be a cheerleader, but what you do at aspen is a great example of bringing ideas, even differing points of view -- especially differing points of view -- together. my partners and collects together at the smithsonian, not limited to richard, have done a fantastic job across the disciplines. we can do a lot more. we are doing reorganizations we are still in the midst of. we are still in the infrastructure stage, to make it easier -- walter: like at cornell, when there are less departments and divisions, you are doing that with a big ideas -- climate change, things in the smithsonian. david: when you have an institution that has been around for a long time, and the smithsonian is one of those and cornell is one of those, the only sure way to do something that is really different is to be able to turn the page on a new chapter. directorour wonderful of the soon to be open national museum of african american culture, which is beautiful and profound both, she is going to turn the page on a chapter this started as a blank slate. a long, long overdue expiration of african american history and culture in this country that we sorely need. he is going to do interesting things i think you will find fascinating, dealing with what you are talking about. that museum will touch history, culture, science, almost everything you are talking about. but the hardest thing to do, it is easier to take something that is in existence and turn it into something. at cornell, the best opportunity i had, i was just three separate recipient, i have nothing to do it. the new place on roosevelt bloomberg --ichael --ter: and others david: he was president of the new york city economic corporation. the idea was to analyze the economy of new york city, one of the largest in the world. and they discovered that although the prediction was that finance, media, fashion, biomedical studies and so one would be part of the economy, and the tech sector, there was a relative shortage of graduate-trained professionals, that his computer scientists, electrical engineers, materials scientists, so they had a contest which we partnered with the real institute of technology, it was a blank slate. that campus is being put together with no departments. no departments. what we set up were what we called hubs, for lack of a better term, three areas that seem to fit the new york city economy that we can bring together as strands to create a new kind of fabric. and those three were healthy living, the field environment broadly including transportation, infrastructure, green tech, and so on, and the so-called connected media. short of turning a page and having a blank slate, it is a tall order. because places like the smithsonian or universities have to be distinguished. because it distinguishes disciplines. if we abandon focus on individual disciplines or excellence, we will get nowhere by combining them. we can do things like what we are doing with african-americans, we can create out of the whole cloth. otherwise, it is a delicate organism. it has to be handled very gently and carefully. and i'm a strong believer in has to be bottom up./ even if i had been 20 years in enoughiness, it is not to have one person come to the table and said we have to work together. it have to be grassroots. walter: you mentioned the importance of having younger people, youth, and never city be part of defining the museum of the future. how are you going to do that? david: you look at me, one of you say even younger? [laughter] whole attitude is extremely upsetting. i will let it go this time. [laughter] from being in higher education for so long at interacting with undergraduates, my wife who really is a source of the very large proportion of good ideas, she had the idea we should live with the freshman in freshman dorms at cornell. walter: that sounds like something i would not consider a good idea. [laughter] david: the latest thing she is talking about is having a stayover -- having sleepovers at the museum. you think it is a good idea, but those floors are marble. [laughter] forgetting that, so when you think about the higher education experience, i always thought that our ideas about some aspects of academia could not depend on audience response. if one is teaching civics or biography or poetry or dance or whatever it is, we have experts and professionals to do that. they interact with students and get feedback. but other aspects like the way we do things should have consumer input, or whatever the right word is. i want to emphasize public input into how we do planning, specifically, we're going to set up a youth advisory council here in the city of washington. we have a wonderful experience of talking to mayor bowser about it. it is a busy time in the cities y's life. we will work on it together. we hope to bring high school students, perhaps freshmen and sophomores still thinking it through, from all over the d.c. area and show them some things we are thinking about. in the case of people who preceded me as leaders and the smithsonian, like richard and others, they have already done a lot of that. in the museum of natural history, when you venture in and see the constitution, if you turn to the right, there is something called the curious cue. it was designed in part why washington high school students. it is fantastic. and there is art land attached to the hirschhorn. it deals, if i get this right, with kids 13-19. they don't have to be students. they are in their learning how to do everything from -- i was in there a couple of days ago -- stage lighting to dj work. to postproduction music, sketching, you name it. there are already youth programs. but i need the input as the new leader. so we are going to set up a youth council. i will listen to them and to the extent that they can spend the time with me, a lot of the other leaders will have a chance to try things out. you can't have your customer to you exactly what to do. i am reminded of the book, "the innovators dilemma." where one of the many interesting ideas i remove or so clearly was that if you want to listen to customers, you cannot run the company. you tell them what they need. convince them. walter: the old steve jobs line. henry ford said if i asked my customers, they would say a faster horse. [laughter] david: i'm thinking about a faster horse. my first car in 1965, and most of your parents were learning how to walk, was an impala. and i just got a new one. walter: chevrolet will be happy. david: it is a fabulous car. walter: damian, you and i have talked about around the country -- we are serving a new division here at the institute -- for people who are in high school and early years of college, especially from less served communities, getting them involved. we are to be working with you on that i hope. you mentioned earlier controversies. the smithsonian seems to either stumble through or thrive upon these great controversies. like should we have shown this or done that. tell us your view of some of the controversies that have happened, and how you propose to handle them. david: i would love to talk about it. the one thing i will not do is second-guess decisions made before i got there. it is very hard to do that. let us talk about the general proposition. to me, creative activity will very often engender controversy. think about creative people. i am most comfortable in the sciences. but if someone he has a new idea, that maybe sounds heretical to people in the field and be controversial, and maybe traversing over four two sets of reasons. are used toe and we having actual arguments -- heated arguments over points of view. you know a lot of this about the innovators on whom you have written. but it is equally true on the arts. think about contemporary art, which in every generation, is what is happening now. i believe that artists, whatever kind they are, they could be dancers, musicians, performing artists, visual artists, they may perceive the world differently. they may perceive trends sooner than the general populace. so when creating an expression that reflects that different perception of currency of reality, they may bump into reality do not share that point of view. years go by, generations go by, perhaps that was an early perception that turned out to be true. maybe not. whatever it is, creative activity across the spectrum of human activity will engender controversy. we have to be ready for. and i think the few actions to me would be if a professional curator backed by normal institution processes done correctly decides to put something up, we should not take it down. we should not take it down even if there is public outcry, even if there is concern. one example right now is t in the sanger's bus national gallery. in that case, i cannot be more supportive of the decision of the director of the national portraiture gallery. at undersecretary richard curran, we have to tell the story of our country -- both parts we are very proud of and the parts that we shake our heads about perhaps and wonder. otherwise, how are we going to understand and think more towards the future? it does not mean we have to be arrogant. that we cannot improve the that we cannot think more actively in a preemptive way about what might be controversial/ walter: can you give an example? david: the bill cause be port -- bill cosby portrait. means -- ibasically think it was very important to understand the reasons for that exhibit. and not to punish the artist. not to punish those who would art because of potential problems. walter: so you have not walked that back. david: and i will not. what youou talk about did as being preparation, there is a lot of discussion these days about political correctness on college campuses, causing controversy or try to stop people from doing things. what did you learn at cornell from that issue that you are applying to the smithsonian? david: 16 weeks, i am basically understanding where the entrances are and so on. [laughter] walter: you had the bill cause osny. by. david: my approach to student protest was to go and talk to them. they always wanted to talk to me. they were always interested, but i wanted to make the offer. it is important for me to leave my ego at the door. walter: but the issue of political correctness. david: i will get there. this is like a paragraph. you are so much of an editor. [laughter] here's the thing about political correctness. political correctness is one way of looking at the world. one way of looking at the world, it is possible to think of it in a pejorative sense. but when we began to use gender-neutral language, it is important. it reminds us to think about the world as beyond people who look like you and me. as good-looking as we do. [laughter] i think there is a place to think about those things. but when you use it in a pejorative sense, what you mean is limiting expression. putting a boundary on expression, if it does not fit a certain mold. it has to be avoided. a world ofbringing ideas together, once again as aspen does so well, is important to read and maybe leaders like you and i have to make an extra effort to bring ideas that make our own blood boil. areake sure that we, too, not self-selecting things we are most comfortable with. one of the things i love already about the smithsonian, and i don't mean this to sound facetious even though it may, i don't want people to think like they have to defer to me on things like that. i am there at their service, like i was at the university. to make sure that 1000 flowers bloom. and when that does happen, something else will happen. and that is just the way -- the nature of the beast. walter: let me open it up, if i may. questions? david: i'm a licensed physician. walter: you go first. >> i does want to say my family has enjoyed the smithsonian for multiple generations. it was a place we completed our education, basically. i have a question about the museum of natural history. recently the museum with some distinguished guests, family, and a group. i had not been there in a while. i've noticed some of the changes. the 21stmuseum for century, it was not dynamic enough. in fact, i made a comment when it was creepy looking -- i like it better. all that to say the smithsonian has served as an institution where we enhance our education. i wanted to give me more excitement about the natural history, science. i was not feeling that read that you tell me more about the plans? david: thank you for the input. you are a devoted follower. it means a lot. i was looking at the plans, and when i mentioned earlier, can i me your --you can call excellency? [laughter] when i talked before about the smithsonian having, and i believe for the future it should have, one foot in the world of things that maybe don't seem so still aand exciting but portion of the populace wants to be there face-to-face, even if it may not seem dynamic. and another foot in the world where things are becoming more interactive and so on, that museum is going to be an exemplar of the curious teen-oriented things. in ify not wander you are not in that age. but they are making an attempt without giving up the enormity of the collection. most of the collection is attributed to that museum -- 126 million out of 130 million. biological specimens and all of those things. they're dealing with a heavy lift, not to give up the attention of the -- the intention, excuse me -- but to make them available for scholars. the questions come up in paleontology, how wonderful it is to go back and look at something that is there because it has been preserved carefully. and yet appealing to a broader and broader populace by making it more dynamic and interactive. they are in the direction of doing that without giving up the former. so if you had time yourself to go in and look at curious, and you had time to write me a note about it, i would love to see your reaction. if you think it is going in the direction you are talking about. as i mentioned, i'm so new to this world, that i myself, and try to soak all of this up. may, if you goi to the cooper-hewitt, the national design museum in new york city at 91st and fifth, you will find a dynamic approach there -- using a digital pen or you can touch a spot on the sign and collect the digital image of that item in your collection. it is fascinating. across the whole institution, there is enormous movement in that direction. but variable depending on the subject. walter: the cooper-hewitt just reopened. david: yes, almost a year ago. walter: you have the museum that is being done -- the renwick. david: the ribbon-cutting is a week from tomorrow. walter: you're all invited. david: you are. but anyway, that is going to be a very different experience. i'm not going to steal the thunder. because you want to put it on c-span or something. walter: you will have to show up. >> i used to work at the smithsonian. i am the executive director of the jazz festival. i was excited when i did a walk-through of the american history, to see the experiences that are happening over there. i think that speaks to what you're talking about, the 21st century digital image. i want to thank you. i know you don't take credit. but it is a wonderful place now. ingng something very excit with jazz in the garden, and i know that you are a jazz musician. really, thank you for doing that. david: thank you for being so positive. the jazz orchestra is impressive. the director is charlie young, the director of the jazz program at howard. they took pity on me and let me sit in on two numbers about three weeks ago. i did not tell you buddy, in case it went south. [laughter] it was a latin jazz concert. i used to be the producer and dj on a latin jazz show in iowa city. i know the literature, so to speak. it that mean i can play it. but i know the literature. number called a little blues, a 12-bar blues to a latin be. the other was an old chestnut by tito puente. popularized that one, he did a certain electronic version -- electric version. it is just great. the original tito recording was challenging for three charlie young is a past master, and he assigned it to me. my heart rate went down low 200 just a couple of days ago. that orchestra is fabulous. and if i want to plug one more thing for the american history museum, for those with jazz who is the other thing -- those unfortunate souls who have not seen the light yet -- or the chamber music society that has its own performance space. not only are there unbelievably great interest, they're playing a vintage instrument. i have not gone to one of the concerts yet. i've read quite a bit about it. eleanor? eleanor: thank you. i want to get back to the museum of the 21st century. and the new york times article, from the bottom up, my name is eleanor fink. i'm the manager of the american are collaborative, a consortium of museums that are getting rid of data silos so you can search across all of them. the american art, portrait art, and archives of american art belongs in the smithsonian read my question is, given the great diversity of the smithsonian, it would be wonderful if that article alluded to someone going from a painting that depicts an invention that happens to be in history and technology to the portrait of that inventor at the gallery to maybe something of the national history. technology is there to do it. we are doing it at art project. it is not so much a matter of money. we don't have everything digitized, to start. you have to have the will. and at the smithsonian, to get this kind of collaboration across all institutions, bottom-up will not work. because each is thinking of their own. it is such a wonderful opportunity, one would not want to pass it up. how can you maybe instill something for the museum of the 21st century? david: thanks for the question and for caring so much about agreed we are proud to be a group of that. i was proud to set that up. bit to push back a tiny conceptually, because we are here to have a frank discussion, i think it is very important is bottoms up. if i cannot persuade them and the chief tool i have as the ceo, is persuasion. if i cannot persuade them that it is a good thing to do, then i have a problem in my argument. nonetheless, i buy the goal. absolutely, i agree on the objective. there is all kinds of ways to do that. i've tried a bunch. sometimes they were, sometimes it do not. you throw a little money at people, and so you can only touch it if you do something you have never done before or collaborate with someone you have never collaborated with before, and works to a certain extent. for sure. i'm confident through richards leadership and the directors of the units themselves, which is halfway between, they are not way up here. valhalla, like i am. i think there is a will to use technology. sometimes we get lost everywhere and all of our endeavors by using technology is because we can. just because we can. as opposed to doing it because we know where we want to get to, we know the destination. technology can help us get there. there are a lot of people talking about that. i don't want to sound too polyan na-ic. it some protective mechanisms to make sure that the funding fedronment, all amounts are to get things done every day. that is a terrible mixed metaphor i just did. but anyway. , i believe that the level of the directors and undersecretary want to do this thing. why would they want to? because people who have been leading the center of excellence who say they haven't come in there since they were kids, they want to stay relevant. they want to know the american people and others believe in it, crave it, and want to be there. they want to make it new and different. but there is also the matter of 18 million people coming here every year. someide variety of things, of them just want to have the old time experience, some want to have new things. some don't know what they want. they have never been and what to see what it is. those leaders have the burden, i would call it, the responsibility of having to be there 364 days. a year it is not an excuse. is dragging our feet, but it a set of response abilities to have to be met. i think you we very happily surprised when you see the things come to fruition. and as a person who has been a medical research for a time, the only way you hit it is to take a swing at the ball. you may miss it. we talk about silicon valley, those who have written about every good idea, they know their are a bunch of them that have gone belly up. and if i can do anything from the castle, and every decentralized organization, the name of the building is like a hated word. [laughter] at cornell, it is day hall. day hall is stopping us from doing what we want to do. here it is like the castle is standing in the way of progress. but i think you will find that from the castle to the desktop of the people cranking it out every day, you will find a spirit of one to push ahead, while maintaining the traditions. i hope you keep in touch with me, eleanor. let me know what you think i will keep track of the collaborative data. that would be great. walter: go ahead, joanne. joanne thank you. i'm curious about the high arc levels, envisioning feedback from the bottom up. musk likesthat elon to have people just directly sent to him any notes. something is wrong, maybe a -- howdea, people that do you deal with the mid-level advisory, managers who take some umbrage? david: is a tough question. don't you like when a speaker grades your question? end with thet to class, i will call this class, we will be there for the speak leepover. david: be sure to bring me an air mattress. [laughter] behavior is a good indicator of future behavior. at cornell, i gave everyone my e-mail. wrested faculty, do they all right me everyday/ thankfully, no. i have those come directly to me. my lieutenants, or whatever you call them, hated when i went to a town hall and gave them my e-mail. great, he is only going to forward it to me. but i got a lot of good feedback. why don't people want to do that? they are afraid of retaliation, being embarrassed. they are most afraid of never hearing from you. done, there i have is a formulaic way at the smithsonian to do it. townhall meetings, when you have those, there are two kinds. i guess there are three. newkind you have where the guy shows up. they want to see what the new person acts like, can they talk, can they tie their time. turnout.od and there are townhall's when there is a problem, an issue. in every organization, if they fall upon hard times financially, if layoffs are looming and so on, and the ceo calls at townhall, people show up. and then there are no crisis, we arty know who the -- we already know who the folks are. and i have my first one of those in the museum of natural history a few days ago. i'm am so terrible in estimating this. maybe a couple of hundred people, a couple hundred more online in cyberspace. i forget what you call it, live streaming. he doesn't know. i did that to be polite. [laughter] eventually, from the e-mails and the townhall meetings, and then meeting with the director level people, at least there is the opportunity for input. ther it happens, depends on if the employees feel it is safe to criticize and bring things up. the core attribute that is necessary for a functioning organization is the feeling of safety in every single employee. that he or she can criticize or argue with their supervisor. that they can speak truth to power. and that is easy to say and very, very hard to do. that is why am devoted to trying, everywhere that i have had a leadership. sometimes it worked, sometimes it flopped. in the case of undergrads, they violently disagree and decide the way to do that is take over the office. which is ok. sometimes you get a day off that way. [laughter] walter: take over the castle. [laughter] david: you can do that anytime, walter. walter: you have a question? >> i wanted to follow-up on your comment that you do not want to over focus on stem. course isf well-established, everybody knows what we mean. but there is also now steam. and i wonder if the smithsonian and your emphasis on not over focusing on stem is going to be willing to push the idea of steam, using your considerable persuasive powers to make steam as well fixed in the american psyche as stem. know: it is terrible -- i quite a bit. it is alright. i am always concerned that we do not portray the artist in the humanities as handmaidens to the sciences. ifing something onto stem, you do not think about it very deeply, one might think, well, it is important have the arts because it order to complete thinking about some scientific thing you have to think about it conceptually or communicatively. there is also this value of perception that anyone can i get any other way. so i struggle, as silly as it sounds, i struggle with it is a good idea to have steam. i was very privileged to be on that american academy of arts and sciences group that did that on the humanities and social sciences, not so much the arts. and i have a chance to talk and learn from people as various as bill safire and many others. many, many in the art world. and i do not want to be perceived as denigrating the stem disciplines. because a lot of changes in our world that we take for granted and really like, like the communication technology that is making this whole business possible, would not happen without very robust things happening in the stem disciplines. and if i can just put a plug in for those who do research for society based on competitive ineral grants, at a time both life sciences and the physical sciences where the tools that are at our disposal for answering scientific questions are like never before, the public has not been able to invest or not willing to invest as fuelas could be used to move that engine forward read so th. so the sciences have a very real frustration and shortcomings. in the arts and humanities, quite separately from their ability to help solve problems that you cannot solve with ecience alone, they havv intrinsic importance in so many ways. when i talked to members of congress or right in huffington post performs, or have been interviewed by people like walter, i tried very hard to give both sides of the discussion. one side is that there is practical value in liberal arts education, thinking about these things read even economically, believe it or not, there is very great data showing earning potential years later, not right arts.e baat, of liberal tomorrow, i am receiving an award from the colleges of arts and sciences in the u.s. and there is a lot of data that i was refreshing myself on to group.o that august quite separate, no matter what the earning potential is, we get a lot of understanding of what we are as humans. i feel so silly saying this in a pedantic way. having to listen to, well, last night, walter and i were at an event at which some music was sung of a patriotic nature. both of us got teary-eyed. we are a couple of old guys. why? because music has that power, that power. in dance and visual arts and everything else that is not even counting reading poetry. outside of my office, i set up a poll and of the week. people send it in, if your opponent, and want to send it. tond@si.edu. if your opponent, send me the lectern. wehink it is important that support that, that we push it, that we do not allow it to be trivialized as a frill. that is what i think. to finally answer your question, what are we doing at the smithsonian? we are supporting with arguments to congress and with philanthropy, recognizing more and more the fact that some of the museums defy categorization. so for example, i mentioned the kuiper hewitt design museum. what you call design? is it science? is it psychology? definitely. social science/ . today i'm talking a lot, and i'm listening in general. number two, i'm encouraging people with a bully pulpit, the small one internally. thirdly, i'm try to get on my hind legs and make sure people remember these disciplines are what a lot of us really have and to experience understand ourselves as people. walter: it is so important to talk about arts and arts and humanities with their own sake, not just the utilitarian. i'm sorry. ok, you had a question there, too. your hand was a first. i will get to you. be patient. ,> i was lucky enough years ago and i went to that facility. it is very much closed. i went back with another group, and there was no air-conditioning. that could affect about three quarters of your collection. is there anyway you could set up something? david: i want to be honest. i don't know too much about the details. i understand the need, not to trivialize the question, real quickly, i'm still learning. the vast majority of any museum and i know about, not just the smithsonian, it is not on display. it has to rotate. why don't you write me separately. i will find out an answer you buy enough. walter: i wasn't trying to cut you off. go ahead. the education division, i am , as a member of the program sometime ago, i think it is a fabulous program. as i understand it it is your continuing education for the washington area. and i just wondered if you have a new vision for it, see it moving in a new direction? david: i will tell you what i've done with the associates so far. i've talked to them. and i have joined as a contributor. so i'm still in the listening mode on that one. i do think it is very important for a couple of reasons. one, it is a way, as you are inferring, of greatly expanding the access of the sony. and in a way, it is a way of serving washington. i am a big believer that nonprofits, because we are by definition, whatever our status, private universities, they to think about serving the community -- to the extent we can do it. the taxpayer giving us nonprofit status is making enormous contributions. quite separately, and other settings of the property taxpayers who do not get the credit for that, so still in the listening mode on that would. it is important for that reason. and congratulations on working at that organization. one of my favorites. walter: you can go online and joined the smithsonian associates. which i urge you to do. david: you can go online and spend all kinds of money. walter: let me go to the one in the back, so people do chance to participate. >> i had the chance 20 years ago on the charles jackson collection, the european arms and armor site. it seems that you are getting away from the nations attic model. have you looked at what you can do to refine and save on storage costs? david: all kinds of discussion going on about that now. thank you very much for the question. nothing conclusive to bring you today. you can imagine the collection that size, on the one hand, it would be great to do what you talked about. on the other hand, not knowing when something in the collection might be important to a scholar subsequently, there is a certain danger in doing that to vigorously. stay tuned. that is about as evasive answer i can give you. [laughter] walter: on a broader scale, you think that museums in general which display only a small percentage of what they do are beginning to do a disservice by not having ways, that such a loaded term? david: that is a loaded question and term. i would say whatever we can do to make our collections more accessible we should do. there are many paths which could be done. with the exception, there is only one. i do think that because museums are set up in the public trust in general, and because of the nonprofit status, we have to operate that way for real -- not just say so. we have to do everything we can to increase access. that is for sure. what understand the need that the smithsonian is a special case. when james smithson wrote the bequestf the for washington, a place he has never been, he was a chemist. the diffusion you are talking about, the research part, it as a special twist of complexity. who knows when a researcher and some field is going to want to have access to that thing? it does mean it cannot be elsewhere. but then that greatly, kate said. there is enormous amounts of scholarly activity in the arts, sciences, anthropology going on at the smithsonian. that is a set of imperatives we also have to meet. walter: give a shout out to james smithson who was a pembroke college alumni. >> thank you. i am a health writer who is also a poet. and i will be sending you a poem. david: i will write that down. send some bio. on the right side is a little bio. we will never know, you can make a lot of stuff up. [laughter] >> thank you very much. i want to say, my kids really t a lot out of the smithsonian when they were growing up. i think it is not necessary to really think about how to package, combine arts and sciences. just putting it there, someone here mentioned it would be good to put more about medicine in the smithsonian. putting more of the arts and sciences next to one another, i think people make the connection. i have noticed in the past years there are some literary magazines that have been founded at medical schools or associations like bellevue. they have a literary magazine. cuny has a magazine. ma i think take poetry. all of it is a great way to ecome part of d ecompartmentalize it. david: they will have a description, i don't know if you've seen it, it is fascinating. some medical journals or psychiatric journals will have photography competitions and so on. i think it is a very good point. i wrote your name down. walter: i think your poem will be displayed. david: and your bio. my husband was at a board >> my husband was at a board meeting. we went to something on taxonomy, how do you identify millions of things? it was a fascinating debate about how do you apply that, meaning, your science over here and it is all registering. how do you recognize that as part of the discussion about climate, ecology, biodiversity, about all of those things. i do not know how to do this. but one of the things that would be taking the middle level people and moving the discussion out into the larger thing, just raise what the people are working in the smithsonian in different areas are actually debating among themselves. so that then the public can see this is not top-down. decisions are not made and then just handed down to people. that actually all of these hugely committed staff people and volunteers are actually having this discussion among themselves. and i think it helps enormously. i am from new york. cooper-hewitt, there than a lot of discussions going on, if they were real to the public, i think they would be fascinated by. david: such a fascinating idea. one of the big areas science agonizes over, my wife and i talk about it all the time, something what you're talking about all the time. it is an interesting t wist. you give me something to talk about my wife. i wish you called more people your excellency. but anyway, i think it is fascinating. it brings to mind two trains of thought that occupy our time. of is this whole issue complicated matters outside of the canon. there is a certain amount of churn among the between specialists that i don't think it would use the jargon and get down into the weeds for any exclusionary purpose. an economy there is of communication. it does make a harder for other people to participate and to understand. and a second set of issues is that communication per se is not necessarily a skill that is valued rewarded when you are going through the training to become a scientist. the skills that are rewarded are the communication is among specialists. brook gotin stony started. camp is that the sunni organized would have a formal program bring it on scientist -- are greatists who communicators and effective at having people do that. i want to bring up my wife. when she was at the university of iowa, she created something like survival skills for a research career. in which in addition to all of the statistics and learning about the biology and all of this stuff, one learned how to be interviewed, how to speak to the media, how to write a review article for a more general audience, things like that. she also worked at cornell in a program to teach graduate students how to teach. as opposed to teach graduate students how to discover, which is mainly what we teach them. if we had more of an emphasis, and i want you to call my wife and say that i'm talking about her -- [laughter] i so need to get some points on the board. she's probably not, she is too busy. this is what we need to do. ,ithin that universe of ways richard and i will be talking about this, a very interesting idea. >> i wanted to ask you a question. when you think about the smithsonian in the frame of the relative lack of interest in learning that is perceived by some in the u.s., not a culture that is that interested in learning, do you feel the obligation to create a kind of exhibit or special event, the large scale things that will actually put flags on the map on that score? >> it is a so interesting that you ask that question. i have been struggling with that in wanting to establish this youth advisory council. the kind of learning that i am used to dealing with is formal learning that goes along a path to a formal recognition, like an undergraduate degree, continuing medical education, whatever, where it's much easier to plot that path. you know the eventual hurdle that has to be jumped over. this is a wholly different thing. this is something where it's completely populist, wide-open, come one come all, spend 30 seconds at a part of the exhibition, or spend all day, it's up to you. breadth -- ithe don't want to use the word audience, the breadth of fellow human beings who we hope are increasingly coming to the smithsonian, either in person or over the wire. do you hear how old-fashioned i am? it's not even a wire anymore. over the wireless. [laughter] it is a much bigger task, a much harder task than a teaching in a university, where they are forced to a specific purpose. even if that purpose, in my case, was to discover what i wanted to do. and it is much harder. i think within that nonanswer i just gave you, it is true that the people who are actually having their sleeves rolled up and building the exhibits and deciding how to do them are thinking about this exact question. again, sorry for the redundant , this-- the redundantcy was an attempt to focus on an approach to attract interest of a certain demographic. an age demographic or what have you. the broader question is when you are dealing with an institution that attracts and wants to attract literally throughout the lifecycle of community and many parts of the world, how do you find something that is general enough? with this philosophy has been, understandably, and i think defensively, has been to let 1000 flowers bloom and try a lot of things. just like at a faculty level at the university, they have curators that are professionals in respective fields. maybe we can have more feedback. that is one thing richard and i are talking about. it is a never-ending question. too much feedback. not enough feedback and there is a certain arrogance, that results. the smithsonian has adhered to a good middle course or i would not have been attracted to it as much as i was. we can always try harder in that regard. it's a big question and we are think about it a lot. >> i think the ability to create a learning culture and a curiosity culture in this country -- there is no institution better positioned than of the smithsonian. we feel comfortable with it. i will take the moderator's prerogative to do a couple quick follow-ups. then we can get going. you talked about the importance of design and how across the spectrum, how it deals with industry and arts and everything else. what are your thoughts at the moment on the arts and industry building? >> the arts and industry is the second oldest building in the smithsonian. arson industry is right next door. -- arts and industry is right next door. that building was closed for a while now. it has been repaired and updated to the extent that we can begin to have some events there. i choose to have my installation in arts and industry. the first floor is more or less done, the upper floors are not done. i like the environment where you're sitting in this gorgeous area, and there are maybe 900 people. then as your gaze wanders, you see the second and third floors, and they were construction zones, safely away from the people. we are still thinking about what to do with that space. a lot of ideas are being tossed around. evene nowhere near deciding ourselves what to do, let alone going public. but it's a fabulous opportunity to do something important and significant because, imagine the preciousness and real estate on the mall, the greatest home-court avenging the world is the mall. -- advantage is the mall. i fabulous new exam on african-american history and culture on the constitution. but we are spending quite a bit of time talking about it. after january 1, i believe we are going to have it open for some events, like a reception. we are setting up the mechanisms to do that. i take your question to be a more programmatic question. we are talking about that more. we clearly need to do something significant with that. millions ofipate visits to that site, given where it is. question,technical because we did not get to the research arm of the smithsonian so much, although you mentioned it earlier the cutback in basic resources of the federal government. and how that is perhaps the string future innovations -- destroying future innovations if we don't have that type of funding. talk, if you would, about the astrophysics observatory. one of the lesser-known parts of these missoni and. what it's doing and why basic research funding is so important for someone like that. -- lesser-known parts of the smithsonian. skorton: let me first tackle the conceptual question of basic research. it was brought up earlier in some of the questions raised. we have this view of progress in science as being this linear process, where a mad scientist is sitting somewhere underground in a quiet dark room with a lot of sharpen pencils and things that bubble and steam. and he comes up with some observation about nature. and then that observation is shared with others, perhaps intellectual property is protected and is handed off to a business world, where a product or service is developed and is marketed, and there is progress. a certain amount of economic development in this country, quite a bit of it in the last century, was based on that model. you have written about that. >> we have talked about this model, looking at something like semiconducting material makes the transistor. mr. skorton: here is the rub. if you take something that we consider useful and important now and you carefully retrace steps of the science that led that to be enabled, it is a nonlinear path. you could not predict, well, you better study this particular thing, because then you are going to solve some other problem later -- it doesn't work that way in science. you have to make an observation for the sake of understanding, and then some other michael figure out how to put it gather. in that regard, it's very important to recognize that a new thing is happening in the economy in which it's not quite so linear in that fashion. the tech industry is a great example of that where someone can at the same time be developing some concept in the tech sector that a prototype is developed already, and it might even the marketed in some form. those steps are open to much shorter-- you implied that when you talk about more modern innovators. that is an argument for 2 different things. an argument to yes, support basic science without having to hang a burden on it, to say we will only supported if it is obvious how it can be turned into a national security or economic development. we have to have the confidence and process that is made the u.s. and ending of the world in higher education and science in general to evil follow their nose in terms of good ideas. -- let people follow their nose in terms of good ideas. at the same time, it's very understandable in a constrained environment that scientists are feeling put upon. they feel put upon for two reasons. one is that the inflation rate of doing the science is not the same market basket of goods and services that the fines a cpi. -- that defines a cpi. it has to be vibration free, or health science research. it's true that we are not keeping up with inflation, therefore missing opportunity. i don't know what they are, but we are missing them. second, we have trained a lot of phd's in this country. you can look at the statistics for how many of those are able to get full academic editions -- positions. most of them are not. i hope to attract some of them to the smithsonian as an alternative. but there has been some in balance. we have produced a lot of phd people with terminal degrees. because of funding constraints, we have not kept up with opportunities. that is a delimit we have to think about carefully. it touches on immigration reform, a lot of other issues that we don't have time to talk about today. about sony and, it is true -- about with sony and, with focused on the fusion part and not the increased. there are areas where i have no idea even consisted -- existed. i went to visit cambridge, i was giving a brief panel at harvard. i went to visit it. it is unbelievable. >> the astrophysics observatory in cambridge. skorton: not only in cambridge, massachusetts. it also runs the chandra x-ray observatory out in space. it's unbelievable. that is all a fabulous interaction between harvard and the smithsonian. hundreds of scientists figuring out things excites me the most. il-8 science fiction -- i am a science fiction geek. i used to have a sufficient to a magazine called "analog." i'm not sure if it's still being published. i used to really enjoy it. maybe that's one of the few things you didn't write yoor edit. [laughter] i found out from a couple of scientists there. there is an instrument we are all working to develop, over 10 institutions, called the giant magellan telescope. and 82 foot diameter telescope. there is an instrument they are developing at the smithsonian observatory. the attempt is to identify oxygen in the environment of a far-off heavily body. that is a sign of life, oxygen. tell you, i was just giddy that some people that are part of the estonian are working on instrument to look for evidence of extraterrestrial life. -- that are part of the smithsonian. there are so many examples like that that i am learning every day. >> that is why wanted to get the plug-in. it's not just the pandas, it's the astrophysics. skorton: there is nothing wrong with pandas. >> you are pandering to the pandas, i think. [laughter] the astrophysics observatory is astonishing, something the u.s. needs to do with the magellan. but to talk about how basic science is not necessarily linear. if there was exactly 100 years ago this week that albert einstein went to the prussian academy and gave his first lecture explaining general relativity, and it was just pure science for the sake of science, not bell labs saying we need to amplify the phone signal. just, how does space and time curve and thus create gravity? it is an awesomely beautiful thing. it has been 100 years, but now when i pull up my iphone, my daughter is going to be traveling to mexico. and we say, let's share locations. everything from gps to lasers to microchips to how electrons dance on the surface of a solid-state material. all coming from what einstein did just pacing at the prussian academy 100 years ago. we need to nurture that in our society. the place that nurtures it best is the smithsonian. it's wonderful for us in washington and those that love the smithsonian that you are coming down and breathing life into it. we always love to learn something new about somebody. i had known about medical imaging and how you treat teenagers with congenital hearts. what i never knew is that you were a dj and flute player at a latin jazz show on the radio in iowa. skorton: i wasn't playing on the radio. if i was playing on the radio, i would have no listeners whatsoever. [laughter] i just put the cd's on. my daughter and the boy she was dating at the time would come to the studio. and i would say, what is the -- what does the youth of america think of this new cut? i would say, don't be silent, they call that dead air, they would change the channel. youth ofwhat do the america think? [laughter] >> thanks david. totally fun. >> coming up on c-span, from the techcrunch disrupt san francisco conference, a look at ibm's watson computer. rapper snoop dogg on his new candidates media platform. -- cannabis media platform. then statements from president obama and jeh johnson on national security. the debate on raising the minimum wage to $15 following that. on the next washington journal, an update on afghanistan operations with major general gordon davis in kabul. brendan duke of the center for american progress and stamp worker of the american enterprise cute on the state of the u.s. economy. that's followed by a look at the work in congress to update the no child left behind legislation. our guest is from education week. washington journal, live every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. you can join the conversations with your calls and comments on facebook and twitter. next, a demonstration of imb's artificial intelligence computer system, known as watson. the talk with the founder of an instant messenger service used by isis. and rapper snoop dogg on his new cannabis pop culture media platform. from this year's annual techcrunch disrupt conference and san francisco, it's an hour and 45 minutes. unenthk you for that usiastic welcome back. [laughter] i appreciate that. it's monday, so we are only going downhill from here. our next guest is very exciting to have him join us on the stage. we talked a little bit about ai. elon is not offend, yuri is. -- elon is not a fan. please welcome dr. john kelly from ibm and our moderator. ♪ >> we are going to do a live demo. what are we about to see, and why do we care? >> what you are about to see something that no one else has ever seen, other than those deep in my research labs. many of you remember watson, the artificial intelligence machine on the game of "jeopardy." at the time he was an open domain question and answer system. fast-forward to today, what you're going to see is watson has adjusted all of wikipedia, and not answers questions, but reasons over that and conform opinions on any subject. >> so the tech guys can make it turnfo

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