Sree
Sreenivasan
America’s
Tech Guru
By Lillian Africano
W
hen Sree Sreenivasan
(@sree) was appointed
Chief Digital Officer
at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in 2013,
that was the latest step in what
he calls “a three-decade, one-way
love affair with one of the world’s
great museums.”
Since his appointment, a lot has
happened at the Met, reflecting
Sree’s expertise in all things digital,
especially social media.
In April 2014, the Met’s Instagram
account was selected as the Webby
Award Winner in the Social Arts
& Culture category in the
18th annual awards program.
(The Webby, presented by the
International Academy of Digital
Arts and Sciences, is the leading
international award honoring
excellence on the Internet.)
In September 2014, the Met
launched an app on iPhone and iPad
that was used more than one million
times in its first nine months. Of
this feature, Sree (rarely is he called
“Mr. Sreenivasan”) said that it
“serves as a digital companion
before, during and after a visit to
the Met—and it’s accessible to our
international audience, with whom
we are always trying to connect
better from afar.”
The goal of connecting with
audiences everywhere is clearly
being met. The museum’s digital
70
audience is increasingly globally,
with international users up to 36%
on the website, 50% on Instagram,
54% on Twitter and 70% on
Facebook. On Weibo, one of China’s
largest social media networks,
the Met had 10 million impressions
in 2015.
At the close of the fiscal year,
the Museum’s Facebook account
had more than 1.3 million followers
(with a reach of 48.5 million people)
and its Twitter feed had 982,000
followers (with tweets receiving
148.5 million impressions).
The website had a total of
32million visits.
All this online activity has led
to record-breaking visits to the
brick-and-mortar museum. In July
it was announced that a record 6.3
million people – from the United
States and around the world – had
visited the museum during the fiscal
year. This was the highest visitorship
since the Met began tracking
admission statistics more than
40 years ago.
When these changes are mentioned
to Sree, he acknowledges them
happily – but declines any credit,
preferring instead to mention “our
team” (At the Met, he leads a
world-class team of 70 working
on topics he loves: digital, social,
mobile, video, data, email apps
and more.) “It all starts with Tom
Campbell,” he says emphatically,
“who embraced the idea of a digital
Met.” (Thomas P. Campbell is the
museum’s director and CEO.)
“We are building a virtual circle
with people all around the world.
When they come in person, we
want them to stay connected to
the museum Attendance has changed
and grown and broken records. We
are increasing access to scholarship,
but there is no dumbing down
anywhere. We work at a deep
scholarly level and also a lighter
one. We want to achieve a balance
and to serve all ages.”
Expanding the commitment to serve
all ages, in September of this year,
the museum launched #MetKids, a
new online feature with multimedia
content made for, with and by kids.
“The full effect of what we are doing
will not be seen for years,” Sree
reflects, pondering the question of
how to best make connections and
how to make them have a serious
result. To make the point, he adds:
“Few of us saw how quickly
Instagram would grow.”
Sree joined the Met after spending
20 years at Columbia University
as a member of the faculty of the
Columbia Journalism School and a
year as the university’s first Chief
Digital Officer. As an adjunct
professor, he still occasionally
teaches at Columbia, where he is
fondly remembered by both students
and associates.
Liz Borod Wright first met Sree when
she was a student at Columbia’s
Journalism School. Ten years later,
she became the adjunct professor
for his social media lectures for
three years. Liz recalls those years:
“Sree’s lectures are so entertaining
that students don’t even realize the
sheer volume they’re learning until
long after it’s ended. His enthusiasm
for social media is contagious; it’s
impossible to hear him speak and
not feel inspired to use social media
for whatever your personal and
professional goals happen to be.
“I’ve seen students attend his social
media lectures multiple times,
traveling for hundreds of miles just
to hear him speak because they will
always pick up something new. He is
always up-to-date on the latest
trends, technologies and data. But
his real passion is for helping people.
He loves to ask for people’s twitter
handles so the group can follow
them, and then he’ll give an
individualized critique as to how the
student can do better. Sree’s passion
for helping and teaching is evident
in everything he does, but especially
in how his lectures would frequently
run an hour over their ending time
-- and even then he’d continue
the conversation with students
over pizza.”
Given the depth and breadth of
Sree’s involvement in the digital
world, one would expect that his
own 12-year-old twins would have
started using social media while they
were toddlers. Not so, he says. In