The Art of Curation

“We aren't constantly swimming in trauma. We're a joyful people. I want to make sure that the way we present the work is reflective of an expansive and nuanced understanding that we can hold pain but we can also hold a lot of love, joy and happiness.” — Kalyn Fay Barnoski, Philbrook Museum of Art 

When you’re a gatekeeper to a world that’s still unfolding for mainstream audiences, the pressure must be…intense. Kalyn Fay Barnoski, an interdisciplinary artist, musician, curator, and educator from Oklahoma, who is a Cherokee Nation enrollee and of Muscogee Creek descent, confirmed that the responsibility is a big one that they don’t take lightly. 

What does that feel like? How does one begin to curate from such a vast and varied universe? What happens when the job also means retelling history? And what's the importance of the land a museum sits on when thinking about curation?

Listen in as Kalyn shares details about how they approach such a sacred role, what they’re excited about — and what work still needs to be done — when they ponder how Indigenous culture is presented in museums in 2023.

Other highlights, inspiration and key learnings from the conversation:

• How their life as an artist impacts their approach as a curator
• What people don’t get right about native art and culture
• Honoring all parts of yourself as a curator
• Indigenous creatives more people should know
• Making space for creativity

👋 Say "hi" to Kalyn. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Kalyn’s favorite culture picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the world’s first social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more. 

“I'm really interested in curators who have done the work of healing through their deep curiosity and then are thinking about what they can curate to help others on their journey. I can't think of anything that's more worthwhile and more meaningful than extending that vulnerability of your own healing journey and trying to support others on theirs.” — Scott Shigeoka, author of “Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World”

In talking to curators about what it takes to be successful, one word that keeps coming up again and again is “curiosity.” Being curious — and pursuing curiosity with an open heart — is a superpower when it comes to curation. Turns out it’s also a superpower in life. 

Scott Shigeoka wrote the book on curiosity (coming out on Nov. 14) and says we’re all born with it. He adds that curiosity is like a muscle: with practice, any of us can get better at it, and when we do, the effects are profound. In this conversation, Scott shares his research, philosophy and practical exercises on how to become a more curious person and why it matters in the first place.

Other highlights, inspiration and key learnings:

• The definition of curiosity
• His DIVE model for building your curiosity muscle
• How curiosity fares in an AI world
• What curators should know about curiosity and how they can leverage it

👋 Say "hi" to Scott. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Scott’s own picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the world’s first social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more. 

“I just love creating these really hyper specific titles where, after reading these few words, you really have an understanding of the context of the playlist itself…It's crazy how being that specific makes people so compelled to actually listen because it feels relatable.” — Kasey Gelsomino, Kasey’s Playlist

You don’t have to press play to know what you’re going to get on a playlist called “Oat Milk Lattes in the Mountains.” It’s pretty clear from just the name that this playlist is serving up indie folk, cozy comfort, and granola vibes. It also has a huge following on Spotify. 

The mastermind behind this hyper-specific, contextual curation is Kasey Gelsomino. A record executive at Nettwerk in her 9-5, Kasey lives and breathes music in all hours of the day. You can see her personal tastes and curation style via her “Kasey’s Playlist” TikTok and Spotify channel, both of which have formidable followings. 

How does a music curator think about making the perfect playlist? How does one grow on Spotify and TikTok? And what do curators need to know to be successful on these platforms?

Other highlights, inspiration and key learnings from the conversation:

• How songs get featured on Kasey’s Playlist
• The ingredients of a great playlist
• The art of hyper-specific playlist naming
• Deconstructing her TikTok and Spotify success
• Qualities of the best music curators

👋 Say "hi" to Kasey. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Kasey’s own picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the world’s first social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more. 

“[Mixtapes were] the ultimate love letter because it’s like saying: ‘This is me looking at you and trying to understand where your taste lies and also imparting some of my taste. This is where we intersect.’ Maybe I can introduce you to new things while recognizing that I'm here in a context that I think you will appreciate.” — Hrishikesh Hirway, musician and podcaster

Being a musician led Hrishikesh Hirway on a quest to understand how songs are born, bit by bit. If he detected a cool sound or curious lyric, he wanted to know why it was there and how it was made. These excavations now form an impressive — and impeccably curated — body of work in his Song Exploder podcast and Netflix show. 

Hrishikesh is also the creator, (co-)host and producer of multiple podcasts, including “The West Wing Weekly” and “Home Cooking” with Samin Nosrat. His TED Talk on how to listen to people to connect more deeply with them and their stories is a must-watch, and The New York Times called him “a devoted connoisseur of the creative process.”

What does Hrishikesh think about curation, creativity and taste? What is the right balance between imposing your own likes and catering to an audience? Is human taste still a thing? And what did we lose out on when we stopped making mixtapes?! 

Other highlights, inspiration and key learnings from the conversation:

• Which songs get the Song Exploder treatment (and why)
• How he excavates an artist’s creative process
• How any of us can cultivate our listening skills
• What he’s learned about curation from being a musician and podcasting
• His criteria for good curators

👋 Say "hi" to Hrishikesh. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Hrishikesh’s own favorite culture picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the world’s first social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more. 

“It's not like you press a button and you get to see art. You have to go there to know there…You have to be in front of it, obviously, and then you have to have a relationship with it. You have to see it again and again. And sometimes it takes years.” — Dereck Mangus, Baltimore Museum of Art

In 2022, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) turned over the curation of one of its exhibits to 17 security guards on staff. Called “Guarding the Art,” the show was a wide-ranging display of individuals’ tastes and the art that spoke to them. It was a radical idea that generated media attention and inspired other shows like it. 

And why not? Museum guards spend hours and hours with the artifacts they watch over, so of course they’re going to have opinions about such things. It was thrilling to get to know two of those guards, Dereck Mangus and Jess Bither, and learn about their deep appreciation for art and how they approached curating the BMA show. 

Highlights, inspiration and key learnings from the conversation:

• The life of a museum security guard
• Which pieces they picked for “Guarding the Art” and why
• How to curate a group show with other 15 other people
• How participating in “Guarding the Art” changed them
• What they learned about the art of curation from this experience

👋 Say "hi" to Dereck and Jess. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Dereck’s and Jess’s own favorite culture picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the world’s first social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more. 

“The internet demands that everyone be a kind of curator: you're a curator of your own Instagram, of your opinions on Twitter, of what playlists you listen to on Spotify. There's a lot of curation going on but it's more in the sense of selecting between stuff. Curation, to me, is a much more deep-seated act that has more to do with the caretaking of culture, building context, and creating histories that might be overlooked.” — Kyle Chayka, Author, “Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture”

If you’ve heard of things like Instagram face or the Brooklyn coffee shop effect, you know the tremendous power algorithms have in shaping our lives. Journalist Kyle Chayka has been tracking this phenomenon for years and has concluded that algorithmically mediated digital platforms are not making our experiences better. In fact, he says, they are flattening our culture. 

You don’t have to wait for his book, “Filterworld,” to come out in January 2024 to explore how this “algorithmification” of our social feeds is having profound effects on our media, communication, physical spaces, aesthetic preferences, consumer habits, and more. 

Highlights, inspiration and key learnings from the conversation:

• How algorithms can be simultaneously flattening and expanding culture
• How to detox from algorithms
• What makes a human curator worth following (and if journalists have a leg up)
• The influencer backlash and de-influencing trend
• How generative AI is impacting culture

👋 Say "hi" to Kyle. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Kyle’s own favorite culture picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the world’s first social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more. 

“Good writing is simple writing. I think that goes for the curation part, as well. I will try and strip myself from the equation as much as possible. You’re like a spider with your tentacles out everywhere, looking and pulling in things from different reader recommendations, dashboards and things you know about the company, and trying to spin it into something really interesting.” — Hannah Ray, Substack 

The firehose of great things to read has only become more overwhelming since Substack came on the scene in 2017. The platform is home to so many excellent newsletters on topics like the history behind today’s politics, inspiring images and ideas, music and culture, and even beloved pets. As of May 2023, Axios reported over 17,000 writers earning money there, with the top 10 making more than $25 million annually.

With so many editorial options, it’s helpful to have a guide to help you find the worthy stuff. Inside of Substack, that’s Hannah Ray, Storytelling Lead. Hannah’s job is to find and elevate amazing writers, especially the ones who might not naturally toot their own horns. Hannah brings experience from The Guardian and Instagram to the role.

Other highlights, inspiration and key learnings from the conversation:

• How Hannah approaches curating newsletters for Substack
• Tools she uses to discover writers
• Her advice for how writers can grow and get featured
• Curation guardrails at Substack
• Why having an editorial background can serve in-house curators

👋 Say "hi" to Hannah. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Hannah’s own favorite culture picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the world’s first social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more. 

“Back in the day, curation was mostly a job in museums and art galleries. It took the Spotifys, Twitters and Netflixes of the world to really popularize curation as a valid business need. I’m proud to say that we were amongst the first ones to identify the business need for that discipline.” — Robyn Kerkhof, Blinkist 

Curation has long moved out of the ivory tower of the art world. These days, anyone with taste and the will can be a curator. Sometimes curation is automated with a “human in the loop” providing oversight. Sometimes there’s no oversight at all. 

However the sausage is made, the goal is usually to get the right content to the right person at the right time. When you make connections like this, the results are powerful.

Robyn Kerkhof, the Director of Content Discovery at Blinkist, knew that a curation function could impact her company’s bottom line, so she made the case for it internally. How did she do it? How did she measure success? And what did she learn along the way?

Other highlights, inspiration and key learnings:

• The art of curation at Blinkist
• Mixing AI and human talents
• Balancing personal taste when curating for a brand
• The qualities of the most effective curators
• Robyn’s culture picks

👋 Say "hi" to Robyn. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Robyn’s own favorite culture picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the world’s first social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more

.

“The problem is more to find what one wants to curate because, well, you have to find your way…[Mastodon] is a great place because you have incredible choice and a rich and creative crowd out there.” — Sabine Stoye, Mastodon art and photography curator

You may have heard about a Twitter alternative called Mastodon. The service is a decentralized social network made up of independent servers organized around specific themes, topics or interests. It’s one of the largest platforms in the Fediverse — a space that Flipboard cares deeply about and sees as pivotal to the future of social media.

What’s it like being a curator in this new world? Ask @ViewFinderCurator, aka Sabine Stoye. A linguist with a passion for the arts, Sabine shares why she’s made her curatorial home on Mastodon and what she looks for when boosting artists and photographers on the platform. 

Other highlights, inspiration and key learnings:

• The Fediverse, explained
• How she thinks about curating on Mastodon
• Juggling identities as a curator
• Why the Fediverse is a good place for curators
• Sabine’s culture picks

👋 Say "hi" to Sabine. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Sabine’s own favorite newsletters and his curated picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the world’s first social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more. 

“In the history of human culture, we've never had a time that’s been better for learning about photography. There are images everywhere, and hopefully somebody like me can help you see some of the good stuff.” — Andy Adams, FlakPhoto Projects

In an era flooded with so much photography, usually without context, it’s a relief to have Andy Adams as a guide. Based in Madison, WI, Andy is the founder, curator and director of FlakPhoto Projects, a hub focused on conversations about photography and visual culture. Andy’s built a formidable community of people who revel in his curation of images and ideas. 

In this episode, you’ll learn about the art of curating imagery in 2023 and how the art of seeing can be a form of meditation.

Other highlights, inspiration and key learnings:

• What he looks for as a photography curator
• Andy’s curatorial “tech stack”
• How he builds community as a curator
• The impact of AI on photography curation
• How each of us can become more observant
• Andy’s favorite photography books and podcasts

👋 Say "hi" to Andy. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Andy's own favorite newsletters and his curated picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the world's first social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more

.

“If you're a curator in a museum, you're thinking about the thousands or millions of people that are coming through your space, not just your own personal taste. That's [also] important when doing a list. I have things that I love that I drink, but if I'm putting a list together, it's really important to think about all the people that are coming through the door.” — Nadine Brown, Sommelier and Wine Writer

The world of wine can be overwhelming. There is so much choice! Thank goodness for sommeliers, who matchmake our taste buds and meals to the perfect bottle. That pairing of food and wine, when done right, is a kind of alchemy itself. 

Being a sommelier means delivering the right bottle to the right person at the right time. It requires immense knowledge, a knack for really listening to what people want, and then delivering something that creates an experience that is bigger than the sum of its parts.

That’s just some of what can be learned from Nadine Brown, a sommelier and wine writer and judge who was also the wine director for the Charlie Palmer Steak House in Washington, DC, where she managed a 4,000-bottle list and more than a few fancy customers. 

Nadine says she thrives in the chaos of restaurants and takes great joy in providing top-notch recommendations and hospitality. It was a pleasure uncovering more about the business of curating wine for individuals and as part of an institution. 

Highlights, inspiration and key learnings:

• What is unique about curating wine
• How to think about creating a wine list from scratch
• How to pick the right bottle for the right person
• How any of us can improve our wine knowledge
• What most people don’t understand about wines
• Which wine pairs best with tacos

👋 Say "hi" to Nadine. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Nadine’s own curated picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the popular social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more.

“‘Disability aesthetics’ is this term that is really loose but points to where we can find disability as the space that informs an artistic practice. When I say ‘disability arts’ or ‘disabled artistry,’ it’s [referring to] artists who have an experience of disability or illness and use that as a space that is generative and that is not hidden from the practice.” — Ezra Benus, artist, educator, and curator 

The pandemic helped some people understand what it’s like to fear for one’s health daily. But for people living with a disability or chronic illness, the feeling is nothing new. 

Just think about the arts. Imagine being physically disabled and going to a crowded art show with nowhere to sit, or trying to create large-scale art when your movement is limited. These are things non-disabled people might take for granted but artist/curator Ezra Benus does not. 

Ezra is half of Brothers Sick, a sibling collaborative with his brother, Noah, who is also a disabled artist. (They currently have their largest commission for an exhibition, Kingdom of the Ill, at Museion in Bolzano, Italy.) Ezra is also an artist in residence at BRIC and works at United States Artists, where he helped to build and still manages the Disability Futures Fellowship, the first and largest unrestricted award to support disabled creatives in the country. 

Ezra brings a unique perspective to the podcast as he considers disability and illness as part of a curatorial philosophy and practice. 

Highlights, inspiration and key learnings:

• Focusing on disabled art, artists and narratives
• The definition of “disability aesthetics” 
• How the art world could be more accessible
• What other curators can take away from disabled ones
• Disabled artists more people should know

👋 Say "hi" to Ezra. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Ezra’s own curated artist picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the popular social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more.

“When you focus on the research, educating, explaining and pulling things together, and then communicating that back in an easy way, this idea of bias often does not come up. I know that sounds counterintuitive. But it’s really about placing focus on how we explain [the news]. We don’t really worry about [what each side says]. We put our focus on contextual framing, trying to be quantitative, and communicating in a useful way.” — Drew Steigerwald, Co-founder 1440 

In today’s media landscape, understanding what’s happening in the world is a tricky business. It’s a major understatement that you can’t always trust what you see online. 

Drew Steigerwald is hyperaware of the hazards that can befall news consumers. He and his co-founder Tim Huelskamp started the 1440 newsletter to provide a straightforward, sober view of the day’s headlines, curated from 100+ sources into a five-minute read. 

Named for the year the printing press was invented (and because there are 1440 minutes in a day), 1440 takes great pride in its “just the facts” approach. But we all know that this is easier said than done. Drew joins us to unpack what it means to him to stay unbiased in a world full of opinion, hype and misinformation.

Highlights, inspiration and key learnings:

• Producing 1440 from start to finish
• How to think about sources and which ones to trust
• How to manage an information firehose
• Is it really possible to be “unbiased”?
• Keeping positive in the face of depressing headlines

👋 Say "hi" to Drew. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Drew’s own favorite newsletters and curated picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the popular social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more. 

“A lot of the curation and knowledge management is happening in single-player tools. It'd be a lot more powerful to combine the richness and the utility of all these tools with a more networked discovery and communal approach to building knowledge.” — Sari Azout

When we talk about curation, the first question that usually pops to mind is: What is the thing being curated? Could be information, music, art, sneakers, NFTs and on and on.

Startupy World founder Sari Azout has another viewpoint. She posits that in conditions of extreme information abundance, like we are experiencing today, what is being curated isn’t as important as how those things are discovered, contextualized and shared. 

Sari is adamant that we need more choice around how we discover content. She advocates for going beyond the feed with systems that focus on utility over entertainment and could help to surface content that makes our souls sing. (Gems that might be overlooked or not gamed to death.)

Highlights, inspiration and key learnings:

• A “controversial” take on curation
• Pros and cons of democratized tastemaking
• What even is good taste?
• Who thrives in the curator economy?
• Curators and monetization

👋 Say "hi" to Sari. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Sari’s own curated culture picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the popular social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more. 

“Unlike the traditional definition of collecting, where you just accumulate, sneaker collecting is to accumulate and wear. The finality of collecting the art is to style it, to make it yours. For me, it's not just about the sneaker. It's about the whole fashion and the whole fit. It's about the whole piece that I'm putting out there while highlighting the shoe.” — Jixie Gonzalez, Curvy Kicks 

Sneakers. They’re everywhere! 

But for Jasmine “Jixie” Gonzalez, sneakers are more than just footwear. Not only is she the curator of a 30-year collection of over 1,000 kicks, she also describes sneakers as “medicinal.” As a plus-size woman who felt that “fashion never loved me back,” Jixie says sneakers became a language to exert her voice, express her style, and build an uplifting community of other women who love this kind of shoe. 

Jixie’s passion for sneakers and their transformative power is infectious. Highlights, inspiration and key learnings: 

• Difference between collecting and curating sneakers
• Finding and acquiring sneakers
• How to style sneakers
• How being plus-size influences her as a curator
• Women and sneaker culture 
• Other sneaker collectors to know

👋 Say "hi" to Jixie. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Jixie’s own curated culture picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the popular social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more. 

“There's no such thing as an unbiased algorithm, and some companies have probably admitted that sooner than others. But once you do admit it, the only rational step you can take is to try to learn as much as you can about the ways that algorithms can reflect our biases, both positive and negative, and what we can do to tune them so that they are running in line with the principles and standards that we are agreeing to at the outset.” — David Smydra, Twitter

Don’t let the Musk circus detract from the fact that there are good people doing good work at Twitter — people who are behind the scenes trying to build a quality experience and live up to a brand’s promise and values.

One of those people is David Smydra, the Head of Human in the Loop (HITL) Curation at the social network. If you’re not familiar with the term, HITL refers to the practice of uniting human judgment and machine intelligence to create effective algorithms. “It really enhances how our customers understand all those conversations that are only on Twitter,” he explains. 

David is amazing at illuminating concepts that are often hidden and easy to take for granted. Highlights, inspiration and key learnings: 

• How human curators can improve digital products
• What the machines can never take from us
• The role of taste and individualism in all of this
• Hiring for HITL curation
• The pendulum swings back to hands-on curation

👋 Say "hi" to David. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus David’s own curated culture picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the popular social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more. 

“Curation is a specific mode of creativity that's more based in analogical thinking and juxtaposition and categorization. The best curators are critics too … It's not enough to be a great subject matter expert. You also have to have a deep understanding of the spheres of art, aesthetics, commerce and technology, and be someone who's constantly thinking about those things through multiple lenses.” — Meg Tarquinio, PhD

If you use Spotify, you know that the platform is a delightful mixture of human and algorithmic curation. There’s even a term for this: “algotorial.” Part editorial and part algorithmic, this approach combines the best of both worlds to create addictive listening experiences. 

But try to look under the hood, and it’s often hard to tell what’s really going on. That’s why it was thrilling to find Spotify’s former Head of Curation Strategy, Meg Tarquinio, to talk about the craft of curation. 

Meg speaks thoughtfully as a curation practitioner, strategist, and manager, as well as an academic who thinks deeply about these things. 

Highlights, inspiration and key learnings: 

• The responsibility of curation and the ‘anxiety of influence’
• Spotify playlists and the algotorial approach
• Human vs algorithmic curation, and the myth of taste
• Adapting to new curation models and landscapes
• Why working on a tarmac is a terrific job for a grad student

👋 Say "hi" to Meg. 
🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Meg’s own curated culture picks.
➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the popular social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more.

“For several years now, I have just kind of felt like I'm not seeing what I really want to see in my feed, despite following friends and strangers whose taste and opinions I care about…The algorithm doesn't really get it. The big motivation for me is: humans just do stuff better. Some things just can't be automated.” — Ann Friedman

The algorithm doesn’t know that you can’t be put in a box. That your curiosity knows no bounds. That you don’t want to exist in a filter bubble.

That feeling drove journalist/author Ann Friedman to create her own newsletter, “The Ann Friedman Weekly.” This is a newsletter that I drop everything to read every Friday morning when it hits my inbox, and 55,000 fellow subscribers no doubt agree. In this interview, Ann unpacks how she makes it and reveals herself to be an incredibly kind and generous curator in the process. 

Highlights, inspiration and key learnings in this episode:

• Curating “The Ann Friedman Weekly” from A-Z
• Considering the role of technology
• How journalistic skills help curators
• Curation ethics
• Running a fellowship program

👋 Say "hi" to Ann. 

🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Ann’s own favorite newsletters and her curated culture picks.

➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the popular social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more. 

“The beauty of NFTs and Web 3 is that now it's global, where you have a whole gallery in your phone or laptop. You can be your own curator without having all the background and connections that are typically in the traditional art space…Anyone can curate if they have that passion and that love for creativity and art.” — Lex Marcano, NFT Girl

With all the Web3 hype and grim headlines about the “crypto winter” we’re still in, it’s impossible to escape conversations about NFTs. The market feels chaotic because it is.  

Curation is one way to impose order in a volatile landscape, and anyone can play the game. In fact, there’s never been more of a need for guides to hold our hands.

Lex Marcano, aka NFT Girl, is one of those people. She’s an early mover into NFT curation and has emerged as one of the premier voices in the space. 

An adept community builder, Lex is doing her bit to make Web3 a saner place and seems like she’s having a lot of fun while she’s at it — naysayers be damned!

Highlights, inspiration and key learnings in this episode:

• Curating gems in a crowded space
• Navigating the bear market
• Curating NFTs for physical locations
• Creating bridges to the LatinX community
• Community building in Web3

👋 Say "hi" to Lex. 

🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Lex’s curated culture picks.

➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the popular social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more.

“When you host a lightweight cocktail party, you now have a way to go through life, collecting these new and interesting people and bringing them into your world…You use these parties as an audition to see who you would like to become better friends with.” — Nick Gray, creator of “The 2-Hour Cocktail Party”

Whether you’re new to a place or getting on in your years, it can feel increasingly hard to make friends. But Nick Gray has devised a blueprint to change that, outlined step-by-step in his book, “The 2-Hour Cocktail Party.”

Nick’s essentially created a system that’s like an audition for who gets to be your friend. It’s a way to turn even introverts into super connectors. And it's proof that when you stop being too cool to care, you’ll start connecting with people for real. 

At the heart of Nick’s formula is the art of curating who gets to be invited to these highly structured IRL events. In this episode, Nick deconstructs his approach to curating people for parties with solid results. It’s a great one for anyone who wants to go from being a party pooper to a party planner.

Highlights, inspiration and key learnings: 

• Nick’s 2-hour cocktail party formula (N.I.C.K.) in a nutshell
• Curating people for chemistry
• The importance of name tags and icebreakers
• Curating conversations, especially in “the awkward zone”
• Effectively maintaining the ties you’ve cultivated

👋 Say "hi" to Nick. 

🔎 Browse the companion Storyboard to get the episode, plus Nick’s curated culture picks and more about his newsletter and book.

➕ This podcast was created by Flipboard, the popular social magazine, where enthusiasts are curating stories they recommend across thousands of interests. Learn more.