Josiah Hobson

As a young man I found myself in the teeth of what seemed a great dichotomy at the time — whether to be creative or technical. I chose engineering school over art school, and ended up supporting myself at Cooper Union by writing software during the “business process re-engineering” push of the early 1990s. While I was at Cooper, the internet was invented and Mosaic was released, and I suddenly glimpsed a world where creativity and technical ability could support one another. So I happily re-embraced my creative side, and have inhabited that intersection ever since.

Early in my career I led the development team for an internet startup backed by Ed Schlossberg, housed inside the offices of ESI Design. That led to the other key intersection of my career: a couple of colleagues and I went on to found a digital agency focused on physical installations — what you’d now call an experiential agency, though that term hadn’t been invented yet.

At the outset, Operand worked mostly in museums and cultural institutions. After almost a decade, the agency was absorbed into a larger shop, and I spent the subsequent decade and a half focused mostly on experiential marketing for brands. That gave me a different perspective on experiential media strategy, and a skillset built for faster, sometimes more chaotic productions.

In 2023 I was recruited by G&A to build out a large museum media program and help develop their in-house media capability. I now lead media strategy from within G&A’s Strategy & Consulting group — helping museums and other clients identify where media can improve the experience for the people moving through a space, and evaluate where that investment fits within their business model and governance.

Interactive storydoing versus passive storytelling.

“Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I will understand.”

— Confucius