 In April 2008, Johnson presented testimony to the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet on the nature and state of virtual worlds.In 2009, Johnson helped the NMC and the Edward and Betty Marcus Foundation formalize their longstanding collaboration in support of the visual arts in Texas with the launch of the Edward and Betty Marcus Institute for Digital Education in the Arts (MIDEA), and served as its founding director.An outgrowth of the earlier Digital Education Project for Texas Art Museums, MIDEA built on that four-year systemic effort to increase the capacity of museums across Texas and beyond to use new media to tell compelling stories about art and their collections.