Exhibition Cocktails or Why Museums Need User Experience Designers
I admit that I am biased. I am a trained User Experience Designer. But, you don’t have to has an M.S. to know that visitors come to museums for experiences. Now, we could get into a debate about the type of experience. Sitting quietly in a gallery is a type of experience. We often think …
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On Objectivity & What Museums Can Learn from News Organizations
Recently, Koven Smith retweeted an article from the American Alliance of Museums that unpacked the contention that museums are one of the most trusted sources of knowledge. An overwhelming number of respondents (87%) felt that museums were “one of the most trustworthy sources of objective information.” As the AAM article lays out, visitors did not …
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5 Steps to Better Community Conversations
Community conversations can be instrumental in the growth of an organization. However, they can also be an organizations down fall. These 5 steps can help anyone participating in an conversation, particularly those in power positions or from an organizations. Honor People’s Perception We all filter the world through our experiences. Therefore, everyone’s perception of reality …
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Intersectionality & Museums
Intersectionality, coined in 1989 by legal historian Kimberlé Crenshaw, highlights the fact that the many factors of being human, including race, gender, and religion, overlap in important ways. These points of overlap, or intersection, are often positions of oppression. Think of race and gender. In American society, the position of power in race is whiteness …
Museums and the Ally Position
On May 31, 2017, a noose was found in the National Museum of African American for History and Culture. Previously, another similar device was found in a tree outside the Hirshhorn. Both institutions are part of the Smithsonian, our national museum system whose collections are part of our national holdings. These institutions collect and preserve our collective …
Bias in Data Analysis #musedata #musetech #data #bias
This is the second in a series of posts about confronting bias. These #longreads use narrative to help bring up bias in an accessible manner. As Director of the Art Museum of New South Overthere, you are constantly being asked to make decisions based on data. Sure, you had your last math class in 10th grade, …
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5 Big Ideas from #GoogleIO For Museums to Note #IO17 #MuseTech
Google I/O, that glistening moment when developers galore descend up San Francisco to hear prognostications, occurred mid-May. The keynote speech offered some insight into Google’s vision on the next decade. Admittedly, GoogleIO 2017 is an exercise in marketing synergy and willing suspension of disbelief. The keynote had the feel of equal parts TED-talk, Home Shopping …
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Creative Self-Actualization #selfcaresunday #selfcare
We are on a giant rock that whizzes through space without a pilot. How is that for a lack of control? Well, for most of us, the spinning of the globe doesn’t even factor in our control issues. The reason might be that we don’t even think about it. The other thing is that it …
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Test Your Understanding of Bias in Decision-Making #implicitbias #confrontbias
Congratulations! You’re the new director of the art museum of New South Overthere. It’s a cash poor institution with a great collection of little known masters of underwater basket weaving, lantern slides, zeppelin models, and lamp glass. Your first few months are exhilarating but also exhausting. You make some missteps. Its natural. But, the …
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#SelfCare : What to do When Your Mind is Full?
There are times when you mind is super full. I feel like this after I read a particularly heady book or when I am at a conference. The book and the conference are similar in that you are immersed in a fairly cohesive set of ideas. They are different in that a book is usually …
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