Hack the Bureaucracy : MuseumNext 2018 London
Hack the Bureaucracy ( #MuseumNext 2018) Note: These are my notes from my MuseumNext London 2018. I presented with Paul Bowers, so many of these come out of our shared conversations. I only included my parts of the talk in this write-up. Museum workers are doing amazing work. Millions of objects are in care for …
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Getting the “Right” Amount of Content
This graphic illustrates the relationship between the museum and visitors content desires. Notice there is an overlap as well as places where the two groups diverge. Getting the right amount of content is challenging. Firstly, content costs money and time. There is the writer, the researcher, and the editor–those people are all over-worked and underpaid. Content …
The Sweet Spot for Interpretation & Questions for the Whole Team
The ideal interpretive approach is about blending staff ideas with visitor insights. First and foremost, the team should consider and understand what visitors want from your organization using formal evaluation. Without this information, your organization is working blind. With that research in hand, the team needs to spend some time working together dealing with …
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The Sweet-Spot in Interpretive Approach & the Politics of Mounting Installations
Helping visitors engage in collections is a primary concern for museums. Museum professionals often partner with various vendors, consultants, and partners to do this work, for example commissioning firms to develop interactives for exhibitions. Mounting these installations can be exhausting and rife with interpersonal challenges. Visitors walking into spaces, ideally, have no idea how …
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Focusing on Self-Care is Good for Business
I had the pleasure of doing the keynote talk for the Pennsylvania Museums Association conference in April, 2018. Below is a summary of my remarks. Summary: We all need to take care of ourselves As managers, you particularly need to take care of yourself You also need to advocate for your staff and to help …
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Visitor-Centered means Object-Centered
Over the last few years, there have been some heated debates behind the scenes of museum education offices about the ways that visitors should be engaged. Many directors have changed the department moniker from education to learning or interpretation. This change could be seen as a transformation from older methodologies to more sophisticated forms of …
Guiding Questions to Think about Bias in Museums (by functional area)
At AAM 2018, there was a wonderful panel led by Cinnamon Catlin-Legutko about Decolonization. While all the speakers were wonderful, I was particularly struck by Jaclyn Roessel’s remarks about indigenizing museums as an act of transforming the current power structure. Overall, the conversation underscored the importance of systematic and cataclysmic change in transforming the colonialism inherent …
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#AAM2018 Recap: Language, Collaboration, and Action
The Annual American Alliance Conference 2018 was hosted in toasty Phoenix. Many participants mentioned that this conference felt like a year to consider the basics. Rather than big bang projects, many presentations seemed to focus on maintenance, improvement, and thoughtfulness. As part of this introspection, many presentations put a fine focus on understanding the …
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6 Tips for Making the Most of a Conference #AAM2018
Conferences are a huge expenditure of time and money. They are held in huge, impersonal buildings, peopled by hundreds and hundreds of unfamiliar people. The pressure to do conference right can feel overwhelming. But, first and foremost, there is no one “right” way do attending conferences. You need to find a good balance between engaging …
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Emotions and Customer Experience
Customer/ Visitor Experience basically encompasses connection your visitor has with your organization from the signs on the street to the moments in the galleries. CX overarches both onsite and offsite; physical and digital. Experience is, therefore, a huge concept. As with all large concepts, considering constituent aspects. Touchpoints: The concrete elements that express the experience …