Exhibit Inspiration: Huey the Color Copying Chameleon Lamp

Since there are four kids at our house (my wife might argue that there are really five kids, but I digress ...) we pretty much corner the market on toys, gizmos, and gadgets at this time of year.

A great sciencey toy that my 6 year old daughter Caroline received was "Huey the Color Copying Chameleon."  Huey is a slightly squishy lamp of sorts that is internally lit by several LEDs of various colors.  But the cool thing is that on the underside of the toy are two white LEDs that coordinate with an optical sensor to determine the color of whatever Huey is placed upon. The sensor assembly then matches this color by adjusting the shade of numerous multi-color LED's embedded in the body of the chameleon.  It is super cool, as you can see from the video below:



I'm already thinking about ways to play around with this toy with museum visitors --- perhaps as a fun way to discuss color and color sensing? Or as a new mascot for an art museum?

If you'd like to latch onto your very own "Huey" they are in stock via Amazon.

Have fun!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Your New Year's (ExhibitFiles) Resolution

I normally hate the idea of New Year's resolutions.  Why wait until January to start making improvements? 

But here are two easy resolutions for museum folks to make (and keep!) as the yearly calendar transition approaches:  1) Join ExhibitFiles 2) Post something on ExhibitFiles.

What is ExhibitFiles you ask?  ExhibitFiles is a website (funded by the National Science Foundation) for museum professionals (and aspiring museum professionals) from around the world to post Reviews of exhibits they've seen, or to post Case Studies of exhibition projects they have been involved with.  (There's even a category called "Bits" that lets you quickly post bite-sized observations about a particular exhibit element or feature you may have seen.)

So what are you waiting for?  Click on over to the ExhibitFiles website now.  (It's a lot easier than resolving to lose ten pounds!)

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

What One Piece of Advice Would You Give to an Aspiring Museum Professional?

Lucky me! I'll be teaching the Exhibition Development and Evaluation course at Bank Street College starting in January, and I'd like to tap into the "wisdom of the crowd."

Think back to the start of your museum career --- what do you wish you knew then, that you know now?
 
Leave the best piece(s) of advice that I can share with my class of aspiring museum professionals in the "Comments" section below.

Thanks!

A "Post Exhibition" Museum?

What if your museum stopped making exhibitions?  

This is, in only some ways, a rhetorical question since many museums have lost the internal capacity to actually develop, design, prototype, and fabricate their own exhibit components and exhibitions.  Worse yet, some museums were intentionally designed (architecturally or managerially) to never have any internal capacity to create (or perhaps more importantly, repair or improve) their exhibitions.

But leaving the notions and importance of internal capacity aside, are traditional conceptions of exhibitions actually holding museums back from expanding their reach to younger, non-white audiences, and people who wouldn't even normally consider visiting a museum at all?  (Check out the work of Reach Advisors to examine the unsettling demographic trends around traditional museum visitors and visitation.)

If the compelling value that museums offer are the dynamic duo of "stories and stuff" how can we repackage narrative formats and object presentations in ways that move past parades of casework and frames in Art and History Museums, side shows of phenomena or relics in Science Centers and Natural History Museums, or candy-colored collections of miniature structures (or heaven forfend grocery stores!) in Children's Museums?

I'm not suggesting that museums give up objects or narrative, just the way they combine and "package" those elements.  In the short attention span world of Twitter and the post economic crash world of, well, now,  does it really still make sense to spend several years and several million dollars to mount a major exhibition that will likely remain largely unchanged for the length of its run?

I'd say no, but what do you say?   Where are the museums (or non-museums) that are presenting narrative and physical objects in "post exhibition" ways?

"Object Theatres" in museums (especially at Science North in Canada) were a stab at this, and "moving museums" like Maria Mortati's San Francisco Mobile Museum project are focusing on people and their stories without a lot of the infrastructure of traditional museum projects.

Last, but not least, are there viable digital tools that can reconcile and bridge virtual worlds and objects, especially the authentic objects that still seem to be an essential part of the museum experience?  (Rather than degenerating into a discussion of "shiny new toys." --->  Oh! oh! let's buy ten iPads and figure out how we can use them in the museum!)

Lots of questions and ideas buzzing around my head!  Please help me gather these woolly thoughts into a more cohesive tapestry of "post exhibition" ideas by adding your own thoughts or examples into the "Comments" Section below so I can do a follow-up posting or article that can pull more of these ideas about "post exhibition" museums together.

Thanks!

Ponoko + Google SketchUp = Your Personal Design Factory!

The fine folks at Ponoko (the company that creates real stuff from your digital designs) have a contest going with the equally fine folks from Google SketchUp.

The aim of the contest is to create "how-tos" or "Instructables" that show how you can use your Google SketchUp designs to create real stuff using Ponoko's tools.  (Ponoko basically lets you run your own personal factory to fabricate your digital designs into a variety of physical materials and finishes.)

You can find out more about the contest here.  But hurry! The entry deadline is December 17th.

Even if you don't enter the contest, it is worthwhile for any museum maker or designer to check out both Ponoko and Google SketchUp.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

A Bulgarian (Museum) Revolution

What would you do if you lived in a country that had no Children's Museums or Science Centers?

That's currently the state of affairs in Bulgaria.  Fortunately for the Bulgarian Museum community, and Bulgarian museum visitors in particular, a determined and resourceful young woman named Vessela Gertcheva is working to change all that.  In fact, Vessela and her colleagues in the museum and cultural sectors are on the brink of a true Bulgarian Museum Revolution.

I just returned from a trip to Bulgaria where I was part of a three-person consulting team (myself, Deborah Edward, and Sally Yerkovich) funded by the America for Bulgaria Foundation, under the direction of the New Bulgarian University, to observe and provide advice on the pilot project designed to develop five "Children's Corners" (really small interactive exhibition areas designed to introduce children and family groups to hands-on exhibits) into five different museums around Bulgaria.

Vessela is spearheading the "Children's Corners" project as a way to build public awareness for the possibilities of interactive learning spaces in Bulgaria, and to ultimately pave the way for a free-standing Bulgarian Children's Museum there.  In this blog posting, I'll share some of the experiences of my trip to Bulgaria, as well as some of the museum and exhibit ideas I came away with.

But first, a little background.  Everyone I told about my trip before I actually left for Bulgaria was surprised and/or fascinated by my destination.  But most people (including myself, originally) weren't really sure where Bulgaria was located.  So, here's a map:

Bulgaria is bordered to the south by Greece and Turkey, to the west by Macedonia, to the north by Romania, and to the east by the Black Sea.  My sense of central Sofia, the capital, was that there were a few beautiful buildings surrounded by much blocky, oppressive architecture reflective of the Soviet-dominated, totalitarian past of Bulgaria.  This is changing since Bulgaria's entry into the European Union, but slowly.

Similarly, the Bulgarian museums we visited were decidedly "old school."  Large buildings whose interiors were dominated by rows and floors of artifacts and objects in glass cases (or as our Bulgarian hosts charmingly described them, "cages.")  While many of these traditional Bulgarian museums provided interesting staffed programs (such as weekend bazaars or the popular annual "European Bat Night" at the National Museum of Natural History) museum staff have become increasingly interested in exploring ways for integrating interactive exhibit areas geared toward children and families into their museums.

The first of the five Children's Corners opened in September 2010 at the Regional Museum of History in Blagoevgrad, in the southwestern part of Bulgaria.  Having seen the finished gallery, I am very impressed and think that the Blagoevgrad exhibition raises the bar high for the succeeding four galleries in this project to match.  (You can read my entire review and see a batch of pictures from the Blagoevgrad installation by clicking over to the ExhibiFiles website.) 

I also learned a new exhibit trick from our Bulgarian museum colleagues: their animal track stamping component makes use of "Moon Sand" in the central stamping area, which makes for sharper track impressions as well as limiting some degree of the messiness associated with traditional loose sand.

In visiting the other museum sites that will be creating their own Children's Corners, and by meeting with their directors and curatorial staff, I was struck by several things:

• It is exceedingly difficult to imagine the possibilities or develop interactive exhibit ideas if neither you, nor your visitors, have directly experienced a hands-on gallery or museum.  This is a key part of both the challenge, and the revolution, inherent in the Children's Corner project.  Fortunately, the completed gallery in Blagoevgrad is already serving as a model and benchmark to Bulgarian museum professionals and visitors alike.

• Prototyping and testing your ideas is the most effective way to achieve good results.  There was a little bit of the tendency in Bulgaria (as there is in the U.S. and elsewhere in the museum world) to want to design and develop the interactive children's exhibitions inside meeting rooms with a quorum of experts.  Fortunately, by the end of our trip to Bulgaria, our hosts seemed to be warming up to the notion of using prototyping as a way to answer exhibit design and development questions.

• Failure IS an option.  As I often say to my kids, "It's o.k. to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them, and don't keep repeating the same mistakes over and over."   There is an enormous degree of professional pride and pressure at stake for the Bulgarian Children's Corner project sites --- which might make some people decide to stick with very safe exhibit design and development choices.   Fortunately, the vast majority of project partners we came in contact with seem to realize that this is a time and opportunity that favors choices that may be difficult and risky.

We really are witnessing the start of a truly exciting museum revolution in Bulgaria, and I can't wait to see what happens next!  (Feel free to contact me with question or to request addition details about my work in Bulgaria.)



Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Stretch Your Exhibit Dollars with the Exhibits Exchange Group

Here's a chance to stretch your exhibit dollars:

Join the free "Exhibits Exchange" Google Group.

The Exhibits Exchange Group is a place to find, post, sell, barter, or exchange "Used but Usable" exhibit elements.  Check out a new batch of postings placed by Kathy Krafft from the Sciencenter in Ithaca, NY.

Please let friends and colleagues know about the group --- the more group members, and the more postings of "used but usable" exhibits, the better the entire experience will be for everyone!

Feel free to contact me if you have questions about the group.



Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

On the Road to Sofia

I'm off to Bulgaria to work with museum folks under the auspices of the New Bulgarian University and the Ministry of Culture.  We will work on ways to design and develop new exhibits and experiences that will be more engaging and interesting for children and family audiences inside existing Bulgarian museums.

I'm really looking forward to the new things I will learn from our Bulgarian museum exhibit design colleagues!

I hope to be able to post pictures and updates while I am in Bulgaria, but in the meantime I thought I would commend to your attention this previous ExhibiTricks post  --- an interview I had with Harry White --- to give a European perspective on the museum biz.

Harry has recently shifted his work from Techniquest in Wales to the @Bristol museum, but the insights and responses he offers to my interview questions still offer great food for thought.

Click over to the interview now, and stay tuned for the Bulgarian updates!



Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Let Me Give You A FREE Exhibit!

Recently my pal Clifford Wagner and I "liberated" a collection of retired (but perfectly functional) exhibits from a storage warehouse and decided to completely restore and refurbish them.  To our delight we were able to find new museum homes for every exhibit, except one --- The Poetry Machine (as seen in the embedded video at the top of this posting or here on YouTube.) It's a really great exhibit, so I'd like to find a new museum home for The Poetry Machine, too.

Alright, alright, you say, "But what about the FREE exhibit?"

Here's the deal:  In an effort to help museums stretch their dollars in these tough economic times, I've again teamed up with gizmologist extraordinaire Mr. Wagner to offer The Poetry Machine, for free, to the next museum that rents his "Contraptions A to Z" traveling exhibition (which itself contains a version of the Poetry Machine.) If you make the deal through this special ExhibiTricks offer we'll also knock 5% off the normal rental fee for "Contraptions."

That's it. That's the deal. If you're a museum that rents traveling exhibits, here's an opportunity to get a great traveling exhibition packed with fun and engaging interactives at a discount, AND add a new (well, completely refurbished) interactive exhibit component to your museum's permanent collection.

If you're interested, contact me, or contact Clifford, to sort out the details --- make sure to mention this ExhibiTricks posting when you do contact either of us. 

As the poets say, Carpe Apparatus Camena! or more practically, First Come, First Served!


Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Inside Out or Outside in?

Imagine two different exhibitions.  Both take up about the same amount of space.  Both look to have about the same level of "fit and finish."  Both have comparable amounts of labels, graphics, and exhibit furniture.

But one exhibition gallery is filled with happy, engaged people, while the other gallery stands forlornly --- practically empty.

How did that happen?  Are the exhibits inside the empty gallery "bad" or was the exhibit development process flawed in some way?

In an effort to stir up some discussion without directly answering those questions, I'd like to commend a book to your attention, and then ask you to consider if you are developing exhibits from the "inside out" or from the "outside in."


First the book:

Fostering Active Prolonged Engagement is a book about an NSF-funded project at the Exploratorium that digs deeply into how exhibit components can foster "APE behavior." (APE is the acronym for Active Prolonged Engagement.)  Namely, how can exhibits be developed (or in many cases, re-designed) to allow visitors to take active roles in creating their own experiences in ways that compel them to spend longer periods of time at the exhibits?


If Fostering Active Prolonged Engagement isn't already on your museum exhibit design reference bookshelf, you should buy a copy today.



Now the consideration:


Are museum exhibit designers, developers, funders, and audiences too concerned with the outward aspects of exhibit galleries  --- the ad campaign?  the portfolio shots?  the "hip" materials and color schemes?


Should an exhibition be developed "inside out" that is, with the inside values (like thoughtful content messages and true visitor engagement in mind) first,  rather than "outside in" with the outside values (color schemes or high-concept  PR themes) first?   

It's worth considering when you're figuring out who to work with and how to spend your money on your next exhibit project.  Is someone who is trained to think about the surfaces and shells of a situation (like an architect, or marketing person, say) really able to help you design your exhibition from the "inside out"?




Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

100% Pure Fake

Who wouldn't love a book that teaches you how to make fake blood, snot, barf, and poop?

100% Pure Fake is a book by Lyn Thomas that shows you how to gross out your friends and family with special effects you can make with items you likely already have around your house.

This is a great reference book with great pictures and ideas for both exhibits and education  folks to play around with.

If you hurry, you can still pick up a copy of 100% Pure Fake before your Halloween festivities begin!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

A Challenge to Find the Next Great Exhibit Idea

The Crowd by Sreejith K 

The Museum of Science in Boston recently issued a challenge, in partnership with InnoCentive, to "create the next great science and technology exhibit."

Paul Fontaine, the Vice President of Education at the Museum, was kind enough to answer a few questions for me about the challenge.  As background,  Paul works with the staff and volunteer educator team who develop exhibits, offer programs, create interactive media, write curriculum, and teach in venues throughout the Museum, and throughout New England.  He studied Biology, with a concentration in Marine Science, and received a BA from Boston University.

Why did you choose to partner with InnoCentive?

We've teamed up with InnoCentive, a company that encourages "challenge-based innovation", to cast as wide a net as possible to hear about what people would like to see in the next large-scale science and technology exhibition.  There’s been a lot of interest recently in wiki-style, open source platforms for a number of activities, so we thought we’d try this experiment with InnoCentive to solicit exhibit ideas.  We don't know what we'll hear from the challenge solvers, but I'm sure there will be original ideas that surprise us.

What’s the project time frame for the MOS Exhibit Challenge?

The timeline of the challenge is pretty compressed.  It was posted on September 27^th and remains active for 30 days, until October 27^th.  After that, we’ll review the submissions and select the one we like best within several weeks.

     

What makes this process significantly different from convening focus groups or doing formative evaluation with visitors?

As I see it, the primary difference between this and traditional focus groups/formative evaluation is that the latter are generally reactive (i.e. "look at this list of 10 possible shows and tell us which you find most appealing"), while the experiment we're doing is more proactive, encouraging open collaboration.  That is, there's no wrong idea, we're creating an environment where any idea can get heard and considered. 

How much will you actually use visitor-input in your final decision making process?  For example, if the program shows an interest for an exhibition on cannibalism or Lady Gaga, what then?

The selection of the idea(s) that get the award(s) will be based not only on originality (cannibalism and Lady Gaga are certainly original ideas), but heavily on education goals and opportunities to introduce visitors to STEM topics and activities. It's likely there are some really interesting themes out there that no one in the museum community has thought of to date that might be an excellent bridge between our visitors and our mission...but since we never searched for that idea, we never found it.  Hopefully this process will bring some of those ideas into our creative universe.

Which MOS department(s) are spearheading this program?

This project is being led by staff from our Education Division. 

Will the final exhibit be only a traveling exhibition or will there be a permanent version?

Our intent is to get creative ideas for a traveling exhibit.  While there are a number of creative and original traveling exhibits available to museums from other museums, the pump continually needs to be primed – particularly for large-scale exhibits. 

What determined the size (square footage) of the exhibition project?  Will there be smaller versions for smaller museums?

Creating smaller versions for smaller museums is a terrific idea – we hadn’t considered that in our proposal.  Many larger museums these days are facing a situation where more and more we need to rely on non-museum sources for the large-scale exhibits we feature.  That’s often a win-win situation, but it does feel like museums could be contributing more to this product pipeline.  That’s what led us to experiment with soliciting ideas for a large-scale exhibition that could travel to a number of museums.

In the current climate, are traveling exhibitions still economically and environmentally sustainable?

Yes, very much so.   Although the square footage that museums dedicate to their traveling exhibition products is often modest, they are huge drivers of attendance.  Few things other than a time-limited traveling exhibition will drive attendance during a specific window of time.  They also keep museum members engaged with the institution, and that’s a huge factor in membership renewals.  With regards to environmental sustainability, if the exhibit is created in a manner such that uses sustainable practices and designed so it can be efficiently traveled using the least amount of energy we can meet the goal of stimulating an interest in science while minimizing our carbon footprint as much as possible.

Thanks again to Paul Fontaine for taking the time to answer these questions for ExhibiTricks readers.If you hurry, you can submit your own ideas for The Museum of Science's exhibit challenge by clicking over to the InnoCentive website and entering before October 27th!

What do you think about this approach for soliciting exhibit concepts and ideas?  Let us know in the "Comments" section below.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

The Most Popular ExhibiTricks Posts (So Far)

 

I'm off idea-fishing, so I thought I'd point out the most popular posts on this blog (to date) and what they seem to reveal about the museum/exhibit/design zeitgeist.

By far the most popular post to date was "Screened Out: Preferences for Technology in Museums" a guest posting by Susie Wilkening from Reach Advisors.  I'm imagining that many designers and museums are struggling with both the economics and the true usefulness of technologies in effectively delivering content, and Susie's analysisprovides some interesting things to consider.

Also, screen-based technologies in particular seem to be a "hot button" topic for many people as evidenced by the enormous number of comments generated by the posting entitled "Are Screens Killing Museums?"   The use, or deliberate non-use, of screens in museums seems to be an almost religious discussion, with strong adherents on each side.   Despite all the heat this posting generated I still think we should continue to carefully consider our choices of technology, not only from a design aspect, but from an environmental standpoint as well.

Which is a great segue into the most popular interview I've done so far for ExhibiTricks, "Green Exhibit Design: An Interview with Tim McNeil"

Tim provides some wonderfully thoughtful commentary on what green design in museum means, as well as highlighting some great Web-based resources to learn more from.  I'm heartened that people are still continuing to seek this interview out to aid in their thinking about environmentally-conscious design practice.

The last popular posting in this compendium involves some thoughts about untethered and/or consumable materials and their effect on learners and learning environments:  "The Theory of Loose Parts: A Different Kind of Exhibit Design?"  Does deliberately "bullet-proofing" every part of your interactive design create unintended behavioral and learning consequences?

Let me know if you enjoyed this round-up, and whether you'd like me to put together the occasional re-cap of thematically related postings in the future in the "Comments" section below.


Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Exhibit Designer's Notebook: SketchUp and Project Spectrum

SketchUp is a great free tool from Google that makes it easy to present ideas visually.

I've used SketchUp for several years now and really love its flexibility and simple learning curve.  I even started a Museum and Exhibits SketchUp group (which could use a little more traffic and interest --- so please join if you're not already a member.)

But today I'd like to highlight a program called "Project Spectrum".   Project Spectrum gives people along the autism spectrum, especially young people, an opportunity to use SketchUp to develop ideas and express their creativity while also learning a marketable life skill.

You can find out a little bit more about Project Spectrum by watching the video at the top of this posting (or here on YouTube.)

As noted on the Google for Educators website:  "The idea for Project Spectrum originated when we began getting phone calls and emails from users telling us about how much kids on the autism spectrum were enjoying SketchUp. As the calls kept coming in, we learned that people with autism tend to be visually and spatially gifted—that, in fact, they think in pictures. When people with these gifts get their hands on powerful, easy-to-use 3D design software like SketchUp, sparks tend to fly."

If you're not already familiar with the many other resources Google provides for educators check out the Google For Educators website.

And if you don't already use SketchUp, download your free copy today!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

What Can Museums Learn From Maker Faire?

The first "World Maker Faire" just wrapped up a successful run at the New York Hall of Science this past weekend.  I attended with my family and we all had a great time.

Here are a few things that I think all types of museums could learn from the Maker Faire experience:


• "Risks" are good
Museums are typically risk-averse.  They often tend to view every exhibit or program idea through the lens of a liability lawyer.  Visitors, however, often like to participate in, or just watch activities, that are perceived as "risky" (even if they're not really that dangerous.) 

I'd say take a page from Makers Faire and try "riskier" exhibits or programs --- even if you need people to sign a waiver first.
  

• "Outsiders" bring interesting ideas and approaches
Not all good ideas or approaches always have to originate from within your institution.  One thing that was great about Makers Faire was the diversity of presentations from a wide range of creative folks.  Not everything struck my fancy, but the sheer range of approaches was compelling.

How can you find ways to work with local makers in your community?

• Making is not just for the "cool kids"
There were rumblings during (and after) the World Makers Faire about the presence of corporate sponsors like Ford or HP (which is a little ironic considering their maker-centric histories) taking away from the "indy" spirit of the event.

That seems like hogwash to me for two reasons:

1) The admission ticket prices were high enough, and I'm sure the presence of large sponsors helped keep prices down

2) Makers came in all shapes, sizes, and colors.  It certainly was entertaining to see some of the more "unusual" folks at the event, but you don't have to be a tattooed hipster from Brooklyn to be making cool things.

Hopefully museums can find ways to cast a wide net around the growing Maker and DIY zeitgeist by thinking about ways to include kids and families (and even hipsters!) in solving problems or just creating fun stuff with materials.

Of course, some of the presenters at World Maker Faire could have learned some things from museums too, like:

• Presentation Matters
Not everything has to be put together with duct tape or look like it was welded by Godzilla.  Sometimes rough materials can detract from your broader messages.

• Logistics Matter

Museums know that when you bring an activity to a crowded festival you need to have enough staff, and more importantly, enough work stations and materials to handle the crowds.

Have you attended a Maker Faire?  Let us know how makers and museums could work even better together in the "Comments" section below.

UPDATE:  In conjunction with the inaugural World Maker Faire, held in September 2010, NYSCI convened a two-day workshop with more than 80 leaders in education, science, technology and the arts to consider how the Maker movement can stimulate innovation in formal and informal education.

You can download the complete report here.


Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Exhibit Design Inspiration: LEGO Box Augmented Reality

Imagine holding up a building toy to a "magic screen" to find out what the completely assembled LEGO structure would look like --- even with animated mini-figures!

That's what LEGO and augmented-reality (AR) company Metaio came up with the "LEGO Digital Box" (LDB) program.  A user just holds and turns a box in front of a screen to see the "augmented" image of the finished toy appear on top of the box they're holding.

I really like the potential of doing installations like these in museums related to collections objects. (Hopefully if they build enough "LEGO boxes" the price of the technology will come down into museum range.)

So head out to a LEGO or big-box toy store near you to try out this cool AR idea! (Or check out the YouTube video below that shows the LDB in action.)




Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog. P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Exploring the Community-Museum Dynamic: An Interview with Jeanne Vergeront

  

Jeanne Vergeront is a strategic and education planner with museums, libraries and community organizations. She has worked in and with museums for 25 years, most recently as Vice President of Exhibits and Education at Minnesota Children's Museum. She is interested in learning environments, translating theory into practice and the role of play in literacy development.   

Jeanne is also one of the most thoughtful museum people I know, so I was happy that she could respond to these questions for the ExhibiTricks blog:

What’s your educational background? 

I have an undergraduate degree in early childhood education and a masters degree in environmental design, focusing on children’s environments. My research was on adventure playgrounds in London. Watching children build and explore in those settings reinforced a growing sense that there were more potential settings for children than just conventional playgrounds and classrooms for preschoolers that were essentially miniaturized versions of college lecture halls and high school classrooms.

What got you interested in Museums? 

After graduate school I worked in a teacher center in Madison WI which offered teacher driven professional development through workshops, kits, a recycle center, and publications. My interest in the human-environment dynamic led to an opportunity in 1979 to conduct a small study on how the design of teacher centers supported their missions. I studied 7 centers in the Midwest and East, including one in Boston where I also visited the Boston Children’s Museum. 

I hadn’t been to a children’s museum before. I was excited by the possibility of places for children that recognized and valued what children love to do, all the things they can do, and what they need to do. I also saw a children’s museum in Utica NY and one in Fairfield, CT. They gave me a sense of their variety and how local they could be. Heading back to Madison, I decided that my next project would be starting a children’s museum. And, in that serendipitous way things sometimes work, the day after I returned to Madison, I got a call. Three early childhood educators I knew had visited Minnesota Children’s Museum and agreed to start one in Madison; would I join them? While I think there can be easier ways to design environments for children than starting a children’s museum, I don’t think there can be a way that is more challenging or life changing. 

How can museums best involve their local communities? 

The community-museum dynamic is an incredible source of purpose and vitality for museums that also takes a lot of effort and direction to understand and manage well. It’s easy to develop an internal museum perspective; it’s a real challenge to integrate an internal, museum perspective with an external, community informed perspective and to sustain it. It’s relatively easy to offer many and smaller activities involving the community; it’s not so easy to think strategically and cultivate relationships, and be selective in choosing activities for the museum and community to engage in meaningful ways towards larger shared goals. 

A museum should set its community involvement in a larger context of what the community needs that the museum can do well. To be more deliberate about its community involvement, a museum can look at challenges the community faces and where they can make a difference. It can look at community engagement it already does well, and think about why it’s working and how it could be expanded. It’s often helpful to look at other organizations that are more accomplished in engaging their communities. 

Tell us a little bit about how your Children’s Museum background informs your current work? 

In the early years of Madison Children’s Museum, I had no clue that ideas we were grappling with would be central to many museums two decades later and would inform my work in 2010. One fundamental idea is that children’s museums are for someone rather than about something. Stephen Weill’s writings hit on the centrality of the audience and serve as a valuable reminder that museums exist to serve their audiences. Being for someone is a valuable perspective in thinking about and planning for people and taking into account how they see themselves, their interests, their capabilities, and their expectations of their museum experience - and much more.

The immediacy of experience is another legacy from children’s museums. Children experience their world directly, through every sense, and all the time. This may be truer for younger children than for older children, but the value of direct experience never disappears. Children’s museums can’t rely on abstractions or text to get across ideas. I think this is a valuable discipline, one to be worked even harder than it typically is. 

How children explore and learn has been a useful nudge to understand learning very broadly. More of the museums I work with are breaking out of the assumption that learning is facts and skills and that learning is primarily cognitive. Increasingly, learning is viewed as also being social and physical. Learning stretches to include dispositions to learn, such as dispositions to ask questions or a disposition to read. 

I would also have to add play as something from my children’s museum background that informs my current work. Recent research has substantiated what early childhood educators have long known about the value of play. Now we can point to the relationship between play and executive function, between play and literacy, between play and social skills, between play and positive personal outlook for young children; and the benefits last beyond four years, and eight years.  I wouldn’t know where to suggest that the benefits of play end - or even diminish. 

Finally, it has taken a while, but there has been a recognition that while children were the focus of children’s museums, it was also necessary to engage adults to meet goals. This links very directly to a focus on family learning that has emerged as being important in the social context in museums.

What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out more about exhibition development? 
This is a really good - and hard - question. Exhibition development as a recognized phase in exhibit planning is a relatively newer phase and not universally observed. It’s practiced differently in a science center, a children’s museum, natural history museum, historic sites and art museums. It’s a creative, complex, and elusive process. It’s less concrete than design so it’s sometime absorbed by its better-known sibling, exhibit design, and becomes invisible. 

Online or offline, my favorite exhibition development resources are developers themselves because that mindset is fascinating. Some of the skills are readily recognizable, like keen observation, research, and asking questions. Developers also visualize and interpret experience. They not only take the perspective of the visitor, or learner, but they sometimes “channel” the people an exhibit experience is intended to engage. They’re comfortable with process, whether it’s rigorous or squishy. 

I asked a few exhibit developers what their resources were. ExhibitFiles (http://www.exhibitfiles.org) came up:  The reviews and case studies are often, if not usually, written by exhibit developers and expose an exhibit developer’s perspective.



What advice would you have for fellow museum professionals, especially those from smaller museums, in setting realistic long-term goals? 
Setting long-term goals is not easy but it’s a basic and essential part of being a vital organization that serves its community. While not a simple process, I do think there are a few critical steps:

• Make planning a core practice in your museum. Smaller museums feel stretched, I think, in finding time to plan. But good habits, and planning is a good habit, pay off.

• Revisit your mission regularly. Make sure it’s local and specific and that the board agrees on what it says the museum should be doing and, conversely, should not doing. It’s more difficult to set long-term goals when a mission is too broad or vaguely relevant to a museum and its community.

• Learn about and get to know 3-5 museums that are comparable to yours in scope and size - budget, attendance, and facility, and community size. You might research a museum that is a bit larger or has an expertise in an area important to your mission. Look at their long-term goals to inform your goals.

• Identify areas in particular where your museum needs to be strong or areas of growth and change. Three areas are what I call areas of enduring focus: they are always important even though your understanding of them evolves. 

One area is audience. Typically, the goal is about more visitors. But just as important as more is the right kind of visitors. Who are the right kinds of visitors? What does more of the right visitors mean for your museum? 

Another area is product, either exhibits, programs, learning experiences and environments. A goal might be related to a consistent quality, a stronger experience, or varied offerings; or perhaps exhibits and programs better targeted to the audience. 

A third area is resources, financial, human resources, expertise, or facility. This goal is often about more or diversified resources or growing a particular type of resource. These may not be the right goals for every museum and there may need to be 4 or 5 goals. But thinking about these areas can give an assist in setting goals that are at the right scale for where you are now and want to be.   

If it’s any consolation, every museum struggles with setting realistic goals that are calibrated to their organizational capacity. 



What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions? 
I like museums and exhibits that surprise me, that offer something unexpected. I think that’s one reason that the City Museum stands out for me and for others as well. I like museums and exhibits that have a strong sense of place and couldn’t be anywhere else. The Mill City Museum (Minneapolis, MN) is in a burned out flour mill on the Mississippi riverfront in the old milling district. 

I love the sense of place that the outdoor Exploratorium exhibits at Fort Mason have, focusing on the light, water, and sound at precisely that place. The particular story of water and rock comes through at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Museum (Astoria, OR). In the city museum in Leeuwarden (The Netherlands) you go downstairs and walk through a hallway as if you were walking under a canal; overhead is the underside of a boat and a calf’s snout drinking at the edge of the canal.

More and more I like exhibits that don’t seem exhibits, but may seem more like a hardware store, or feel like an amazing natural occurrence, or a work in progress. The Noodle Forest at the Children’s Museum of Phoenix is made from hundreds of swimming noodles. A giant section of Sequoia at the Bay Area Discovery Museum stands 8 feet tall on its side; children can look and crawl through. The outdoor area at the Santa Fe Children’s Museum seems like it’s constantly being re-invented and reshaped. This is not a good match for every topic, audience, and museum, but it’s a worthy  approach to consider and to have to argue against. 

Can you talk a little about some of your current projects? 
I’ve been working with The Family Museum (Bettendorf, IA) as they rethink their exhibits through a perspective of the experience they want visitors to have. Following - and sustaining - an experiential approach is different than an exhibit-centered approach. An experiential approach concentrates on first-person engagement, a powerful connection to what is personal and local, and the flow between activities. The museum’s planning group is arriving at some productive concepts like fenced in freedom, context as content, and connected play experiences. Approaching this through experience places design in a role of affording particular experiences. I wish I could fast forward and see how this plays out. There will be some real, and worthwhile, challenges along the way.

I’m involved in an informal group of museum colleagues from Twin Cities museums that has been working collaboratively to find ways to strengthen their mission-related services to new and existing audiences. We’re interested in a couple of things. One is to consolidate and build on audience research and local audience data. Another is to explore the public value of museums from a perspective that is local, informed by community and museums. Probably the heart of the project is a study of the identity, engagement goals and ways that museums matter to museum goers, traditionally non-museum going residents, and youth. Twin Cities Museums will be able to use the information to pilot strategies to increase participation and sustain engagement of more diverse audiences including younger audiences. And we want to learn to work collaboratively long term. 



If money were no object, what would your “dream” exhibit project be? 
I might rephrase the question as “if time were no object…” even though time-and-money are intertwined. When museums embark on long-range planning, and I would include long-term exhibit change here, the greatest challenge is finding enough time for the right people to be together at one stretch as well as over a significant span of time. This is what’s needed for staff - and hopefully board - to observe and talk with visitors who are engaged in the museum’s exhibits; to read about and share ideas that challenge and extend thinking about experience and exhibits; to gather, synthesize and interpret a museum’s own studies and reports; to enjoy lively, extended discussions about powerful ideas; and to be able to work the most important of those ideas really hard, to adapt and internalize them. 

This kind of time is critical for exploring what has lasting value for more visitors in exhibits. If this kind of time were available, rethinking a museum’s exhibits in a new and remarkable way would be absolutely wonderful. Actually working with a museum to rethink its exhibits, or a single exhibit, in a new remarkable way, would be a real treat. 



What do you think is the “next frontier” for museums?
There are, undoubtedly, multiple “next frontiers” for museums and, for sure we’ll be surprised when we approach and navigate this new territory. Some frontiers, I imagine, will be more relevant at the community level, others at the organizational level and some will be visitor oriented.

Museums are recognizing that they have public value, that they contribute something the community needs that is not readily available. They’re becoming more practiced at describing their benefit and are finding more meaningful measures to describe their impact. This community-museum connection will evolve and strengthen. We’ll see a shift from viewing and measuring success as primarily institutional health to community vitality. As they do recognize more ways their organizational health is tied to community health, museums will become more accomplished and nimble at targeting their impact in high need areas.

At another level, I think that more museums will see that they have the capacity and opportunity to generate knowledge and will be greater contributors to knowledge and culture in more areas. This might be through growing partnerships with colleges and universities. But it will also come from museums conducting their own research, documenting their work, and assessing their impacts in areas that are salient to their public value, to community issues, and to their audience and then informing their work and that of the field.

I think it’s safe to assume we’ll see some shifting boundaries in the learning territory that museums occupy. At a larger scale, museums will assume expanded roles in educating members of their community across the life-span. Some shifts seem especially likely where informal learning and formal learning meet and interact. More museums are operating schools and that number will grow. I know of about a dozen science museums and centers and children’s museums that operate preschools; some have been doing so for 40 years. There are also museums that operate elementary schools and are involved in museum magnet schools.

At a smaller scale, I would say a new frontier is how users will customize their museum experience across multiple platforms in ways that are truly specific and relevant to museums and not clumsily adapted from other contexts and enterprises. I think discussion in this area is lively while implementation is occurring more slowly and early results are just coming into focus. Stay tuned! 


Thanks again to Jeanne for her insights!  Check out her website for more information about her work.      

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Exhibit Designer's Toolbox: Sugru

Sugru is a great addition to the toolkit of any hacker/fixer/maker/artist. 

In fact, "Hacking Things Better" seems to be the company motto!

Plus Sugru has a great story --- creative young woman works with two materials scientists to develop a better (silicone-based) material to fix and improve things.

As you can see on the Sugru website there are lots of clever ways to repair and/or improve even everyday items. 

What's your favorite "fixit" material?  Tell us about it in the "Comments" section below!

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Become A Customer Superhero

Why would you wait over three hours in line if you didn't have to?  I was thinking about that on a recent trip to the Six Flags Great Adventure amusement park with my three sons.

One of the main reasons we went to Six Flags was to ride the amazing roller coasters.  (Who doesn't love being shot 45 stories into the air or spun around at 80 miles per hour?)  Of course most of the other people in the park want to ride those coasters as well --- which causes loooong lines, sometimes lines that can take over three hours to move through at each of the most popular rides.

This is a recipe for disaster on a hot day in a crowded place filled with fidgety people, so Six Flags offers an upgrade to your ticket called "The Flash Pass" (named after the DC comic book superhero who speeds around with  Batman and Superman.)

The Flash Pass is a fist-sized electronic gizmo that lets you reserve a place in line without having to physically stand in line, so you can just come back and get on the ride when the Flash Pass shows it is your turn.  That way you can spend the majority of your time in the park playing, not waiting.  For me and my sons, The Flash Pass worked great, and was worth every penny.

So what does this have to do with your museum or design business?  Just this --- if you can find those annoying bottlenecks that make it harder or less enjoyable to engage with you, and then find ways to remove or alleviate those problems (through technology, or changes in policies or procedures) you'll become a real superhero to your customers!


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Idea Pinball

What happens when you cross brainstorming ideas with pinball?

The answer is this set of fun tools created by BBC Scotland.

With evocative titles like "Drop Zone" and "Snap Shot" you can mix and match the four tools and the results they generate as you see fit.

Fun stuff!  And a nice alternative to try out at your next exhibit design brainstorming session.

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Two Toys for Design Joys

I'm always on the lookout for new toys.  (Of course it also helps that I'm the father of four children --- although my wife claims at times to have five children...) 

Toys can provide great examples of industrial and interactive design, as well as being jumping off points for exhibit prototyping projects or even for jazzing up team meetings.

So here are two cool toys I've been playing with recently for you to try out:

The Pumponator Balloon Pumping Station

This is a fun self-contained pump that lets you fill balloons with either air or water (depending on what you put in the bottom container.)  Simple and durable, I could see this being useful for science demonstrations or remote events.  


The second toy is called Big Bang Rocket and as the name implies, you can make some noise with it!

This clever toy let you load squares of newspaper (or other paper-like materials like leaves) into the "blast chamber."  Then you throw the Rocket into the air and it comes down on its squishy rubber top to force air blasting through the paper with a loud BANG!

I like the Big Bang Rocket because it's dead simple, but also because it works on a variety of ground surfaces whether they are soft (like grass) or hard (like a concrete driveway.)  Also you have some nice possibilities for experimentation by trying to get the optimum BANG!

So try out the toys above or take some time to troll through the aisles of your local toy store for some design inspiration  --- the worst thing that happens is you end up with a new toy to play with!
 

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Exhibit Design Inspiration: The Mythbusters Wall O' Boxes

Recently I saw a YouTube video (at the top of this post or click here) that featured a tour around The Mythbusters' M5 workshops with co-host Jamie Hyneman and a writer from Popular Mechanics magazine.

While it's always fun to see someone's workshop,  I was especially taken by the YouTube segment of the "Wall O' Boxes" (A gigantic set of metal shelves stacked with large plastic storage boxes filled with different sorts of materials.)  Jamie from the Mythbusters explained that it is much easier to test out your ideas quickly if you have a bunch of "stuff" around to build with.

It really brings to mind the Edison quote, “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”

So, enter the Wall O' Boxes.  Thinking back, just about every clever "maker" I know has their own similar storage variation in their workshop or work space --- how about you?


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