Open Source Play -- Impressions of the 2018 InterActivity Conference

InterActivity, the annual meeting of Children's Museum professionals from around the world, was held recently in Raleigh NC.  The Association of Children's Museums (ACM) did a great job with the local host, Marbles Kids Museum, of bringing forward the conference theme of "Open Source Play."  I especially liked this theme because it reinforced the notion of "sharing" so common in the museum industry.

Here are some of my impressions of this year's InterActivity Conference:

Tuesday, the traditional "Pre-Conference" day,  started out strong with a great Study Tour of the outdoor areas of the Museum of Life + Science in Durham.  We spent most of our time in the multi-acre natural playscape called "Hideaway Woods." 

Treehouses and Bridges in "Hideaway Woods"

Staff member Tim Darr shared insights about the construction and operation of the treehouses, suspended walkways, and other completely charming outdoor exhibits. The outdoor areas limited content and instead gave people an opportunity to carefully observe and experience Nature with their bodies and their senses. Well worth a visit if you find yourself in Durham!

Early Childhood area. Note "little" and "big" entrances.

Tuesday evening the Inaugural ACM Awards Dinner honored Jeri Robinson of the Boston Children's Museum, a true museum shero and pioneer as the 2018 Champion of the Field awardee.  Jeri reflected on her 45 (!) year career in Boston, and reminded all the InterActivity attendees of the Power of Play as well as challenging every museum to “get outside of its own doors and get to know its community.”

Jeri Robinson (center) pictured with colleagues from Boston Children's Museum

Wednesday morning started with a keynote conversation from Jim Whitehurst, the CEO of Red Hat, a leading open source technology company located in Raleigh. Mr. Whitehurst shared important examples drawn from his tenure at Red Hat and his book, "The Open Organization" that emphasized that "real collaboration comes from communities that share.”

Wednesday morning sessions, "Getting the Building You Need, Want, and Can Afford" and "DIY Exhibit Design for Tight Budgets" both focused on the importance of sharing information with, and finding important resources in, local communities. One of the ideas that stuck with me from presenter Joe Cox in the Building session was the question, "Do you really need a new building, or do you want space (in an existing building) to serve the community NOW (not in 10 years)?" I also liked three important takeaways from the DIY Exhibits session: 1) Do your own concept drawings
2) PROTOTYPE! 3) Loop the Action.

Wednesday concluded with a series of "Small Talks" primarily from representatives from Raleigh-area companies. I especially liked Anjana Mohanty's talk about specialty fabric producer Spoonflower and how they allow anyone to participate in the creative process AND the creative marketplace through their open source Spoonflower Shop.

On Thursday morning, there were three simultaneous "Birds of a Feather" sessions for Small, Medium, and Large museums to share their experiences. InterActivity attendees were welcome to attend any of the sessions based on their own interests and their own institutional demographics. I thought this was a really interesting conference format and I appreciated the range of perspectives I encountered in the "Small Museums" section I attended.

Each presenter chose three words that represented their museum and then gave a pictorial PowerPoint presentation that illustrated how those words reflected that particular museums engagement with their local communities. I liked that one of the words that Felipe Pena from the Children's Museum of Brownsville chose was "¡Fiesta!" I also admired how Kathy Parham, of The Children's Playhouse, partnered with a local coffee company to provide free coffee and tea to parents. When asked about whether providing warm beverages might discourage adults from interacting with their kids inside the museum, Kathy replied that she was more concerned about the parents' smartphones than mugs of coffee!

I rounded out my Thursday conference sessions with "Kindness: An Approach to Professional Learning" and "Shark Tank" !

The Kindness session was led by an intrepid crew from the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh. The folks in Pittsburgh are currently engaged in a museum-wide professional learning initiative to use an evidence-based learning framework to support children and families' engagement in kindness as a learning process. That's quite a mouthful, but, in short, groups of session participants were asked to consider ways that kindness could be integrated into museum experiences for visitors, as well as self-care regimens for staff. The folks from Pittsburgh shared a prototype activity where floor staff would "catch" visitors being kind and give them a "kindness sticker."

The "Shark Tank" session was a super fun evocation of the popular television show. First two presenters as "exhibit developers" made pitches for either a mechanical or a digital component to the "Sharks" representing the museum clients.  Then session participants divided into small group teams to develop their own mechanical, digital, or "hybrid" exhibit pitches to pitch to the Sharks --- with the promise of a prize for the winning team.  In a "surprise" twist, the museum client announced that, unfortunately, that particular exhibit component was "value engineered" out of the project budget so no team could be awarded a prize!  Hats off to the presenters for their fun and thoughtful use of costumes, props, videos, and sound effects. Well done!

The Museum Client "Sharks"

Thursday night ended with the traditional Museum Party!  The folks from Marbles did a great job with plenty of food, drinks, dancing, adult games, and FUN!

Friday, the final day of InterActivity 2018, brought a great morning session on "Connecting Families to Complex Content in Museums." I appreciated that the presenting institutions represented a History Museum (St. Louis), an Art Museum (Denver), and a large Museum Center (Cincinnati) featuring a Children's Museum section.  There were so many great examples of programs and actionable tips from a variety of perspectives that I may have to create a separate blog post about just this session!

The Conference closed with the presentation of the ACM Great Friend to Kids Award ceremony. This year's award went to the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.  Chief Knowledge Officer Al Race gave an inspiring (and interactive!) talk about the Center's work and its implications for Children's Museums.  The entire audience joined in a karaoke version of "Brain Buildin' " set to Tom Petty's song "Free Fallin'"!

With such a great InterActivity 2018 conference behind us, I'm really looking forward to InterActivity 2019 in Denver.  See you there?


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Does Your Makerspace Really Need a 3D Printer?

I have a new article out in the latest issue of the Association of Children's Museums journal, Hand to Hand.

The theme of the issue is "The Maker Movement" and my article is entitled "Do You Really Need a 3D Printer, and Other Essential Questions You Need to Ask about a Museum’s Makerspace."

You can download a PDF version of the article via the Free Exhibit Resources section of my POW! website, but here are a few excerpts about Makerspaces (and other design-focused spaces) that I shared in my article:

• I love the idea of 3D printers, in a Jetsons/Sci-fi/World’s Fair type of way. The promise of using a tabletop device to create absolutely anything out of any material (even food!) is pretty amazing. The reality, however, is you can spend hours designing a widget the size of a quarter that then takes even more hours to print successfully on the 3D printer… only to often find out that it hasn’t. When they work, they’re magic, but they’re not that simple to operate.

• Forming creative partnerships with makers in the communities around your museum can be mutually beneficial. This could be as simple as recruiting artists/tinkerers to showcase their work and how they make it to your visitors. You could also recruit retired tool and die makers, seamstresses, or NASA scientists.

• The focus on flashy high-tech gadgets exemplifies how the development of makerspaces in organizations can be susceptible to a “Ready, Fire, Aim!” mentality. Makerspaces are perceived as cool and eminently fundable, but often museums start planning spaces and purchasing equipment (Laser Cutters! 3D Printers! Robot Kits!) without considering what a makerspace is all about, and what the qualities of the most successful spaces are.

•  An unstaffed or unfacilitated makerspace is a wasted space. The best interactions in a good maker space will certainly involve staff and visitors learning together. Does the stuff (tool and materials) you provide help foster those human connections?

•  Many makerspaces have adopted a rough, workshoppy, “toys for boys” aesthetic that can be off-putting for many people (male or female) who are unsure of their making skills and interests. Why not mix up the look and feel of different areas in your space so you don’t stop potential makers dead in their tracks as they peek through the door?

I hope you'll download my entire article by clicking here, and also check out the ACM website to learn how to obtain the entire "Maker Movement" issue of Hand to Hand. 

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Collective Impact: Impressions of the 2016 InterActivity Conference

Children's Museum colleagues from around the world (including representatives from Bulgaria, El Salvador, Korea, Israel, Nigeria, Australia, and China!) recently converged in Connecticut to meet, learn, and discuss about topics of common interest during the annual InterActivity Conference put on by the Association of Children's Museums (ACM).

I attended the entire conference, so I offer my impressions here for those who were not able to attend, but also to give a sense of the current state of the Children's Museum field.

The theme of this year's conference was "Collective Impact." Building on the notion that no single organization can create large-scale lasting social change, but rather we have more impact when different parts of the community work together.

This theme of collective impact --- of learning together and changing the world through common cause was evident throughout the sessions and keynote talks at the conference.

Here are my impressions of the sessions and events that I participated in:

Welcome Dinner and Opening Program
This was a great way to start the conference by getting everyone together.  A nice opportunity to eat and chat with old friends, and to meet new colleagues.  In addition to the meal the program featured Jeff Edmondson, the Managing Director of StriveTogether, and a Children's Museum "Fashion Show."

Mr. Edmondson's talk, while energetic, felt a little too motivational speaker-y for my tastes. It also felt a bit like a generic talk that could be presented to any kind of professional group (in fact, Mr. Edmondson misspoke and said "Children's Hospitals" instead of "Children's Museums" at one point and got quite flustered apologizing for a simple mistake.) But extra points to Mr. E for his energy and brevity!

The Museum Fashion Show was quite fun, since every participant had a DIY outfit with elements highlighting some part of their museum's programs or exhibits.  Pictured below is Megan from the Fairbanks Children's Museum with a book dress highlighting the Fairbanks "take a book" program that allows young visitors (who are often upset when they have to leave the museum) to take home a children's book from a designated book shelf near the front desk and entrance/exit door.

Thursday Morning started with a great Professional Networking Breakfast where I found out a little bit about the "Mind in the Making" program -- a way for the public and organizations like museums to plug into children learning research,  and also the Daily Vroom app --- a way for parents to discover "brain building" activities with their kids using their everyday activities.  I'll definitely be looking more into both of these resources, based on my fortuitous breakfast conversations!

Thursday morning I attended the Material Matters 2.0 session, which I found interesting and useful. I love a session that gives me practical takeaways!  Panelists spoke about the pros and cons of using specific materials in exhibit projects and brought samples for folks in the audience to handle and look at. For example HDPE is a good material to use for removable access panels since it holds up to repeated inserting and removing of mechanical fasteners. It would be great to have more deliberately practical sessions like this at every museum conference!

The other Thursday morning session I attended was called "Engaging a Community Through Social Media" and it also was a winner.  Three museum practitioners and a marketing professional gave their practical tips and experiences with Social Media through examples.  One great takeaway for me was the idea that nowadays people often come to your Social Media channels first, and then your website. So it's important to think about how best to use your resources for your institution's online presence.

The entire rest of the afternoon was spent inside Norwalk City Hall in a format of presentations inspired by New England Town Hall meetings.   Let me start off with a positive by saying the local Soweto Melodic Voices musical group were amazingly entertaining.

As for the rest of the Town Hall program, it was, frankly, a train wreck --- if a train wreck could also be boring. The format of speakers pouring out dense bits of information very rapidly with little, if any, interaction with the audience felt like being forced to drink from an informational fire hose --- if drinking from a fire hose could also be boring.

I know the organizers' motivations for developing a Town Hall format were good, but I'd like to offer a suggestion for future ACM Conferences in the form of a Town Hall resolution.

RESOLVED:  ACM and InterActivity Conference Planners shall offer interactive session blocks on selected topics such as the "Achievement Gap" instead of theatrical programs that force all conference attendees to passively be gathered into one large auditorium space.

If an entire session block of eight or nine smaller sessions had been offered around the topic of the Achievement Gap, for example, with each smaller session focusing on an aspect of the Achievement Gap like Education, Health Care, Literacy, etc.  We could have then gathered as an entire conference group to have each session moderator report out on what was discussed in a more digestible (and actionable!) format.

(For context: when InterActivity was in Pittsburgh a few years ago, an extended session format of "Small Talks" (like TED talks) was introduced.  It was fun and successful.  Since then, subsequent InterActivity hosts have tried similar extended sessions for all the conference attendees at once that have been much less successful. People come to conferences to learn things and interact with their colleagues, not attend a multi-hour lecture.)

Stepping off soapbox now ...


Moving on to the Thursday evening event, hosted by Stepping Stones Museum.  It was wonderful in every way.  Stepping Stones has a super museum and their staff and sponsors offered plenty of inspiration (AND plenty of great food and drink!) for everyone.

Friday sessions included excellent presentations on working with artists and developing museum leadership, entitled respectively: "Need a New Knockout Installation? Try Partnering with an Artist" and "Strategies to Develop the Next Generation of Leaders."   Both sessions were really well done and involved good takeaways.  One interesting connective thread between the two topics that I found was the importance of clear communication and expectations making the difference between highly successful (or less successful ..) interactions between museum staff themselves or with museum visitors.

Another highlight of Friday was the ACM Marketplace, where vendors show off their ideas and wares to the Children's Museums community.  There were a good range of folks showing interesting stuff, but I especially liked nWave letting me pet Owlbert the owl!

The 2016 InterActivity conference wound up for me with a morning session entitled "Mistakes Were Made." I was one of the speakers/facilitators that first shared our own mistakes and lessons learned, and then small groups shared their mistakes/lessons before one grand mistake winner was chosen, and awarded the coveted "Mistakes Were Made" trophy.  You'll have to attend next year's InterActivity conference in Pasadena to ask Brenda Riley, the Director of Fairbanks Children's Museum to share her prize-winning story (and lesson!) with you herself.

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