Back on the Museum Conference Circuit!

Since 2019, Museum Conferences have been a little different.

Fortunately, in-person conferences are coming back and I'm hoping to see old friends and meet new colleagues out on the road!

I'll be attending InterActivity in St. Louis put on by the Association of Children's Museums from May 16 to 18.

I'll also be in Heilbronn, Germany, for the ECSITE Conference, convened by the European Network of Science Centres & Museums from June 2 to 4.

If you are at either conference, please say hello!  (We might even take a picture like the one at the top of this post from a past conference in Pittsburgh!)

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Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

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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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Cross-Country Conferencing!

I'm excited to be attending (and presenting at!) two of the largest museum conferences in the U.S. at the beginning of May.

This year the Association of Children's Museums (ACM) and the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) conferences are scheduled to happen nearly back-to-back with ACM's InterActivity Conference up first in Pasadena, and the AAM's Annual Meeting & Museum Expo following right after that in St. Louis.

InterActivity in promises to be a fun and action-packed meeting with Kidspace Children's Museum being the host venue.  In addition to all the other exciting sessions, I'm especially looking forward to sharing co-emcee duties with Margaret Middleton for the "Sound Bites" evening event on Wednesday, May 3rd from 7:30 to 9:00 PM in Ballroom A.

If you aren't able to attend InterActivity in person this year, keep track of the hashtag #IA17 on Social Media, and check out my own Twitter (@museum_exhibits) and Facebook feeds as I will be providing live updates and pictures throughout the InterActivity conference.

Then on to St. Louis, the home to one of my very favorite museums, The City Museum!

The AAM Conference is loaded with great events, but I would be remiss if I didn't encourage you to come to two events that I am presenting at.  The first is Design Trends: Phygital to Pokemon 
on Tuesday, May 9th, from 10:30-11:45 AM at 226 America's Center. 

I'll be joining my fellow speakers to present five different perspectives on key trends that are challenging and changing the way we design museum exhibitions. I'll be covering phygital museum experiences (physical/digital mashups) for my part of the session.

The second session I'm involved in during the AAM Conference is entitled How to Suspend Disbelief: Lessons Learned through Pop-Ups.  The session happens on Wednesday, May 10 from 11:15 AM -12:30 PM at 130 America's Center.  

For my part, I'll be talking about how I used pop-up museum techniques during my recent trip to Tunisia, and the lessons I took away from that experience.

If you can't attend the AAM Conference this time around, follow the ubiquitous #AAM2017 hashtag or my Twitter (@museum_exhibits) or Facebook feeds for live updates.

I look forward to seeing folks (especially ExhibiTricks readers!) on the conference circuit this spring!

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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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Show Me, Don't Tell Me: Thoughts on ACM's 2015 InterActivity Conference in Indianapolis

I love going to the Association of Children's Museums (ACM) InterActivity Conference for many reasons. First and foremost, Children's Museums folks are FUN to hang out with!  Also,  InterActivity is consistently one of the most thought-provoking professional conferences I attend.

So here are some of my InterActivity 2015 thoughts for those ExhibiTricks readers who were unable to attend this year's conference in Indianapolis.

My main takeaway is that the most effective sessions and speakers were those that could SHOW examples or ideas, and trust the intelligence of their audience to synthesize and apply the ideas back at their museums, rather than TELL the audience how to implement specific ideas or approaches.

The conference started with a series of "Small Talks" (similar to TED talks) with short, impactful messages.  Three talks stood out, and each covered very emotionally-charged topics.  Leslie Lagerstrom from Transparenthood shared her experiences as the parent of a transgender child, and spoke eloquently about the value of inclusiveness in museums.

Erica Hahn's son Spencer suffered a stroke in-utero, and doctors thought he would never walk or talk.  But Erica, a single mother, used an access pass to visit the Children's Museum of Indianapolis  every weekend to help her son learn to walk and talk.  Erica's presentation finished with Spencer coming on stage with Rex, the Indianapolis Children's Museum's mascot!

The last Small Talk that really stuck with me was a short dramatic presentation by an actor portraying Anne Frank's father, Otto.  It was part of the programming from the Children's Museum of Indianapolis  exhibition called "The Power of Children."  Even though I have read Anne Frank's diary recounting her experience hiding from the Nazis, I was touched by this portrayal of her father, and reminded of Anne's optimism about people despite the hardships she suffered.

Of course, it wasn't all about tugging heartstrings --- I also got to ride in a real Indianapolis 500 race car during one of the evening events, as you can see in the picture at the top of this post!

I'll quickly share two less than positive experiences at IA 2015, and finish with two positive ones.

One session on Intellectual Property was a real disappointment --- definitely more about telling, than showing.  In fact I haven't encountered more whining and finger shaking (outside of a preschool classroom) in a long time. Plus an added bonus of jamming an entire semester of intellectual property law into an action-packed (yawn!) PowerPoint of black and white slides filled with nothing but legalistic language.  IP is an important discussion for museums, but could benefit from a range of opinions in a presentation on the topic, as well as showing specific good and bad examples.

The other "tell-er" not "show-er" was a keynote speaker on transmedia topics.  What started as an evocation of childhood memories of Star Wars, soon devolved into a commercial for Disney products and some really off-target suggestions for how new technologies could be implemented inside museums that betrayed a basic lack of knowledge regarding the day-to-day realities of running a museum.  It's not surprising that at the end of the talk the audience could not muster the enthusiasm to raise even one question.  A real bummer that a smart person with a potentially interesting topic couldn't land her keynote before a receptive crowd. 

To end on a more positive note, the session entitled "Using Research and Evaluation to Inform Practice with Exhibits" featured two of my favorite PhDs!  Lisa Brahms, from the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, and Robin Meisner, from the Providence Children's Museum, as well as their colleagues showed some great examples of museum exhibition projects benefitting from evaluation. Take a look at the informalscience.org website to dig into some of the reports featuring Lisa or Robin's work!

Last, but not least, I was delighted to share presentation duties on the session entitled "Material Matters: Thoughtful Choices for High-Impact Visitor Engagement" with Marcos Stafne (Montshire Museum of Science); JJ Rivera (Portland Children's Museum); and Reid Bingham (NY Hall of Science).  We showed how to take common Children's Museum tropes, like mini-grocery stores, dig pits, and block tables, and shift them through the introduction of new materials and environments.  Then we finished the session with roundtable discussions and playing with materials based on the the four topics in our talks. 

So InterActivity 2015 is a wrap!  Thanks so much to the dedicated staffs of the Association of Children's Museums, and our host institution, Children's Museum of Indianapolis , for SHOW-ing us the way to have fun with colleagues while thinking about how to move our museums forward!



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Reimagining Children's Museums? Recapping InterActivity 2013

Last week, the international tribe of Children's Museums professionals converged on Pittsburgh to assemble under the banner of the InterActivity 2013 conference theme of Reimagining Children's Museums.

First off, kudos to the Association of Children's Museum (ACM) staff and the staff of the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh for pulling off such an audacious event in such a graceful way.  The Children's Museum looked great (all spiffed up for the out of town company!) and if there is ever a Nobel prize awarded for museum directors, I would definitely put Jane Werner on the short list.

The organizational format of this year's conference was a little different than normal --- folks from outside the traditional bounds of the Children's Museum field presented to us, and helped us to rethink, and yes reimagine a bit.

However, I only found part of this reimagining exercise successful.

The first part of the reimagining happened on the first day of the conference when ALL of us marched over to the Byham Theater to engage in something called "Small Talks."  I have to admit, I was a little apprehensive at first --- we're ALL going to be in this same theater, ALL DAY, watching/listening to the SAME presenters?!?!?   I felt a little trapped.  But I gave it a try.

IT WAS GREAT!

Having the speakers and performers present to us at the Byham was like what it must be like to attend a TED Conference.  The speakers were thoughtful, the performers engaging, and I really felt inspired and able to "reimagine" a bit.

Some particular speakers whose work and presentations resonated with me included:

Frans Johansson  spoke about the differences between "strategy" and "serendipity" and how we need to be open and prepared to exercise both of those skills in our professional and personal lives.

Luis von Ahn, the inventor of Captcha spoke about leveraging computers and humans to solve big problems.

Jesse Schell, who in his "day job" designs video games and is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, entertained us with his circus skills.

Vanessa German is a passionate artist committed to working with her community in many different ways. (Plus her spoken word piece to end the day kicked butt!)

So that was all good. Great first day, lots of good conversations with people about the presenters and the ideas in their presentations.

The next day was a traditional conference day, but the culminating session of the InterActivity Conference was the "Reimagining Design Seminar" on Thursday afternoon.  I'll just state upfront that this particular aspect of the reimagining theme left me cold, and completely befuddled.  The premise is/was that four international and interdisciplinary teams of designers would present their models for realizing the "21st Century Children's Museum."

I could barely sit still in my seat because of how agitated these presentations made me feel.  It was like bad performance art.  I kept thinking "how much money was spent on all of this?!?"  Perhaps the idea was to push people out of their comfort zone, but honestly my only takeaway was "what the heck was that all supposed to be about?"  A children's museum could be like a sponge? Puh-leeze!

I'm sorry to be so negative about something that sincere people obviously spent a great deal of time on, but that's my honest reaction.   (I'd gratefully provide space, and equal time, on this blog for someone more deeply involved in the process to present what it really was about.)

So, in sum, I learned from InterActivity 2013 that reimagining is NOT a straightforward business.  Perhaps we all just need to pick and choose from the things that do (and do not!) resonate with us, and use these ideas and people and experiences to sharpen our own professional practice.

Were you at InterActivity 2013?  If so, what were you takeaways?  Let us know in the "Comments" Section below this post.




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Portland Takeaways (InterActivity 2012 Impressions)

What do a Chinese Garden and a Children's Museum have in common? That's one of the things I'm thinking about as I ponder the conversations, lessons, and visits that have taken place this past week in Portland, Oregon as the annual InterActivity conference draws to a close. Over 800 Children's Museum professionals from around the world came to share the stories, triumphs, and challenges of their existing (or emerging) institutions.

Aside from obvious themes like the power of play in the lives of children, here are a few other common threads that I noticed during InterActivity:

• The Maker Movement has definitely gotten the attention of the Museum World in general, and the Children's Museum World in particular. Many sessions and hallway conversations focused on how museums can form additional partnerships with all segments of the "maker" community (inventors, artists, crafters, etc.)  One big question is how to convince museum administrators to pony up the cash to hire and train additional staff to work in, and facilitate, museum maker spaces.

• Prototyping and testing: Several sessions focused on the many ways to prototype and test exhibit and program concepts with visitors.  My favorite takeaway about prototyping from one of the sessions I attended was that, as far as prototyping is concerned, something is better than nothing, no matter what your museum's size or circumstances.

• Attention to detail(s) Little human touches and details really add up.  In my visits to both the Portland Children's Museum and the Lan Su Chinese Garden  (pictured at the top of this post) you could find small details seemingly around every corner.  In both places a welcoming "human touch" was apparent. I especially admired the wonderful hand-painted murals and the thoughtful use of materials at the Children's Museum that said simply, "the person who made this really cared."

• This is your Brain on Exhibits:  Many sessions and speakers dealt with the work scientists and researchers are doing that help us understand not only "what" our brains learn, but "how."  Thinking about ways to translate brain research into exhibit development is fascinating.  (Plus I learned more about dopamine than I ever expected to at a Children's Museum Conference!)

• The Power of The Object. Last, but certainly not least, Susie Wilkening of Reach Advisors spoke about her latest study of museums, and the memories people retain of their museum visits.  A very interesting finding was how "sticky" objects are in visitors' recollections of their museum experiences --- even stickier than hands-on experiences!  What this means to the bulk of Children's Museums (which are not collection-based institutions) is something very interesting to consider.

Congratulations to the ACM staff for putting on a great conference, and thanks to the staff of the Portland Children's Museum for being such great hosts!

If you attended InterActivity in Portland, what were some of your takeaways?  Let us know in the "Comments" section below.

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Posting from Portland (InterActivity 2012)

I had a great day (and night!) in beautiful Portland yesterday to kick off the 2012 InterActivity conference for Children's Museums. 

The highlight (besides meeting old and new museum friends from around the world) was the evening PechaKucha event.  I'm a great fan of the 20x20 presentation style (each participant gets 20 slides of 20 seconds each to make their presentation.)

We had an incredibly diverse set of topics courtesy of 10 amazing presenters!

Amongst the highlights: 

Kari Jensen from OMSI started us off by talking about Green Exhibit Design (and sharing information about a great resource, The Green Exhibit Checklist.)

Sara DeAngelis from San Jose, shared her "hostess tips" for making museum visitors more comfortable.

Clifford Wagner  showed us the graphs of joy, and spoke about the power of learning and practicing new skills.

Becky Lindsay from MindSplash advocated for MORE loose parts in museums.


All in all, a great event and a great start to museum mania in Portland.  Many thanks to all the presenters (pictured above) and a special shout-out to my co-host Sari Boren.

P.S. Watch the Twitter-stream for ongoing conference updates this week by searching the #InterActivity2012 hash-tag.


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Looking Ahead to Portland for InterActivity 2012!

 I'm looking forward to the gathering of the Children's Museum clans, otherwise known as InterActivity.  This year the conference will be in beautiful Portland, Oregon and will welcome folks from around North America and many international visitors as well.

I'll be giving both my brain and mouth a work out during the conference, and reconnecting with friends from Bulgaria as we start down the road to creating the new Children's Museum of Sofia!

I'm thrilled and excited to be co-hosting the conference kick-off event of PechaKucha on the evening of  Wednesday May 9th in Pavilion West of the Hilton (that's the main conference hotel.)  We'll have a great group of folks from around the country presenting in the zippy 20x20 format (20 slides of 20 seconds each for each presenter) and a cash bar besides.  Don't miss it!

Besides having fun in a cool city (check out Voodoo Doughnut!) the best conference experiences give us all a chance to have the opportunity to connect with other folks who are thinking deeply about the current and future direction of the museum biz.  Certainly two of my favorite Children's Museum "deep thinkers" are Jeanne Vergeront and Aaron Goldblatt (click on their names to find interviews I've done with each of them.)  Definitely attend one of their sessions if you can.

I'll do my best to do some live tweeting (follow me on Twitter @museum_exhibits or search this year's conference hashtag #InterActivity2012 for updates) from InterActivity and at least do a recap blog post as well.

This is a really interesting time in the museum world, and certainly Children's Museums are creating a big part of that interest, so stay tuned for postings from Portland!



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Adios Hoston! Museum Conference Re-Cap

Best description of Houston's weather: "It feels like you're living in someone's mouth ..."

Heat and humidity aside, I had a great time in Houston at the back-to-back Association of Children's Museums (ACM) InterActivity Conference, followed by the American Association of Museums (AAM) Annual Conference.

I've already posted about some of the early InterActivity news, so let's re-cap some of the transition time between conferences, the early AAM conference takeaways (Full Disclosure: I left a little early, so my family didn't forget who I was!) and some unique Houston sights, like the Art Cars and Art Car Parade, images of which are sprinkled throughout this posting:


Last Gasp for InterActivity 2011 
The final session I attended at IA2011, "Let’s Talk about Risk" was great for two reasons: 1) The topic of "Risk" was intrinsically interesting to me , and 2) The "Fishbowl" format.  Basically, the Fishbowl format is like reverse musical chairs with a starting circle of seated speakers and one empty chair.  Only those in the central circle can speak, but anyone from the audience can come into the empty chair.  Once all the chairs are filled, one person must vacate their chair.

It sounds complicated, but in practice worked great and really elicited surprisingly frank comments as well as a diversity of speakers.  Brava, Kathy Gustafson-Hilton from Hands On! for organizing this panel!  You can get more details about the session at the KidCity Museum blog.

The Menil Collection
After InterActivity finished, I joined several museum pals to visit hands-down my favorite "museum experience" in Houston.  I continue to love the main building (the current "Upside Down Arctic Realities" show was smashing! Unfortunately the on-line materials don't do it justice) and the Rothko Chapel was wonderful as well.  If your travels bring you to Houston, do not miss the Menil.

On to AAM!

The Art Car Parade

I didn't get to see the full-blown parade since I was involved in two sessions (see below) but fortunately I was able to see the Art Car pre-show on Saturday night outside the Convention Center.  BIG, BIG fun!  (Especially that Chicken Car!) The Art Car Parade is put on by the folks from the Orange Show (a local folk art monument) which was also the site of Sunday night's most excellent NAME Party!

 

 

 

"Future of Exhibiting: Voices from Non-Traditional Museums" 

First up, on Sunday afternoon, I was pleased to chair this session presented by he super-smart trio of Ashley Remer, Founder & Head Girl of GIRL MUSEUM,  Maria Mortati, Founder of the SF Mobile Museum, and Jon West-Bey, Director of American Poetry Museum.

Each of these dedicated folks explained why they felt compelled to start "alternative" museums (basic answer: existing museum models aren't flexible enough, or likely to change.)  Unfortunately Maria's show-and-tell props were in her "lost" luggage (that Continental Airlines somehow managed to lose on a direct flight from the Bay Area!) and Ashley was fighting raging flu that she picked up on the flight over from New Zealand. 

But despite these pre-session glitches, the presentations were all amazing, and Jon reminded us that, ultimately, bet on the Athenians over the Spartans every time!

You can get additional session details, and see Maria's presentation by checking out her S.F. Mobile Museum blog posting.

Career Café Idea Lounge: "Slow Exhibits"

On Sunday, from 4:15 pm to 5:30 pm I was the "Provocateur" for a great discussion concerning the notion of "Slow Exhibits."

Taking a page from the "Slow Food" movement and their central tenets of Good, Clean, and Fair; I've been thinking a lot about how we make exhibits, and how we hope people might engage with our exhibits.  Given the rapid-paced and hyper-connected world we live in, are museums responding by creating exhibit spaces and designed environments that do not lend themselves to contemplation and concentration?

As a group, we discussed exhibit environment and design approaches that actually rewarded visitors for slowing down to observe carefully, contemplate, and engage with others.

Along the way we discussed museum "Easter Eggs", the excellent new book "The Convivial Museum" the visualization of the Civil War at the Abraham Lincoln Museum, and much, much more.

It was sharp group, and I appreciated the change from the usual session of "three PowerPoints and a microphone."   (Besides, where else could you learn that the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque has the "largest collection of touchable nuclear weapons in the world"?)

Happy trails to everyone I met or reconnected with in Houston!  Do you have your own conference memories or takeaways to share?  Let us know in the "Comments" section below.

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Some ACM InterActivity Recap

I just wanted to recap some ACM InterActivity highlights for those of you not fortunate enough to join us in Houston:

PECHA KUCHA
Wednesday's Pecha Kucha evening was a smashing success!  Nice turnout and stellar presentations in the 20 X 20 format.  A few of my favorites included:


Jen Alexander's Sink Story

For those of you who didn't quite catch the installation date of the exhibit, here's Jen's last slide.





I also loved Aaron Goldblatt's zen-like approach to the Pecha Kuch format, in his set of evocative slides about the rewards of carefully observing the world around us.

But definitely the belle of this year's Pecha Kucha ball, was Sari Boren and her talk about the "Ukelele Experience" which culminated in a ukelele sing-a-long featuring Sari's international public performance debut on ukelele!

My sincere thanks to all of this year's ten amazing presenters!  If you'd like to join in next year's fun, feel free to contact me. (Also if anyone has pictures or video of the event, please contact me as well.)


DIY EXHIBITS
I also really enjoyed presenting a rapid prototyping clinic during the "DIY Exhibits" session on Thursday.

We gave groups of attendees the challenge of creating a "bridge exhibit" prototype using only simple materials like paper, tape, rubber bands, and paper clips in about 45 minutes.  Every group performed like true "Office Supply Ninjas" as you can see from the images below and at the top of this posting.

Well, I'm off to the Exhibit Hall, but I'll try to post again before I leave Houston.

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Houston ACM and AAM Preview! (Plus Slow Exhibits "Sneak Peak")

Thousands of intrepid museum folks from around the world will soon be heading to Houston, Texas to attend the two back-to-back conferences being held by the Association of Children's Museums (ACM) and the American Association of Museums (AAM) respectively.


I'll be chairing and/or presenting at several sessions during my stay in Texas, so stop by to say hello (or just heckle from the cheap seats!)  Here's my presentation calendar:


Wednesday, May 18th 

Boot Stompin' Pecha Kucha Evening Event

Start your trip to ACM's InterActivity conference with a bang by attending the FREE Boot Stompin' Pecha Kucha event!  I'll be both hosting and presenting this year.

This year's Pecha Kucha evening event will run on Wednesday, May 18th from approximately 8:00 - 10:00 p.m. at The Heritage Society at Sam Houston Park.  We've got a great group of presenters lined up, a cash bar, and drawings for valuable prizes (no joke!)  

(Wondering what the heck Pecha Kucha is?  It's a fun and fast-paced evening of folks presenting topics they're passionate about in a format of 20 slides of 20 seconds for each slide.  Here's a great video from author Dan Pink that gives an example of Pecha Kucha.)




Thursday, May 19th 
ACM InterActivity Conference


MORNING
On Thursday morning, from 10:45 a.m. to 12:00 noon, I'll be speaking as part of  the "Technology in Children’s Museums" session, currently slotted in the "Windowbox" room.

I'll be sharing the dais with Julia Griffey from Webster University, and Brad Larson, President of Brad Larson Media.  We'll be covering some interesting territory, so come join the conversation!

 
AFTERNOON
Thursday afternoon from 3:00pm to 4:15pm,  I'll be presenting a hands-on prototyping clinic during the "Do It Yourself (D.I.Y.) Exhibits" session in the "Cottonwood" room.

Fellow presenters Becky Lindsay, of MindSplash Design, and Deb Dunkhase from The Iowa Children’s Museum will lead off by discussing the "Why" in DIY Exhibits, and then we'll finish the session with some down-and-dirty exhibit prototyping.




Sunday, May 22nd
Shifting gears now to AAM, I'll be chairing one session and presenting another at the Career Café Idea Lounge, both in the afternoon.

      

"Future of Exhibiting: Voices from Non-Traditional Museums" 

First up, from 1:15 pm to 2:30 pm on Sunday,  I'm pleased to be chairing this session presented by Ashley Remer, Founder & Head Girl of GIRL MUSEUM,  Maria Mortati, Founder of the SF Mobile Museum, and Jon West-Bey, Director of American Poetry Museum.  

They'll be slicing up the many ways to think about what a "museum" is,  based on their own experiences running decidedly un-traditional museum organizations.


Career Café Idea Lounge: "Slow Exhibits"
On Sunday, from 4:15 pm to 5:30 pm in the Convention Center, Room 370 B, I'll be hosting a round-table discussion about the notion of "Slow Exhibits."

Taking a page from the "Slow Food" movement and their central tenets of Good, Clean, and Fair; I've been thinking a lot about how we make exhibits, and how we hope people might engage with our exhibits.  Given the rapid-paced and hyper-connected world we live in, are museums responding by creating exhibit spaces and designed environments that do not lend themselves to contemplation and concentration?

So we'll be talking about and considering design resources and environmental cues that reward visitors for slowing down and engaging more carefully with exhibition spaces and objects --- and actually taking the time to enjoy their experience and create lasting memories.


So that's it for me.  I hope to meet or reconnect with many of you in Houston, and for those not able to make the trip to Texas, stay tuned to the blog, or my Twitter feed (@museum_exhibits) for sporadic updates from the conferences and environs!



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Museum Exhibit Design Inspiration: Advent Calendars in Minnesota

Who would have thought that advent calendars could inspire exhibit design?  Maybe it's not that surprising that Advent Calendars with their little doors and secret hidden treasures would be a great way to engage visitors.

As I'm here in St. Paul for the annual Children's Museum InterActivity Conference, I got to see some wonderful exhibitions yesterday at The Minnesota History Center that Dan Spock and his team had put together.  Each area was rich without being overwhelming, and rewarded careful observation.

"Open House" was an especially inspiring exhibition. Essentially an interactive journey of the life of one real house in St. Paul in which 50 families lived over the past century.  Nicely placed stories and objects to give you a real sense of the lives of the house's inhabitants. You can get a sense of the space from the YouTube video above.

Great stuff! And definitely worth a special trip if you're ever in the Twin Cities

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!)