ExhibiTricks: A Museum/Exhibit/Design Blog: Paul Orselli Workshop

Showing posts with label Paul Orselli Workshop. Show all posts

Monday, June 23, 2025

What Fixing Broken Exhibits Has Taught Me About Smart Design

Let me paint you a picture. It's Tuesday morning, and the school groups are due to arrive in an hour. Your star interactive exhibit—the one that took six months to design and three months to build—is making that clicking sound again. You know, the one that means "expensive repair visit" in exhibit language.

Meanwhile, that simple wooden flip-book station you built as a "temporary" solution five years ago? Still going strong, still engaging visitors, and the only maintenance it needs is occasionally tightening a screw.

After four decades of watching exhibits live, die, and get resurrected more times than a soap opera character, I've learned that maintenance-friendly design isn't about dumbing things down—it's about respecting the brutal realities of public use.

The Immortals: Exhibits That Refuse to Die

Simple Mechanical Interactives: Hand cranks, pulleys, lever systems, rotating drums. These workhorses continue to operate effectively because they utilize principles that have proven successful since the Industrial Revolution. When they break, any competent handy person can fix them.

Magnetic Systems: Those "build your own molecule" exhibits with magnetic atoms? Nearly indestructible. Drop-proof and child-proof, with the only moving parts being the magnetic pieces themselves.

Gravity-Fed Demonstrations: Ball runs, catapults, pendulums. Physics does the work, not motors. When something goes wrong, it's usually obvious and can be easily fixed.

The Universal Laws of Exhibit Entropy

Law #1: If It Can Be Touched, It Will Be Touched Incorrectly

Design for the visitor who will push when they should pull, lean when they should stand, and somehow find the one way to use your exhibit that you never imagined.

Smart design response: Make the "wrong" way to interact either impossible or harmless. You can't push in the wrong direction if the mechanism only moves one way.

Law #2: Children Are Tiny Engineers of Destruction

Not maliciously—they're just incredibly effective at finding failure points. They apply force in unexpected directions, use exhibits as climbing equipment, and have an uncanny ability to separate components you thought were permanently attached.

Smart design response: If a six-year-old can break it, assume they will. Design accordingly.

Law #3: The Most Popular Exhibits Wear Out Fastest

Success breeds its own problems. That hands-on station that everyone loves? It's getting 10x the use you planned for.

Smart design response: Build for 5x your projected traffic, then add safety margins.

Law #4: Complex Repairs Happen at the Worst Possible Times

Murphy's Law applies doubly to museum exhibits. The touchscreen will fail right before the VIP donor tour.

Smart design response: Design for graceful degradation. When part of the exhibit fails, the rest should still function.

The Modular Mindset

Think Lego, not sculpture. Design exhibits as systems of replaceable components rather than integrated artworks.

Component Accessibility: Can you reach every part that might need maintenance without dismantling half the exhibit? If not, redesign.

Standard Fasteners: Use screws and bolts that are readily available at any hardware store. Avoid proprietary connectors that require special orders from manufacturers who might not exist in five years.

Diagnostic Simplicity: When something stops working, can a non-expert quickly identify the problem? Visual indicators, clear troubleshooting steps, and logical component organization save countless hours.

The Long Game

Maintenance-friendly design isn't about creating boring exhibits—it's about creating exhibits that can continue to engage visitors year after year. The most innovative interactive in the world is useless if it's broken half the time.

The goal isn't to eliminate maintenance, but to make it predictable, manageable, and affordable. Design exhibits that age like fine wine, not like forgotten leftovers.

Visitors don't care how clever your engineering is—they care that the exhibit works when they want to engage with it. Design for reliability, and the innovation will take care of itself.

What's your most maintenance-friendly exhibit success story? Or your biggest maintenance nightmare that taught you valuable lessons? Share your war stories in the "Comments" Section below—we can all learn from each other's triumphs and disasters.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

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!

If you enjoy the blog, you can help keep it free to read and free from ads by supporting ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"

Friday, July 26, 2024

Blowing the (Red) Whistle on Bad Ideas in Museum Practice.

I was tickled to receive a red plastic whistle in the mail last week.

I have been awarded membership in the "Red Whistle Club" by Serrell & Associates for "outstanding achievements in unfailing vigilance to audience needs and unhesitating readiness to blow the whistle on bad ideas in museum practice."

I will, of course, wear (and use!) my red whistle proudly.

Do you have someone in mind who would make a fine member of the Red Whistle Club?

If so, just send the nominating information below to Beverly Serrell via the email address found here.

Submit an application with the following information:

1. Name

2. Title

3. E-mail address

4. Reason or rationale for nomination—What makes this person worthy of a Red Whistle Award? How did he or she “blow the whistle”? (maximum 300 words)

5. Who is submitting the nomination? (you may submit yourself)

Awardees receive an official certificate and an actual red whistle.

GOOD LUCK!

Monday, December 4, 2023

How to "Expand" Time at Your Museum

Sometimes, when I'm speaking with a new consulting client, our perceptions of the time needed to complete project tasks on-site at their museum are very different.

Usually, my contact will express that there is "no way" we will complete all the activities I've proposed at their museum in the allotted time. It doesn't matter whether the time involved is two days or two weeks.

However, I know a little museum consultant trick that "expands" time. Well, it's not really a trick, but rather a way of playing with an all too common reality for museum folks -- they don't get regular large blocks of "uninterrupted" time to do their work!

No matter if someone works in Exhibits, Education, Development, or Administration, they seem to be constantly pulled away or distracted by meetings, building concerns, visitor complaints, board issues, malfunctioning exhibits, etc., etc.

However, when everyone knows a consultant is coming (especially from out of town!) staff working at the museum make a commitment to create blocks of "untouchable" time to meet, prototype, brainstorm, or whatever with the consultant (like me!)

And, unsurprisingly, when talented and creative museum folks dig into challenges together for those uninterrupted blocks of time -- LOTS of cool stuff happens.

There are also ways to "hack" your work calendar to create these "time-bending" calendar blocks. Some folks prioritize their "high concentration" tasks at the beginning of their work day (ideally before the museum opens) to maximize their workflow. If possible, some folks shift their starting times an hour earlier to maximize concentrated quiet time or even book standing meetings with themselves to build in those blocks of focused time.

All of this begs the question of whether all those workplace "interruptions" are really necessary. Of course, if a real emergency like a water pipe bursting happens, it requires immediate attention. But could other work events or meetings, be put into a temporal "parking lot" to be dealt with at specific times -- after lunch or two hours before closing, for example -- leaving the rest of the day for concentrated bursts of thinking, creating, and problem-solving?

It's worth spending a little time thinking about how your workdays normally flow -- or don't.

Or you could just contact me to work with your museum so we can bend time together!

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Back to Bulgaria for MUSE Academy!

I'm excited to be heading back to Bulgaria in a few days to kick off the second edition of the MUSE Academy program sponsored by the America for Bulgaria Foundation (ABF).

The MUSE Academy will equip Bulgarian professionals from museums and other cultural organizations with the tools to create compelling exhibits and tell powerful stories that will keep visitors returning for more.

I am doubly excited to share the MUSE Academy teaching stage with colleagues Jamie Lawyer and Christina Ferwerda!

Check out this recent article from the ABF website that shares more information about my work and the new MUSE Academy. Also, follow me on Twitter (X), Facebook, and Instagram as I post live updates from Bulgaria!

Saturday, September 9, 2023

Conversations with Museum Pros on the POW! YouTube Channel

Over the past few years, I've been fortunate to chat with museum professionals from all over the world on my POW! YouTube channel.

Click on over to YouTube to find videos about such topics as "The Definition of Done" with Christian Greer, and "Using Language as an Interpretive Tool" with Amparo Leyman Pino.

There is a growing library of over 100 videos to choose from, so why not browse the POW! YouTube channel and discover what interests you? And if you have recommendations for people that I can bring to my YouTube channel (maybe even yourself?) please let me know!

Monday, May 29, 2023

The Museum Consultant's Calendar Trick

Sometimes when I'm speaking with a new consulting client, our perceptions of the time needed to complete project tasks on-site at their museum are very different.

Usually, my contact will express that there is "no way" we will complete all the activities I've proposed to happen at their museum in the time allotted. It doesn't matter whether the time involved is two days or two weeks.

However, I know a little museum consultant trick that "expands" time. Well, it's not really a trick, but rather a way of playing with an all too common reality for museum folks -- they don't get regular large blocks of "uninterrupted" time to do their work!

And, unsurprisingly, when talented and creative museum folks dig into challenges together for those uninterrupted blocks of time -- LOTS of cool stuff happens.

There are also ways to "hack" your work calendar to create these "time-bending" calendar blocks. Some folks put their "high concentration" tasks at the very beginning of their work day (ideally before the museum opens) to maximize their workflow. If possible, some folks shift their starting times an hour earlier to maximize concentrated quiet time or even book standing meetings with themselves to build in those blocks of focused time.

All of this begs the question of whether all those workplace "interruptions" are really necessary. Of course, if a real emergency like a water pipe bursting happens, it requires immediate attention. But could other work events, or meetings, be put into a temporal "parking lot" to be dealt with at specific times -- after lunch or two hours before closing, for example -- leaving the rest of the day for concentrated bursts of thinking, creating, problem-solving?

It's worth spending a little time thinking about how your workdays normally flow -- or don't.

Or you could just contact me to work with your museum so we can bend time together!

Sunday, December 18, 2022

Top Ten 2022 Takeaways from ExhibiTricks

One cool thing about my ExhibiTricks blog is that it lets me capture and share ideas. It's fun as the end of the year approaches to look back at 2022 and see which ideas stood out and "clumped together" in different posts.

So here (in no particular order) are Ten Takeaways from 2022 -- and their related blog posts, in case you missed them the first time around!

1) Museum folks can leverage learnings from pop culture "hits" like TikTok and Wordle

• 4 Things Museum Exhibit Designers Can Learn From Wordle

2) Museum installations require flexible thinking

After all the COVID delays, museum activities and exhibition installations have come rushing back through the project pipeline, which prompted three 2022 posts about the installation "mindset"

• What's your Plan B?

• What's On Your Three Lists?

• What's the Definition of Done?

3) Just One Thing about Exhibits (JOT@Exhibits)

One of my favorite 2022 "side projects" was a set of short videos asking museum folks from all around the world to share "Just One Thing" about exhibits. Check out my POW! YouTube channel (and let me know if you'd like to do a JOT video with me in 2023!)

• JOT@Exhibits Videos on YouTube!

4) Museum Workers Unite!

Museum workers continue to unionize to get fair workplace treatment and liveable wages. Shame on the museum executives and boards who will spend money on union-busting law firms but not on their workers!

• Support Striking PMA Workers

5) Awesome Museum/Exhibit/Design Tools!

One of the best things about the museum business is the willingness of so many colleagues to share tools, techniques, and resources they use in their work. That notion of "sharing" continues to motivate my blog. Here are some awesome tools that popped up in 2022 ExhibiTricks posts:

• TerraSlate Waterproof Paper

• Spoonflower Custom Fabrics

• Making Things Move with 507movements.com

6) The Exhibit Cheapbooks are now FREE books!

In the spirit of sharing, I still think it's wonderful that nearly 100 free exhibits "recipes" originally contributed by museum colleagues from all over the world into the Exhibit Cheapbooks are now available to download FOR FREE from the POW! website.

• Marking a Cheapbooks Milestone

7) Newsletters are great repositories for ideas and inspiration I love newsletters because they help me encounter ideas and people I might not have come across otherwise

• Newsletters as Idea Nets

8) Exhibits for children are not simply "piles of toys" I'm biased, but I think some of the most innovative and imaginative exhibit design work comes out of projects geared towards children (and their adult caregivers.) So perhaps it's not surprising that three 2022 postings touched on exhibits for kids. (A special shout-out to Margaret Middleton, whose work features in two of these posts.)

• Drawing the Curtain: Making a Child-Friendly Exhibit in an Art Museum

• Creating Wobbly World

• Three Mistakes to Avoid When Designing Spaces for Children

9) We Missed In-Person Conferences (and they sure beat Zoom!) Of course, I caught COVID before InterActivity, so I couldn't attend -- which was worse than a Virtual Conference!

• Back on the Museum Conference Circuit!

10) But don't miss the wonder in our work!

Our work, like all work, sometimes brings stress or frustration but don't let those things override the amazing things we get to encounter in our museum work

• Light, Color, and Beauty

Here's wishing all ExhibiTricks readers a peaceful close to 2022 and a healthy, happy, and CREATIVE start to 2023!

Wednesday, September 1, 2021

More FREE Exhibit Resources!

Who doesn't like free stuff? Here are links to some great exhibit design resources that come from the POW! website:

The Great Big Exhibit Resource List

A constantly updated compendium of resources for museum design and exhibit fabrication (including websites and contact information.) Need to find fake food, giant sequins, or adaptive devices? Check out the GBER List! And contact me if you have a resource you think should be added to the list.

The Exhibit Cheapbooks

The idea for the Exhibit Cheapbooks started during sessions at the annual Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) Conference with the purpose of sharing "cheap" exhibit ideas and creating a written record of how to replicate these simple and successful exhibit components.

The four Exhibit Cheapbooks have always celebrated the "sharing" nature of museums. You will find varied exhibit ideas from museum colleagues from around the world inside each volume. Sincere thanks to everyone who has shared their ideas and expertise! And special thanks to ASTC for allowing all the Exhibit Cheapbooks material to be shared freely online.

Museum FAQ Videos

Check out these interesting and informative video conversations with museum professionals from around the world. Topics run the gamut from museum management, community engagement, digital exhibits, and more! Click the link above for the video gallery or go directly to the POW! YouTube site.

You can also find downloadable exhibit articles and other museum exhibit design resources by clicking over to the main resource page on the POW! website.

Do you have some other great resources to share? Tell us about them in the COMMENTS Section below!

Sunday, June 13, 2021

The Exhibit Cheapbooks are now FREE!

The four Exhibit Cheapbooks are now available for FREE online!

That's right -- nearly 100 free exhibit "recipes" contributed by museum colleagues from all over the world are now available to download as PDFs from the POW! website. (Did I mention that they're FREE?)

A little history --the idea for the Exhibit Cheapbooks started during sessions at the annual Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) Conference with the purpose of sharing "cheap" exhibit ideas and creating a written record of how to replicate these simple and successful exhibit components.

The very first "Cheapbook" was compiled and edited by Paul Orselli and published by ASTC in 1995. Subsequent volumes appeared in 1999, 2004, and 2014.

The Exhibit Cheapbooks have always celebrated the "sharing" nature of museums. You will find varied exhibit ideas from museum colleagues from around the world inside each volume.

Sincere thanks to everyone who has shared their ideas and expertise by contributing ideas over the years! And special thanks to ASTC for allowing all the Exhibit Cheapbooks material to now be shared freely online.

Think of all these Exhibit Cheapbooks entries not as detailed shop drawings, but rather as creative jumping-off points for your own exhibit building.

So what are you waiting for? Click on over to the Exhibits Cheapbooks Download Page and start making cheap exhibits!

Have fun!

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Can Museums REALLY Change?

In the midst of an ongoing worldwide pandemic, many museum workers are wondering if cultural institutions can make the changes needed to move into the post-COVID era.

I recently wrote an article entitled, "Can Museums Really Change?" published in the Informal Learning Review that seeks to tease out some of the issues at hand.

You can access the entire article for free here, but I'll touch on some of the key challenges (and possible solutions) in this excerpt.

I'll pose the same question here that I used to start my article,

"If someone you knew and cared about (like a relative or mentee) asked whether they should pursue a career in museums right now, what would you say?"

What are the things museums and other cultural institutions need to focus on to become stronger, more equitable, and more community-centered organizations?

Here are five things that I've been thinking about:

1) Staff > Stuff

One of the first ways museums could begin to become more genuinely people-centered (instead of merely talking about it via their social media accounts) is to clearly prioritize staff over “stuff.” This requires museum management and boards and museum organizations to act as if they care more for the people working at a museum than museum collections or buildings. (Of course, you need trained staff to care for collections and facilities properly, but that’s an entirely different story).

Pay continues to be the most significant ongoing issue in the museum world. It is wrong, if not downright immoral, to hire someone for full-time work at a museum and to knowingly pay them less than a living wage. And many museum workers are woefully and deliberately underpaid. Let’s pause here to acknowledge that many museum administrators are master rationalizers and can spin stories to justify some of their staff needing to work one (or more!) jobs in addition to their full-time museum employment to make ends meet.

So rather than relying on someone’s rosy notion of what a “living wage” means in different parts of the country, why not use a common yardstick? Fortunately, MIT has developed a free Web-based Living Wage Calculator (https://livingwage.mit.edu/) that anyone can use to determine what a living wage means in different parts of the U.S. All museums should commit to offering their employees a living wage.

2) Flatten the Org Chart!

The traditional “top-down” hierarchical business structures of most museums contribute to the isolation of museum departments and functions. Instead of creating collaborators moving toward common goals, most museum org charts create multi-level “silos” that compete for limited resources – often pulling in different directions. Front-line and public-facing museum workers often feel that decisions handed down from the “higher-ups” are arbitrary or “out of touch” with the operational realities of running the museum.

Worse yet, museum employees facing severe issues such as the reported instances of sexual harassment or even physical abuse(!) from managers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art were routinely ignored or dismissed, (https://hyperallergic.com/579531/philadelphia-museum-of-art-concludes-workplace assessment-after-allegations-of-abuse/). The museum management hierarchy simply sought to protect itself.

Hierarchical structures in museums also contribute to pay inequities across departments. Shouldn’t the roles of Education, Exhibits, and Development departments be viewed as equally important to museums’ purpose and function, and therefore compensated equitably? Museums can systemically change staffing and management approaches by “flattening” their org charts and promoting workers’ and departments’ true interdependency.

What would a museum system built on self-organization principles look like in practice? At its core, “self-management” means knowing what you are responsible for and having the freedom to meet those expectations however you think is best. “Self-organization” is being able to make changes to improve things - beyond what is required of you. Simple in theory, but everyone has to truly commit for it to work!

Examples from the for-profit world include the company Zappos, which details the approach it took in successfully changing to a form of a self-organizing structure called a “Holacracy” in this Web article: https://www.zapposinsights.com/about/holacracy.

3) Communities as True Creative Partners

Whose stories are museums telling, and who is visiting museums to experience the exhibits, programs, and events related to those stories? As researchers like Susie Wilkening have shown (http://www.wilkeningconsulting.com/data-stories.html), museum visitors are concerned about a broad range of issues, but can museums provide what their communities want and need – and in a timely way?There are large groups of people that museums are simply not reaching. Visitors to cultural arts organizations, including museums, continue to trend older and whiter than the demographic directions the U.S. general population is heading.

How can museums counteract the notion that “museums are not for me”? I would contend that rather than trying only to present stories, museums also need to engage with their communities as real creative partners. That way, museums no longer become the only authorities and sole judges of the value of certain stories over others. This systemic shift to co-creation with communities may well upset museums with a “Curators Uber Alles” approach, but the realities of demographics point in a different direction.

An excellent example of a museum that sought to reinvent itself with a more community and visitor-centric approach is the Oakland Museum of California (https://museumca.org/). A free PDF of a book outlining their work, “How Visitors Changed Our Museum” is available through the OMCA website: https://museumca.org/files/HowVisitorsChangedOurMuseumBook.pdf.

Another way museums could become more community-minded is to foster more cooperation and resource-sharing between museums in the same geographic area. A great example of exactly this kind of local cooperation is the Chattanooga Museums Collaborative: https://www.nten.org/article/sharing-back-offices-in-the-cloud-the-case-of-the-chattanooga-museums-collaborative/.

4) Money Changes Everything

Given the continuing mismatch between cultural institutions’ operational needs and the available funding sources; the COVID-19 crisis has made even more evident the weak financial positions of so many museums.

This raises a sort of “museum lifeboat” question – should unsustainable museums be allowed (or even encouraged) to go out of business so they don’t take away limited resources from more vital institutions?

This is a tricky proposition since many museums really can’t survive without constant (if erratic) infusions of cash from both private and governmental sources. The long-term systemic solution here is to create reliable public funding streams for all museums through political pressure, both at the local and national levels. We should support and vote for politicians that view museums as necessary to civic life as libraries, police stations, or garbage trucks. A politician that continually tries to eliminate organizations like IMLS, NEH, and NEA is no friend to museums.

More systemic public funding of cultural organizations would also reduce the dependence of museums on wealthy donors and reduce the systemic and ethical dilemmas caused by balancing selling objects from the collections versus preventing the firing of staff -- which brings us back to “staff versus stuff” again. Although in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, “stuff” seems to be winning the battle -- if you consider examples such as the Museum of Modern Art (with an endowment of over one billion dollars) terminating every single contract of all 85 of its freelance educators in April 2020 or the Royal Academy in the U.K. that is refusing to sell one Michelangelo statue to save the jobs of nearly 150 museum workers in September 2020.

5) Leaving the "Numbers Game" Behind

Ultimately, to change the current museum “system,” we need to leave the “numbers game” behind. The notion that admissions numbers are an accurate measure of a museum’s worth or a way to measure the value of a museum visit to a visitor may be a more severe sickness impacting the museum world than even COVID-19.

Randi Korn’s book, Intentional Practice for Museums: A Guide for Maximizing Impact, offers meaningful alternatives to the museum admissions figures “numbers game.” Many museum leaders and boards continue to be deluded by an “edifice complex.” The reckless rush to build larger and grander new museums without considering whether we can sustain those new buildings has to stop. If we cannot sustain (parse that word in as many ways as you like) existing museums worldwide, should we really be adding to the number of new museums?

Final Thoughts

All of the challenges and possible systemic solutions highlighted above bring us back to the original question: Can Museums Really Change?

Can we bring the required sense of urgency and the necessary hard decisions to the tasks ahead? Museums have talked a great game for years (even decades!) about systemic inequities and failings in the museum field – often with little, if any, real change. The current moment requires not just talk but timely, and creative, actions.

Are we prepared to leave people behind (whether directors, board members, or staff) who cannot evolve and adapt to the changes needed in the museum field? No matter how much you like an individual personally, or how well they may have fit their role in the past, sometimes folks just don’t grow along with your organization. And then it only deepens the pain to delay conversations about moving on.

Perhaps everyone in the museum field should take a lesson from the dinosaur skeletons on display in so many of our institutions – if you don’t adapt, you will surely become extinct!

Monday, March 23, 2020

Let's turn "Work From Home" time into new Museum FAQ Videos!

Now that COVID-19 has turned almost every museum worker into a telecommuter, I have an idea for something that could build a resource for colleagues around the world.

Let's use our "work from home" time into creating a set of Museum FAQ videos to share with each other.

A little background -- last year I started a short-video series called Museum FAQ to provide answers to frequently asked questions I often received from clients, peers, and Emerging Museum Professionals (EMPs).

Here's an example Museum FAQ video you can view on YouTube.

Now that so many of us are working from home wouldn't it be great to create a "reference library" of free videos on museum/exhibit/design questions like, "What makes a great museum label?" or "How can I shift static content into interactive exhibit activities?" or "What's a simple unguided Maker Space activity?" You get the idea.

I'm happy to set up times to plan and record simple Zoom conversations between myself and museum colleagues to create new Museum FAQ videos to share freely on YouTube.

If that sounds like something you'd like to be part of, please email me at info@orselli.net so we can get started!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

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!

If you enjoy the blog, you can help keep it free to read and free from ads by supporting ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

10 Things I Learned As a Fulbright Specialist in Bulgaria

I recently returned from a wonderful extended trip to Bulgaria as part of the Fulbright Specialist Program.

During my work in Bulgaria, I engaged with staff and community partners at Muzeiko, the first children's science museum in Bulgaria (and the entire region, for that matter.)

While my primary purpose was to help build internal capacity at Muzeiko -- related especially to exhibit development, prototyping, and engaging with community partners, I also learned (or re-learned!) some things I think would be useful for anyone working to develop better exhibitions and programs at museums.

1) It helps to like the people you are working with enough to disagree with them
The core group of people I worked with (pictured at the top of this post) included museum staff from various departments at Muzeiko, community partners (including architects and specialists in "Escape Rooms") and Joe Cook, a lead exhibit developer from the German fabrication firm Huttinger.

We had fun together and worked hard bashing ideas around every day, but even though I was the ostensible "leader" of the process, there were a number of times that we were all not in lock-step agreement with how best to move forward. And those disagreements (driven by passion for the work we were all doing) were an important part of the process.

2) Blocking off your calendars makes a big difference
Whenever I share my goals and expectations for a workshop, museum folks often say something along the lines of "I don't think we will be able to do all that ..." However, the fact that people have deliberately blocked off time on their calendars to meet with someone from the "outside" provides the luxury of large blocks of time uninterrupted by phone calls, emails, and the many tiny distractions that normally bog down a museum worker's day.

3) "Quick and Dirty" prototyping with simple materials (like paper and tape) is a great icebreaker!
People often resist the notion of prototyping by saying they don't have the time or money to prototype -- to which I instantly reply, "if you don't have time and money to prototype your exhibits, will you have time and money to fix your mistakes once you've installed your exhibits?" Also doing fast and simple prototyping exercises with just paper and masking tape is a nice way to "break the ice" by introducing prototyping as a tool for building internal capacity.

4) Bring examples of prototypes, exhibits, and materials to the workshop!
When I travel to give workshops (even faraway to Bulgaria!) I usually pack two suitcases, one for my clothes, and one for my workshop materials, including prototype exhibit examples. If a (PowerPoint) picture is worth a thousand words, an actual prototype device or exhibit material sample that workshop participants can touch and try out is worth at least ten thousand words!

5) Get out of the workshop room and out onto the exhibit floor!
More action, less talk about how to change/make/improve exhibits. I learned a new Bulgarian word during this trip -- the Cyrillic spelling would be: Можело. (The English pronunciation would be: Moj-e-lo.) Basically, my sense of the word is "we can do this!" or "this can be done!" Exactly the right attitude for prototyping!

6) Get feedback early and often from visitors.
Forget about what you and I may think about these exhibit ideas, what do visitors think? The only way to find out is to get your ideas and prototypes in front of visitors as soon as you can.

7) Don't forget the index cards (and whiteboards, and scissors, and tape ...)
Prototyping is a way of "thinking with your hands." But if you don't have some materials to think and tinker (thinker?) with your creative momentum will often stall -- so connect with your workshop hosts to make sure you have good access to tools and materials (even if you have to pack your own index cards!)

I really like using whiteboards for workshops more than those big paper easel pads -- they're reusable and taking pictures of each whiteboard before they are erased provides easy images to drop into follow-up reports (or blog posts!)

8) You can prototype graphics and labels, too.
In my opinion, you can prototype anything in your museum -- not just exhibit components, but also educational programs, computer games, graphics ...

9) Cast your nets wide.
Look for ways to amplify and spread your message during your workshops. In my case, I was fortunate to also be able to present a workshop to museum professionals from all around Bulgaria, while in Sofia.

10) Learn from people and places outside your workshop rooms!
I have been fortunate to visit Bulgaria several times -- I'd happily suggest a visit there to anyone! (Raise your seats and stow your tray tables, because this is the travelogue section of this post.)

During my most recent trip, I spent some time in Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second-largest city. Plovdiv is a cool combination of a modern city, a beginner's parkour course (tons of steps, hills, and steep slopes) and restored Roman artifacts and structures -- all intermixed with each other!

While I was in Plovdiv, I got to visit the construction site of a massive Roman Basilica project filled with amazing mosaic floors from the Fourth Century! I imagine after the project opens it will be a candidate to be named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

To finish up my trip with a massive dose of culture shock, I attended ComicCon in Sofia it was amazing to see worldwide pop culture viewed through a Balkan lens!

One last picture (and tip!) "Eat where the locals eat!" Here I am with some of my Bulgarian friends at a Turkish restaurant inside a Bulgarian truckstop.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to both the Fulbright Specialist Program and my excellent colleagues at Muzeiko for making my trip and workshops possible!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

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!

If you enjoy the blog, please help support ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Searching for Index Cards in Bulgaria

I recently returned from a trip to Bulgaria as part of the Fulbright Specialist program (which I will report on in more detail in a future ExhibiTricks post!)

But for now, I want to talk about index cards. In the U.S. these small rectangles of card stock (examples pictured above at the top of this post) help people organize everything from recipes to doctoral dissertations. So I thought nothing of it when I asked my Fulbright project partners at Muzeiko in Sofia to order some index cards for us to use during our staff development and exhibit training workshops together.

It turns out that index cards are not really a thing in Bulgaria.

Even after exchanging a number of emails with pictures and links, my project partners at Muzeiko reported that if I wanted to use index cards for our exhibit development exercises, I would have to bring my own.

So I put a large supply of index cards into my suitcase and we happily used those cards to sort through exhibit ideas and possibilities together in Sofia.

The folks at Muzeiko immediately saw the advantage of these handy little tools and remarked that they were "better than paper slips" at organizing ideas because the index cards were durable and savable and could also be folded or punched through to help connect and express ideas.

Also several of the participants mentioned that they didn't really think about "chunking" ideas (or breaking complex ideas into smaller parts) when they were developing and designing exhibits -- perhaps because they didn't have a tool like index cards to work with?

All of this has me thinking about the tools we use, or don't use (or don't even know that exist!) when we are doing our work in museums. Could there be some "index cards" out there that could be helping you do your own creative work in new and different ways? Feel free to share your own favorite creative/creation tools in the "Comments Section" below.

P.S. In the spirit of international cooperation, I left my entire supply of index cards with my friends at Muzeiko. I can't wait to see what new ideas they come up with by using them!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

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!

If you enjoy the blog, please help support ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"

Monday, June 24, 2019

4 Things I Learned from Attending 4 Museum Conferences in 4 Weeks

You might think my first answer to the title of this post would be: "DON'T go to 4 Museum Conferences in 4 weeks!" but you'd be mistaken. My experiences in Denver, New York City, New Orleans, and Copenhagen (by way of Helsinki!) were certainly a bit taxing at times, but ultimately extremely rewarding professionally and personally.

So where did I go? In order, the organizations whose Conferences I attended were: Association of Children's Museums (ACM) in Denver; New York City Museum Educator's Roundtable (NYCMER) in NYC; American Alliance of Museums (AAM) in New Orleans; and the European Network of Science Centres and Museums (ECSITE) in Copenhagen.

And what did I learn (or re-learn) during my conference travels? Four main things that could be applied to any conference experience really:

1) Content is King

2) Social Interaction is Queen

3) Location, Location, Location

4) Size Matters

CONTENT: Ostensibly as life-long learners we should be excited about the content offered at conferences. But that works both ways -- conferences should be interested in providing interesting and exciting formats that engage participants with meaningful content also. (As a related sidebar, does anyone really remember or care about the Conference "Themes"?)

I give high points to ACM, NYCMER, and ECSITE for having excellent keynote speakers. I really enjoyed Temple Grandin and Gever Tulley extolling the virtues of self-directed learning and "making stuff" during their talks in Denver.

The keynote speakers at the ECSITE conference completely enthralled me with presentations on two unlikely topics -- Hyperbolic Space and Slime Molds! I'd recommend clicking over to the ECSITE YouTube page to see the videos of each of those keynotes.

Of course, the other essential part of the content equation is how the sessions are framed and presented. I think ECSITE did the best job of this by presenting truly thought-provoking content through formats that left the traditional "A moderator and 3 talking heads with PowerPoints" framework in the dust.

Two examples from Copenhagen were a "House of Commons" session where the room was literally divided in half with a tape-line down the middle and all the chairs set on one side of the room or the other. Speakers each presented a short, provocative statement about science centers, then participants "voted with their feet" by choosing the "FOR" or "AGAINST" side of the room, followed by a discussion with audience members about why they voted the way the did.

My other favorite session was one that I presented in that followed a "Yes, and ..." format. In this case, each presenter had one minute to present a wild exhibit idea that they really would like to see implemented, followed by one minute of audience members adding positive ideas (Yes, and ...) to the original ideas, but no BUTS or naysaying allowed! Then the original presenter summarized (and added a title) to their original idea based on the audience input. A great fast-paced session that left everyone (audience and presenters) with a whole set of cool exhibit ideas!

You can often find out more about conference sessions (including digital copies of handouts and session materials) by going to the respective Conference webpages (like ACM's here, or ECSITE's here.)

SOCIAL INTERACTION: In many ways going to a conference is like attending a reunion. You look forward to seeing folks you haven't seen in a while and meeting new folks as well. So how are conference organizers creating opportunities for socializing and networking outside the formal sessions? Dear colleagues in the United States museum community, I am here to report that the ECSITE Conference stands head-and-shoulders above every U.S. museum Conference in that regard.

So what does ECSITE do, that others don't? For starters, every lunch is a communal hot lunch at big tables. Rather than everyone scattering for an hour or two, all ECSITE attendees receive these large group lunches every day included in their registration. For reference, there are about 1200 people or so who attend the ECSITE Conference, so just about every other Museum Conference in the U.S. (except AAM which is really too big, to begin with, but more about that below) could create these communal social gatherings if they really wanted to.

Maybe my European colleagues are just cooler, but the evening events at ECSITE were better too! Our first ECSITE evening event (again, for everyone) was held in a historic Copenhagen Circus building with dinner and a show! If you really believe that at least half the value of attending a conference comes from the social interactions outside of sessions, then what are the conference organizers doing to really foster those interactions?

Although I always award extra points to the National Association for Museum Exhibitions (NAME) for the best social event at AAM, and the 2019 party at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum was no exception. I mean, at what other AAM party could you wear a bean jacket?

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION: This isn't just about the city where a particular conference meets (although Denver, New York City, New Orleans, and Copenhagen were all awesome) but also the logistics of getting around to different conference events and the quality of the host institution(s) as well. ACM, NYCMER, and ECSITE all handled this aspect pretty well. AAM's handling of logistics in New Orleans, on the other hand, was a BIG fail. Events in "conference hotels" were far away from the main Conference Center and even with shuttle buses, many people were late for events they paid for.

SIZE MATTERS: Bigger is NOT always better when it comes to Museum Conferences. Once the number of conference attendees exceeds 2000, the quality of the overall conference experience decreases exponentially. I really believe there is such a thing as a museum being too big, and similarly, a museum conference being too big as well.

I'm afraid the AAM Conference is just too enormous to be able to handle content, social interactions, and even location logistics in a way I find personally and professionally satisfying. I'm going to be taking a break from AAM for a while, and instead focusing my conference time on smaller regional, national, and even international museum conferences to continue to hone my professional practice.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul is an instigator, in the best sense of that word. He likes to mix up interesting people, ideas, and materials to make both individual museum exhibits and entire museums with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)

If you would like to support the content on ExhibiTricks, please consider making a small donation through our PayPal "Tip Jar"