Impromptu Communication Tips and Tricks for Museum Workers

Jen Oleniczak Brown is the Founder of The Engaging Educator (EE), a women-owned and operated company dedicated to helping people find their unapologetic, authentic and best voice, communication style, and self through improv-based education. Jen lives in Winston Salem, NC with her husband, their two dogs Drumstick and Pickle, and over four-dozen houseplants. (Jen's photo credit: The Confetti Project.)

Jen’s latest book, Think on Your Feet: Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Impromptu Communication Skills on the Job (McGraw Hill Education, November 2019) is one of Inc Magazines “20 Books That Will Kick Off 2020 on the Right Foot” and has been called “a helpful maven’s guide ideal for anyone who views a podium with fear and trembling” by Publishers Weekly.

Jen was kind enough to share some impromptu communication tips and tricks below that I'm sure will of be of interest to ExhibiTricks readers.



Conversations With Friends 24/7

Flying by the seat of your pants.
Going with the flow.
Rolling with it.

You’re either cringing or getting excited reading those phrases.

Now, take those phrases into your museum workday.

Same feelings? Different?

I’ve been there – after working in museums as an educator for many years I realized that the whole “flex in the moment” thing isn’t the easiest for a lot of people. It’s not to say we aren’t good at it – because we are! – it’s the stigma of impromptu moments and impromptu conversations that causes this disconnect and often the discomfort.

Surprise! You’re probably already pretty good at impromptu speaking, flying by the seat of your pants, going with the flow and rolling with it – and if you’re laughing at me, think of the last friendly conversation you had.

Did you plan it?
Did you script it?
Did you overthink it?

NO! We simply listen and respond when we’re having these friendly conversations. For some reason, our brains short circuit when it’s work-related and suddenly we feel like we’re not “as good” as impromptu moments. If you just tap into that listen and respond like you’re talking with a friend mindset, you’re going to notice drastic improvement with staff, visitors and more.

While you’re wrapping your head around that mind shift, here are three areas to start tapping into directly that will build those skills in the moment and beyond:



Active Listening

I am constantly bringing everything back to listening. Imagine building a house, and you don’t check the foundation before you start building, you just start putting up the second floor on wiggly beams with no support.

That’s how I see communication without attention to the basics.

We are terrible listeners sometimes. I mean, can you blame us? We have a million things going on, we’re managing people and projects and the public and the next thing – on top of that all the information! We have an agenda and we need to make it happen…and when that takes over, listening in the moment can be one of the first things to go to the side.

And yet, listening is crucial and key, and usually one of the things you can improve on first and immediately reap the benefits. Take a moment to assess your listening skills: they are non-negotiable in impromptu communication moments. If a visitor or a coworker says something and you miss information, or were thinking about the what next NEXT, they might tell you – or they’ll write you off as a distracted listener.

If you know you tend to drift or focus a few steps ahead – or answer the question you think is being asked versus the question that is asked (a common offender in museum practice!) try this: wait until the person finishes their sentence, and take the last word of their sentence – let it inspire the first word of your sentence.

This is a riff off of a training exercise we do called Last Word – we have pairs take the last word of the previous sentence and have them use it as the first word of the response. The idea is to be comfortable in silence and to pay attention to the entire thought instead of forming an answer or before the other person is even done talking. Since that exact exercise makes you sound like Yoda in real life, the scaffold is the inspiration.



Show it, don’t just tell it

Because active listening is so darn important, I have to tap it twice. As adults, we’re often super polite. Smiling, nodding, mmmhmmming – all these lovely non-verbals that show that we are COMPLETELY LISTENING – not thinking about our inbox, our dinner, our plans later…right?

Yeah, I thought so.

Kids are the best. Kids will tell you when they aren’t listening to you because they will talk over you, fidget, say you are boring – all these things.

Be more like a kid.

Show that you’re listening, don’t just tell us with the smile and nod. Asking questions – true curiosity questions to get more information or to get deeper into the topic, not questions to insert your opinion or swap focus. “Tell me more about x” or “That’s awesome, can you explain y more?” are great open-ended questions that aren’t aggressive or attacking, and they center the speaker. Also, pro tip: when someone shows they are listening to the speaker – and truly listening, so asking these questions and getting the speaker to keep talking – that speaker has some seriously good vibes going. Dopamine is firing in the speaker’s brain and that good feeling will pass to you as the listener – and who doesn’t want to be associated with a good feeling?



Embrace Silence

It takes time to respond thoughtfully. Silences are confident.

Read that again, sink it in your brain, and start taking more silences.

We have a weird association with silences – be it the “getting caught” because you’re not paying attention or the “deer in headlights” of not knowing what to say next, silences are usually associated with anxiety. Sure, a silence that is forced on you is generally nerve-wracking. On the flip side – a silence you take to be thoughtful, to respond with consideration instead of reacting, is confident because you’re taking it by choice. When we put intention behind our actions, confidence comes through. Remember to give yourself some grace and space to learn, grow and improve. And don’t build the house without the foundation!


Thanks again to Jen for those helpful communication tips!  If you’d like to learn more about Jen and her work, hop over to theengagingeducator.com.


AND NOW A FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY!  Here's your chance to win one of two free copies of Jen's new book, Think on Your Feet: Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Impromptu Communication Skills on the Job.  Either click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog OR send me an email with "I want to win a copy of Jen's book!" in the subject line before January 30, 2020.  We will randomly select one new ExhibiTricks subscriber and one emailer to each receive a book as their prize.  Good luck!

Museums Involving Communities: Authentic Connections

In Margaret Kadoyama’s vision, cultural organizations are vital members of their communities and are actively involved in community revitalization.  Margaret works collaboratively with museums and cultural organizations to create strategic community involvement and audience development plans, assess programs, and plan for sustainability. 

Margaret was kind enough to share some thoughts here on the ExhibiTricks blog about her new book, Museums Involving Communities: Authentic Connections.


Imagine this: You are on vacation, and you decide to check out a local museum. You have a professional and personal interest in visiting, and when you arrive, you notice that the people there – the staff and visitors – seem to be happy to be there, and there is a vitality and energy about the place. When you look around, the staff and visitors are all sorts of people – various ages, styles, races, ethnicities, groupings, and the place feels welcoming and inclusive. People are engaged with one another and with the exhibitions and programs. You think, “Wow – this is a great place to be! How did it come to be like this?”

That scenario is a guidepost for me, and writing this book has been a way to discover how to make that happen for more museums. I have been long committed to the quiet but tenacious goal of helping people learn how museums can be vital members of their communities.  Since the late 1980s this vision has driven my work, and when I was asked to teach at John F. Kennedy University Museum Studies in 1997, I hoped that this was a way to influence many students over many years to embrace and incorporate community involvement into their daily practice. It has been a great pleasure to see hundreds of JFKU students embracing community work and join with colleagues in moving this forward. To my delight, the museum field has grown and is increasingly embracing community-focused work.

At this time and place (the United States in 2018), colleagues in many museums and cultural organizations are articulating the importance of being inclusive. A current example is the April 2018 issue of National Geographic, in which Editor in Chief Susan Goldberg’s editor letter acknowledges National Geographic’s racist history, and notes, “Let’s examine why we continue to segregate along racial lines and how we can build inclusive communities.”

The purpose of Museums Involving Communities: Authentic Connections is to explore how museums can become vital members of their communities, actively involved in community revitalization, and how community members can become actively involved with their museums. This exploration examines the components of museum-community relationships, with the goal of creating more accessible, inclusive, and relevant museums and cultural organizations. 

This book provides insights and guidance into how museums can be more fully engaged with their communities.  We take you through the process, looking internally to learn about our museums and ourselves, and then externally to learn about our communities.  We’ve included key questions to help guide this process, such as:

• What is your intention for engaging in a museum-community involvement initiative?

• Why do you want to have stronger relationships with people and organizations in your community?

• What do you hope will happen as you become more fully involved in your community?

Also included are stories from the field to illustrate how organizations such as the Science Museum of Minnesota, Queens Museum, Arab American National Museum, Oakland Museum of California, and others are embracing community. The stories are not only about what the museum leadership and staff are doing, but also why they are doing it, the challenges they are facing, how they navigate through those challenges, and the short-term and longer-term impacts of their work for the museums and their communities. And, sample worksheets and charts are included as helpful tools for museum leadership and staff.

In the book, we ask questions about communities’ impacts on museum programs, exhibitions, collections, audience and internal culture, a museum’s impact on its community, and the role of leadership in fostering community engagement. The book guides the reader to a) understand how relationships between communities and museums can be forged, b) learn and weigh strategies for involving and advocating for communities in museums, and c) learn how to develop a community involvement action plan.


A question posed by my friend and colleague Leslie Bedford says it best:

Why are some museums comfortable and successful at embracing community and others not? How is that culture of inclusion created and sustained?

Museums Involving Communities hopes to help you find out.

AND NOW --- A CHANCE TO WIN A FREE COPY OF MARGARET'S NEW BOOK!

If you would like a chance to win a copy of Margaret's new book, Museums Involving Communities: Authentic Connections, just become an email subscriber to the ExhibiTricks blog by clicking on the link at the top right of the blog's homepage.  If you are already an ExhibiTricks subscriber you can simply send an email to info@orselli.net with the subject line "I want to win a book!" 

In either case, all entries must be received before April 30, 2018.  The randomly-selected winner will be notified after that time.

UPDATE: Congratulations to Blaire B. of the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery for winning the book!


You can also order a copy of Margaret's book directly from the Routledge Publishing website.  If you enter the code FLR40, you can receive a 20% discount at checkout.  (The book is also available at Amazon and other online booksellers.)


For those of you attending the 2018 AAM Conference in Phoenix, Margaret will be doing a book signing on Monday, May 7th from 3:00 to 4:00 PM at the Alliance Bookstore -- Booth #2448 in the Expo Hall.


Last, but not least, you can find out more about Margaret and her work by visiting her website.




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A Book For Everyone Who Works With Creative People

It's somehow always surprising to me that not everyone who runs a museum works well with creative people.

Bonnie Siegler's new book,  Dear Client: This Book Will Teach You How to Get What You Want from Creative People, may well be the perfect gift for those folks struggling to get the best results out of their creative relationships.

The tone of the book is set from the very first quote, attributed to Steve Jobs: "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do."

In a visually compelling presentation, Siegler, a graphic designer, lays out 66 pithy tips for working with creative people.  

Here are a few of my favorites:

No. 5  Have Clarity of Purpose

As Siegler mentions in her book, if you have more than three priorities, you really don't have any.

No. 8  Decide Who Will Decide

Creative vision is NOT a group activity. Choose one person who will be the decider and/or tie-breaker.

No. 20  Be Up Front About Money

Trust us with your budget parameters --- it will make us feel like we're on the same side.

No. 49  Don't Let Data Drive Your Decisions

I love what Siegler says here -- data doesn't leave room for the most unquantifiable of qualities: vision.  

People will always respond to the familiar in a way that can be recorded.  But how do you crunch the numbers on something new and remarkable?

There are many other excellent takeaways in Dear Client: This Book Will Teach You How to Get What You Want from Creative People.

In fact, you may want to purchase two copies --- one for yourself, and one for your next client!

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.

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The 2016 ExhibiTricks Picks for Your Museum/Exhibit/Design Reading List

As 2016 draws to a close, I thought I'd offer a quick list of resources for your museum/exhibit/design reading (or holiday gift giving!) list.

Each were featured in posts on ExhibiTricks in 2016, so you can click the links in the list below for the full article and/or more information about downloading or purchasing the resources.

Happy Reading!


The 2016 ExhibiTricks Picks

1) Exhibition Journal  If you are not already a subscriber, you are missing out on the best museum-related journal in the business. Top-notch themes, stories, and design.

2) Sacred and Stolen  Gary Vikan's insider account of his time as Director of the Walters Art Museum.  His stories give a funny (and scary!) view of the Art Museum world.

3) The SketchUp D'oh Book  A great resource for anyone who uses (or wants to start using) SketchUp.

4) The Art of Relevance  The latest must-have resource for your professional reference shelf from the indefatigable Nina Simon.

5) Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach  The second edition of Beverly Serrell's industry-standard book on creating exhibit labels.

6) Interpretation: Making a Difference on Purpose  Author Sam Ham brings practical information to museum workers interested in interpretation, but he also shares what research tells us about how people process information.

7) A Practical Guide to Museum Ethics  As the director of the Institute of Museum Ethics at Seton Hall University, Sally Yerkovich brings her expertise to the fore in this interesting and useful book.

8) House of Lost Worlds  Richard Conniff puts together an enjoyable history of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. From its unlikely founding 150 years ago, the story is filled with both colorful characters and great moments in science centered around the amazing New Haven institution.



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.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)

Your 2016 Summer Museum/Exhibit/Design Beach Reads

Taking some books to the beach this summer?  Why not pack a few museum-related reads into your suitcase?

Here are some books I've read recently and/or featured here on the ExhibiTricks blog that I would happily recommend:

The Art of Relevance by Nina Simon.  Nina Simon's new book explores how mission-driven organizations can matter more to more people. It is an enjoyable read filled with great examples and a wonderful central analogy that got me thinking more about what "relevance" means for my own professional practice.  Jeanne Vergeront has written a thoughtful review and consideration of the book on her Museum Notes blog.


Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach by Beverly Serrell. Beverly follows up her essential first edition on the entire process of creating exhibit labels with an even better second edition! Here's an ExhibiTricks interview that I did with Beverly when her book first came out.


Interpretation. Making a Difference on Purpose by Sam H. Ham.  I wish I had this book when I started my first museum job as a living history interpreter!  Human-to-human interaction and interpretation inside a cultural space can provide some of the most powerful (or horrible!) experiences for museum visitors. Author Ham brings practical information to museum workers interested in interpretation, but he also shares what research tells us about how people process information.


A Practical Guide to Museum Ethics by Sally Yerkovich.  Many museum workers (and boards!) might like to gloss over the need for more critical thinking about museum ethics.  However, thinking about how to avoid potential ethical issues before they happen seems like a much better approach than trying to sort things out in the midst of an institutional crisis.  Sally shares her information through a series of case studies and offers approaches to resolving (and hopefully avoiding) such issues.  Sally also shared information about her work at the Institute of Museum Ethics and her impetus for writing a guide to museum ethics in this recent ExhibiTricks interview.


House of Lost Worlds by Richard Conniff.  Author Conniff puts together an enjoyable history of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.  From its unlikely founding 150 years ago, the story is filled with both colorful characters and great moments in science centered around the amazing New Haven institution.


When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi.  Ok, it's not a museum book!  But this powerful memoir allows us to draw important lessons about life from Dr. Kalanithi's tragic death. Highly recommended.


Read any good books lately?  Share your suggestions in the Comments Section below.



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

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Beach Books for Museum and Design Folks (Summer 2014 Edition)

Since I'm not a "beach person" if I end up in a hot, sandy spot I try to make sure I'm under a big, shady umbrella with a book in my hands.

With that in mind, here's a list of books you might like to peruse, on (or off) the beach.  I'm giving just quick highlights here, but linking to longer ExhibiTricks blog posts or reviews about each book, as well as a link to Amazon if you'd like to buy a copy.

Happy reading!

The first book, "The Museum of Extraordinary Things" is not a museum/exhibit/design book per se, but rather a wonderfully written bit of historical fiction that brings together the intersecting lives of two estranged people coming from two completely different starting points in New York City.  I completely fell under the sway of author Alice Hoffman and her prose. Highly recommended.
Review here.  Purchase here.


Austin Kleon's book, "Steal Like An Artist" is a quick read composed of 10 "tips" related to creativity.  If your creative batteries need an inspirational recharge, this is the book for you.
Blog post here. Purchase here.



Daily Rituals: How Artists Work is a collection of short vignettes about how famous people (writers, artists, scientists, composers, poets ...) create.  I found it really interesting to learn about the many different methods that the featured artists used to create their work.
Blog post here. Purchase here.



"The Art of Tinkering" is a book you can tinker with --- literally!  (The cover is printed with electrically-conductive ink.)  The Art of Tinkering is billed as a way to "meet 150+ makers at the intersection of art, science & technology."  It's a colorful book bursting with photos, ideas, and even simple DIY projects.
Blog post here. Purchase here.



Author Susan Weinschenk has put together a great reference for every type of designer called "100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People."  I love a book like this, because no matter where you dip in, there's a little bit of actionable inspiration to bring to your own creative practice.
Blog post here. Purchase here.



Last, but not least, the book Creating Exhibitions talks about how a truly collaborative process related to planning and designing innovative experiences can come about. One for your professional reference shelf.
Blog post here. Purchase here.


Have some of your own museum/exhibit/design "beach reads" to share?  Tell us about your favorites in the "Comments" section below.



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

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Steal Like An Artist

Some books just leap out at you and make you read them. 

"Steal Like An Artist" by Austin Kleon has been one of those kind of books for me --- packed with ideas, quotes, and anecdotes that really resonate with me and my creative practice.

Rather than giving the whole book away in this blog post (which would really feel like stealing) I'll share one idea, one quote, and one way of working that will give you a sense of what author Kleon is up to.

The idea "Don't wait until you know who you are to get started" is one that appeals to me very much. There's a tiny "kick in the butt" inside that idea:  "You're ready! Just start making stuff!"  But there's also something inherent in that idea that as both a parent and a teacher is appealing to me too:  "It's ok if you're young and don't have it all figured out, you can still make/do cool stuff." 

How about this quote from Jack White: "Telling yourself you have all the time in the world, all the money in the world, all the colors in the palette, anything you want --- that just kills creativity." As Austin Kleon, points out, the right constraints can lead to your very best work.  Embrace and work within those boundaries and see what you can make happen.

One of the ten axioms about creative work in Steal Like An Artist is: Be boring. (It's the only way to get work done.) Kleon shares several anecdotes in this section of the book about how regular habits and taking care of yourself (and the people around you) give you the mental and physical fuel to fire up your creative work.  (There's a reason Patti Smith tells young artists that its important to go to the dentist!)

So grab a copy of Steal Like An Artist (It's probably best to buy it at Amazon or your local bookshop, than actually stealing it!)  I think you'll find lots of good stuff inside to drive your own creative practice forward.

   
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Inspirational Reads (for Museum Exhibit Designers)

There's something satisfying and wonderful about reading and gathering inspiration from an author's ideas, and then finding that your own work and thoughts has been influenced in the process.

Here are a few books that have stuck with me over the past few months, that I'd like to commend to your attention:

One such inspirational read is The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  It's a great book that has nothing directly to do with museums, but, in a way, everything to do with the way that the objects, experiences, and social interactions possible in magical settings (like museums!) can not easily be recreated in other ways. Highly recommended.


The next two books capture the power that particular objects, or the ways through which particular objects are created, have over our imaginations and memories.  Each of these books also opens the windows into the very messy processes by which the neat finished products came to be  --- something I wish museums could show us more of.

The first book, Strapless by Deborah Davis, despite its deliberately provocative title, captures the fascinating story of one particular piece of art --- John Singer Sargent's "The Portrait of Madame X" (pictured at the top of this post.)  Davis delves into the complex interactions between artist, model, and societal attitudes, and how they caused a tremendous scandal, that, on its face, seems a bit ridiculous now.

I've always loved this Sargent painting, so it was fascinating to find out about the stories behind its creation.


The second book, in this process-oriented vein, is  Windows on Nature by Stephen Christopher Quinn. It is an exploration of the historic dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History --- how they were created, and how they continue to resonate with modern visitors and exhibit designers alike.   It is gratifying to learn of the deliberately low-tech artistry that continues to mesmerize museum visitors of all ages.

There are hundreds of beautiful photographs that show the specific locations that inspired particular dioramas as well as in-process shots showing the many diorama artists at work.  (It's also a little scary to see the photos of famous biologist, artist, and taxidermist Carl Akeley all bandaged up after being attacked by one wild animal or another on his various collecting expeditions!)


The last book is a science-oriented volume that captures the spirit that I'd like to find in every Science Museum or science-related exhibition.  The book is Stiff by Mary Roach. Starting with an unlikely subject for a book: human cadavers (hence the title) author Roach takes us for a spin through such topics as organ donation, funeral homes, and "The Body Farm."

Throughout her book, Roach acts as the reader's surrogate, asking the kinds of questions we might like to ask (if we had the nerve) and presenting the information on such potentially icky and morbid topics, in a highly readable, and at times hilarious, manner.  While all along the way helping the reader to understand the science buried (sorry!) within each topic.  She accomplishes this gracefully and without boring the reader, or worse, making them feel stupid --- a neat trick given the complexities of the subject matter.   Mary Roach would be an interesting person to work with on a science exhibit!  (She also has written a number of other best-selling science books on subjects ranging from sex to space travel.)


I hope these books might give you a little inspiration on your own museum/exhibit/design practice.   Feel free to share any books that might have inspired your own work in the "Comments" Section below.
 

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

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Putting Visitors First: An Interview with Beth Redmond-Jones

Beth (at far right) with her family in Teton National Park

Since 1988, Beth Redmond-Jones has developed, designed, and project managed exhibitions for museums, interpretive centers, zoos, and aquariums, including Carnegie Museum of Natural History, the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Bay Area Discovery Museum, the Alaska SeaLife Center, Exploratorium, California Science Center, National Park Service, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Her expertise lies in creating multi-layered visitor experiences that include graphics, text, low and high-tech interactives, live animals, media, theater, and immersive exhibit elements. Her in-house experience includes Director of Exhibits at the Aquarium of the Pacific, Assistant to the Director of Public Programs at the Exploratorium, and Assistant Registrar at the Tucson Museum of Art.   

Beth was kind enough to answer a few questions for ExhibiTricks readers:

What’s your educational background?

I have an MA in Museum Studies from John F. Kennedy University and a BA in Art History with a double minor in studio art and biology from University of New Hampshire. I grew up in a family of architects and spent a good part of my childhood watching (and helping) my family flip houses. The design and construction aspects I feel have helped me to become a better conceptual designer, and to consider all aspects of how an exhibit could work and create an effective environment.

What got you interested in Museums?

My mom and dad were really good about taking me to museums and zoos when I was a kid. My favorites were the Cincinnati Zoo and seeing the white Bengal tigers. The other was the Natural History Museum in Cincinnati. They had this amazing immersive experience where you walked through a cave, and there was a waterfall, and it was wet and cold. I was transformed into a spelunker. I would go through it multiple times during each visit. I was also fascinated by the museum's taxidermied specimens. They were amazing.

Then, when I was seven, my mom told me we were going to have lunch with a friend of hers at the Cincinnati Art Museum. At that point in time, art museums were boring to me, and the thought of having lunch with her and one of her friends at a boring museum was "a total drag" (one of my favorite expressions when I was seven.) What she didn't tell me was that her friend, Millard F. Rogers Jr., was the Director of the Cincinnati Art Museum, who ended up serving as Director for 20 years.

Well, that lunch began my love of museums. Millard took me behind the scenes to show me collection storage and when we walked in, staff were opening a crate to reveal a Greek sculpture (I hated Greek sculpture then, but it was still a cool thing to watch) and they began discussing how to remove it from the crate and how it was going to be displayed. Seeing that sculpture in its crate, and listening to their conversation, was all it took. I was hooked.

Given your varied background, is your approach to exhibition development different in the context of different museum types?   No, not at all. Visitors always come first. Working for Kathy McLean for so long taught me the importance of putting visitors first: determining their base line knowledge of a subject, their assumptions, and their misconceptions, then evaluating concepts throughout the process.

The challenge I sometime find with the exhibition development process, however, is getting the rest of the team on board of talking with and listening to what visitors have to say all through the process. Some of my past clients did not have experience working with and including visitors in the exhibition development process, so this has been where I've had to refine my approach—getting the team on board to take visitor input seriously and create an experience that achieves the goals of the team while responding to the needs and interests of their visitors.

I really like the ambiguity of the process. Letting things sit, simmer, percolate, whatever you want to call it. Yet, I know it can frustrate others. Many of the team members I have worked with over the years want to make a decision and call it a day. I think it's important to put ideas on the board, move them around, refine them, keep some, toss others. It's an iterative approach, one that I think creates a better experience.

On occasion, I have used the IDEO method cards which are a fun way to spark new kinds of design conversations with non-designer team members. It has led to some very insightful and fun discussions which led them to come up with some innovative design concepts for exhibits.

Does being a parent inform your exhibit design work?

Definitely. I have two girls and they couldn't be more different from one another, and they are also eight years apart. So their interests, attention level, and desired experiences are really different from one another. They are constantly giving me their input on an exhibition I'm working on, whether I want it or not. But I really love that—they want my exhibitions to be engaging as well.

At various times over the years, both of them have looked at fonts for readability and read labels out loud for understandability. They are often my first level of evaluation. Most recently, my youngest was looking at typefaces and logo treatments for a children's exhibition I’m working on. She picked out problem areas that no one else on the team noticed. It was really helpful.

As a parent, I've also been exposed to experiences that I may not have been exposed to if I hadn't had kids, such as Adventure Playground in Berkeley, CA, or even children's museums. Seeing how kids learn, engage, and behave in a variety of environments has allowed me to think about exhibit experiences that engage that younger audience in a different way.

What are some of your favorite online (or offline!) resources for people interested in finding out more about exhibition development?

The online museum resources I follow on a regular basis are the National Association for Museum Exhibition (NAME) list-serve and web site, ExhibitFiles, Nina Simon's blog,  Museum 2.0 and of course ExhibiTricks! I also check out IDEO's web site on a regular basis.

Other resources are books and magazines. First and foremost is Kathy McLean's book Planning for People in Museum Exhibitions, Beverly Serrell's book Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach, and Sam Taylor's book Try It! Improving Exhibits Through Formative Evaluation. In my opinion, these are necessary items on any exhibit developers bookshelf.

Other favorites are Visitor Voices in Museum Exhibitions edited by Kathy McLean and Wendy Pollock, Nina Simon's book The Participatory Museum, and of course, Exhibitionist, the journal published by the NAME, and Curator magazine. I also read non-museum magazines like ID and Wired to see what's going on in design and technology outside museums.

There is one other resource that I have pinned on my wall. I'm not sure where it came from, but I know many exhibit developers who have it above their desks:


What Do I Do?

Visionary: Inspire the process.

Curator: Without the Ph.D. or the years of preparation, but with the pressure for accuracy.


Researcher: Compile background, interview experts.

Secretary: Listen to the Board, listen to the administration.

Thinker: Synthesize all of it to get the main message.

Warrior: Defend the main message.

Whiner: Complain when the main message is being ignored.


Translator: Turn words into a three-dimensional, interactive, exciting exhibit.

Teacher: Educate the designers who are too busy to learn about the content they’re exhibiting.


Evaluator: Speak with visitors.

Advocate: Speak up for visitors.

Project Manager: Make charts, write purchase orders, manage, make it happen.

Therapist: Make sure everyone feels a part of the process, that everyone’s ego is stroked.

Parent: Prevent squabbling from bringing down the house.

Laborer: Actually build the thing.

What advice would you have for fellow museum professionals, especially those from smaller museums, in developing their exhibitions?

1. Use real stuff. Use your collections. Put them in context. Tell your story. Be true to your institution.

2. Talk with your visitors, even informally.

3. Don't be afraid to experiment with new exhibit techniques. Try new ways to engage your visitors. I've seen very simple exhibits that activated the visitor conversations—some exhibit cases, a few good objects, a couple of engaging questions, and post-it notes for visitors to write a response and a wall to post them on.

What do you think is the “next frontier” for museums?

Who knows….museums are challenged by changing demographics and the economy. I think museums need to be true to themselves and create passionate experiences that resonate with audiences. We need to be places where people want to go and hang out, create things, and visit with their friends—not be a place to check off a list. Museums need to become an integral part of the community.

What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions?

Some of my favorite museums are the American Visionary Art Museum (Baltimore, MD), Monterey Bay Aquarium (Monterey, CA), Pittsburgh Children's Museum (Pittsburgh, PA), The City Museum (St. Louis, MO), The Museum of Jurassic Technology (Los Angeles, CA), Minnesota History Center (St. Paul, MN), and the Bob Marley Museum (Kingston, Jamaica).

Can you talk a little about some of your current projects?

I'm currently the project manager and exhibit developer for a new exhibition M is for Museum at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, PA. This 8,000 square foot exhibition opens October 15, 2011 and is targeted for 5-13 year olds. It is based on the ABCs with each letter representing something the museum does or collects. For example, A is for Artifact, C is for Collect, F is for Fossil, L is for Look, and T is for Taxidermy. It is the first hands-on, kid-centric exhibition the museum has developed. It includes hands-on interactives, multimedia, and hundreds of artifacts and specimens from the museum's collection. We really wanted to focus on breaking down the wall between front-of-house and back-of-house.

One of my other clients is the Utah Museum of Natural History, the Rio Tinto Center. I'm working with them to develop interpretation that calls out the LEED aspects of their new LEED gold building that opens in fall 2011.

If money were no object, what would your “dream” exhibit project be?

My dream exhibit project would be an exhibition on mental illness or autism. Both of these conditions have had a huge impact on my life. There are so many stigmas and misinformation associated with these conditions, that I would like to create an experience that would allow visitors to have a better understanding of what it's like for an individual to live with these conditions. It would be an opportunity to bust the stigmas and open people's eyes to some of the amazing people and qualities that these conditions create.


Thanks again to Beth for taking the time to share her thoughts with ExhibiTricks readers!

 
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DIY Book Repair

Dartmouth College Library's Preservation Services has created a great website that details all the ins and outs of Simple Book Repair.

There's enough detail to get you through everything from simple cleaning procedures to repairing a book's spine.

I don't know about you, but I've got a big, fat old dictionary that's falling apart that I'm going to get to work on this weekend!

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Swapping for Exhibits

Many museums, especially children's museums, like to include books in their exhibit areas. One difficulty with providing visitors with subject-related materials to enjoy during their visits is stretching the already tight exhibit supplies budgets to make this happen.

PaperBackSwap.com is one website that lets you "swap" existing books to gain points to exchange for books on the site. They have many types of books (not just paperbacks!)on a variety of topics including science, history, technology, etc. So clean out your old books to get some to use in your exhibit galleries! I like the idea and have happily used the PBSwap website. It's worth checking out.

In a similar way, I wonder if there is a way to "repurpose" surplus exhibit materials or devices between museums. We tried to start up such an exhibits exchange several years ago via ASTC, but it sort of petered out.

I wonder if now that we are in the brave new era of "Museum 2.0" there might be a way to "swap" exhibit materials that weren't being used at one museum to another interested institution.

If anyone would like to help start something like this up, let me know!