What Makes A "High Quality" Museum?

How would you define "quality" in the context of museums?  It's a slippery term (like "World Class" which we've written about before here on ExhibiTricks.)  Every museum wants to be described as "High Quality" and "World Class" but what do those terms actually mean, in a practical sense, and how do you know when you truly have become a high-quality organization?

“High quality” to me means something of lasting value, something special that is meaningful over time and across generations.  And museums that can be described consistently as high quality are quite uncommon.

What does high quality mean to you, or to the museums you work in or visit?   

I'd say that all "high quality" museums have a strong capacity to create programs and exhibits internally. Not necessarily everything, but many things.  High-quality museums know their strengths and build upon them. Great museums also know what their weaknesses are, and where to look for help in those areas.  

Put simply:

High Quality = Internal Capacity 

As a practical matter, the way to develop a truly high-quality museum experience means having a clear sense of what you want your museum to look like two, three or more years in the future—not just two months after opening! That means investing for the long-term in thoughtful experiences, staff, and expertise. ("Invest in staff, not stuff!" as Jane Werner might say.)

In my exhibit design and development practice, I often ask museum collaborators two simple questions: How will you (the staff inside your museum, not contractors or consultants) 1) fix things that break or don’t work? and 2) transform great new ideas into real exhibits and programs? If you can’t come up with credible answers to both questions, I’m afraid that not only will you be constantly racing to “put out fires” in the form of problems that could have been anticipated (as opposed to the many un-anticipated ones you’ll encounter) but your bright, shiny museum will soon become dingy and boring, not only physically, but in its intellectual and emotional spirit as well.

Creating a strong institutional culture of internal capacity is the key difference between a great museum and a mediocre one. Building and investing in strong institutional capacity doesn’t mean that you work in isolation.  On the contrary, carefully understanding the strengths and weaknesses across your institution makes it clear when and where you need to invest time and resources. Those investments in time and/or resources can involve seeking out expertise in your local communities, sending staff to national or regional conferences or local professional development opportunities, or (gasp!) bringing in consultants to help build up internal capacity in other areas of institutional need. There are many choices.

What is not a choice is doing nothing. Because doing nothing will surely begin the slide from “high quality” to “who cares?” And is that the kind of museum you want to be part of? 




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"

Building Your Museum's Internal Capacity Through Workshops

Over the past few years, a big part of my consulting practice has involved presenting workshops to help museums and museum-oriented companies build up their internal capacity to develop and design exhibitions and programs.

In just the past year or two, I've been fortunate to give workshops to colleagues around the world in Beijing at the ICOM International Training Center at The Palace Museum, in Tunisia on behalf of the U.S. State Department, in Germany with Huttinger, one of Europe's largest exhibit fabrication companies, and most recently in Detroit for an all-day exhibits workshop for the Michigan Museums Association.

Here are 4 positive outcomes toward building internal capacity (with links to related ExhibiTricks posts) that consistently come out of POW! workshops for participants:


1) Focus on BIG IDEAS  Focusing on your core ideas -- whether for a single exhibit component or for an entire museum program is essential.  The process of building an exhibit or program doesn't become clearer if you start with a bunch of fuzzy ideas.

2) An Appreciation for Iteration Try, try again!  Prototyping ideas quickly with simple materials then adjusting based on feedback is a great technique to bring into every project.

3) Stronger connections to clients and communities When you bring focused, tested messages outside your museum it is easier to find the places for strong, authentic connections between creative partners.

4) Adding to your professional toolbox  Every workshop includes simple techniques and tips that workshop participants can use right away in their museum or company.

The concentrated experience of the workshop setting really brings people together in a fun and focused way -- without the myriad distractions of their normal workplace.

Send me an email so we can talk about bringing a POW! workshop to your museum or company!

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!)

Rewind: The World's Best Museum?

Here's one of my personal favorite ExhibiTricks articles.  I thought it was worth rewinding as an  "encore" posting.  Enjoy!


"We want to build the world's best science museum."

That's what the leader of a group of board members from an emerging museum said to me several months ago during our first lunch meeting.

My immediate reaction was to start laughing. But because: a) I wasn't raised by wolves, and b) my consulting business supports my wife, and our four kids, I instead nodded, and asked, "Well, what do you mean by best?"

Silence.

Silence and blank stares. It was like being in a meeting with an oil painting.

Finally, one of the board members cautiously said, "We'd like to have all the newest high-tech exhibits, but we want ours to be unique." Another said, "We think we should have an IMAX theater. But we'd like ours to be the biggest, so we could have a good PR angle to drum up more funding support."

I tried to redirect the conversation to get the board members to discuss WHY they wanted to start a science museum in the first place, to try to uncover and understand their passions about their soon-to-be (hopefully!) museum, but we just kept circling back to making the "world's best" museum --- and worse, the terms "best" and "biggest" now started getting used interchangeably.

What about starting a small demonstration site to get things started? No, not "sexy" enough. They "needed" to start BIG.

What about learning to build up internal capacity, so that staff and resources could be allocated to be able to create things locally, both internally, and collaboratively, with folks from local communities?

A new round of blank stares.

I could see this was going to end in tears, so I gently suggested that their project might not yet be at the stage where I could help them. This group seemed destined to be spinning this project around for years without it going anywhere.

I thanked them for the (soggy) sandwich, and drove off into the sunset.

Even though as a consultant, my brain is usually for rent, here are a few lessons I took away from this experience that I'm happy to share:

• You can't claim the title of "world's best" for yourself before you even start something (or even after you start something, for that matter.) It makes you seem arrogant and/or clueless.

When your visitors start telling all their friends to go to your museum, and better yet, start referring to the place as "their" museum, you will have started down the road to success.

• Start small, and build thoughtfully from there. It's o.k. to stay small in order to maintain quality.

• Focus on building internal capacity by investing in staff, training, and tools appropriate for your situation. Paradoxically, I like to teach museums and their staff how to "fish" (metaphorically speaking) rather than having them always feeling like they need to buy "fish" from folks outside of their organization.

Starting a museum is tough, but making sure your museum continues to improve and evolve after it opens, is even tougher. Good Luck! (And if you need help with a museum project that you would like to grow into being one of the "best" let me know.)



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!)

How Do Museums Adapt To What's Changing Around Us?

One of the many responses to the recent ExhibiTricks post entitled "What Is Innovative Exhibition Design?"  came from Walter Staveloz, the Director of International Relations at the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) in Washington, D.C.

With Walter's kind permission, I've printed his response in today's post.  (PLEASE NOTE: Although Walter works for ASTC, the words below represent his views only, not necessarily those of ASTC.)


I think it's great that we are finally discussing how effective our field is in its core business. Thanks to Axel and Paul for launching this discussion. I will not try to respond or comment on most of what Axel says, I want to make some side observations to contribute to the discussion.

I think that my first remark would be that we cannot or should not see an exhibit (hands-on or not) isolated from the rest of the museum experience. As Axel points out, there is no way that an isolated exhibit will deliver what we expect. Even the most effective and most surprising exhibit, such as a counter-intuitive experience, does not teach a lot of anything, as has been proved by the Exploratorium. There needs to be a favourable environment that includes cultural dimensions: "Counterintuitive experience does not necessarily support inquiry, neither does straightforward hands-on. It’s all the other aspects like: great aesthetics, opportunities for creation and intriguing representations". J.P. Gutwill: Journal of Museum Education, Volume 33, 2. 2008.

In addition, a science centre experience has to build on the social dimension of the visit. It is and has to be different from a visit to an art museum because it does not appeal only to emotions - it is supposed to help us understand something that will hopefully be meaningful for the visitor’s future life. The best strategy to build on is to stimulate group learning, as a family or as a school group.

In South Africa, Prof. Jan Smit applies this through the POE method. It's a three phase process where visitors are invited to predict, then to observe and discuss and finally and only after, read the explanation about what they saw. That only works if visitors create a dialogue among themselves. Something that was successfully tested at the Exploratorium using the GIVE project.

The team built experiments where groups discussed so called "juicy questions" in order to have a fruitful discussion as well as a "hands off" one. The results are absolutely positive:

"Families and field trip groups who’d learned one of the inquiry games did more “linked” investigations than those who hadn’t been taught the games. In other words, their questions built on each other to create a line of investigation, rather than being lots of unrelated questions….. In particular, groups who had learned to play “Juicy Question” interpreted their results most often. Families in Juicy Question spent more time at the exhibit than other families. Families and field trip groups who’d learned one of the inquiry games made more “consecutive interpretations” than those who hadn’t been taught the games – meaning group members made interpretations in a back-and-forth conversational way, rather than making interpretations in isolation.  This suggests they were trying to make meaning of their results together, in collaboration.”
Group Inquiry by Visitors at Exhibits (GIVE) in Group Inquiry at Science Museum Exhibits by  Gutwill, J. P., & Allen, S.. Exploratorium Museum Professional Series, Left Coast Press 2010.   (Here is a link to a related research report.)


This is not surprising and in a way is confirmed by the most recent findings on what the new pedagogy should be. The most recent publication of the Open University in the UK: Innovative Pedagogy 2014. Sharples, M., Adams, A., Ferguson, R., Gaved, M., McAndrew, P., Rienties, B., Weller, M., & Whitelock, D. (2014). Innovating Pedagogy 2014: Open University Innovation Report 3.Milton Keynes: The Open University, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, United Kingdom.© The Open University, 2014.

There is much of the Innovative Pedagogy report that is worth citing and relates to topics such as:

Massive open social learning; Learning design informed by analytics; Bring your own devices; Dynamic assessment; Event-based learning; Learning through storytelling; Threshold concepts and Bricolage that all apply to science center activity in some way.  But I will stick to the element called "Flipped Learning" and the need to incorporate the "Learning to Learn” concept.

The flipped classroom reverses the traditional classroom approach to teaching and learning. It moves direct instruction into the learner’s own space. At home, or in individual study time, students watch video lectures that offer them opportunities to work at their own pace, pausing to make notes where necessary. This allows time in class to be spent on activities that exercise critical thinking, with the teacher guiding students in creative exploration of the topics they are studying. Flipped learning is sometimes seen simply as a different approach to delivering content. It also offers opportunities for the classroom to become a more flexible environment, where the physical layout can be shifted to enable group work, where students can make use of their own devices, and where new approaches to learning and assessment are put into practice.

Learning to learn: We are always learning. Throughout our lifetime we take on board new ideas and develop new skills. What we find difficult are learning what others want to teach us, and managing our learning in order to achieve particular goals and outcomes. Self-determined learning involves learning how to be an effective learner, and having the confidence to manage our own learning processes. ‘Double-loop learning’ is central to this process, for double-loop learners not only work out how to solve a problem or reach a goal, but also reflect on that process as a whole, questioning assumptions and considering how to become more effective.

What I find particularly interesting in this report is that it actually confirms what I believe and Axel mentions as well. The most efficient way to help people learn and not become overwhelmed with information is to familiarize them with the scientific method. Transform every citizen into a researcher if you will. Not such a stupid idea. It's the ambition of Prof. F. Taddei from the CRI (Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire - INSERM the French Institute of Health and medical Research) in Paris. He has created the "Savanturiers" project (a contraction of savant and aventurier) Prof. Taddei, who was a speaker at the SCWC in Mechelen (March 2014), motivates his project as follows:

 "The mission of the schools today is defined by the response to the question: can they deliver youth that become flexible and thinking actors in society? This identity crisis of the education system opens the doors to a renewed pedagogy resulting from the digital transformation of our society. Our learning project with the youngest children is based on the scientific research method and ethics. Scientific research is a combination of engagement, collaborative projects, questioning, creativity and rigor, opening to the world, inspiration from shared knowledge and the will to explore the unknown to serve the greater good. The capacity to identify the problems and to ask a new and the right questions is what defines innovators whatever the field they are in.

The kids we work with value the constraints of permanent scientific questioning. They learn how to formulate solid and pertinent research questions, to define concepts and to share results with their peers. In this way, the learning of the scientific thinking becomes part of their cultural values and a product of collective intelligence".

"This concept is the result of research in cognitive sciences that shows that all kids have the ability to correctly question natural and cultural phenomena…. Individuals for whom learning is as fun and rewarding as necessary. We don’t want to train only professional researchers, but to offer all citizens the critical thinking skills, the engagement and the entrepreneurial spirit of researchers (...)

But this also changes the relationship between the researchers and the citizens. Citizens will still recognize the specificity of the research profession, but they will not think anymore that they should be excluded from research itself, the debates it generates or the way it influences society as a whole"
http://les-savanturiers.cri-paris.org

This is an interesting connection and evolution of the thinking within the scientific community. We have moved away from the deficit model of the nineties and have implemented in several places around the world significant "science in society" or "science for society" programs. These programs enable us to rethink the place of science and scientists, and their role in society through a renewed dialogue with the public. This is a great achievement in itself. Taddei's position, however, goes beyond that - the dialogue does not only serve a better engagement of the public with scientific issues, it is the core for improved science learning.

I do believe that this brings us all to a new place. Public engagement and science learning cannot be seen separately anymore. They are the two necessary components to develop the scientific literacy of a country.

There is no surprise that change is coming at this point. On various occasions and through different means and voices, the scientific community has expressed a changing view of their role in society. There is a push for a better understanding of their role as experts and advisors. There is a vision that decision making processes should be based on scientific evidence that possibly puts the scientist in a role of advocate for certain causes. For more on this see:

· An open letter to the newly elected House and Senate to urge them to take action against global warming: Prof. Steve Schneider from Stanford University and a group of famous climate scientists (March 23 , 2009)

· An AAAS and NSF funded  workshop on October 17-18, 2011 at AAAS aiming to explore what role, if any, scientists should play as advocates for specific policies is a matter of heated debate both inside the scientific community and in society more generally.

· From Anne Glover, Chief scientific advisor to the European Commission 2012 -2014. From European Science and Technology - Issue 15 Research. A clearer path to prominence 10 July 2012: “The most positive thing is that, by and large, my appointment has been welcomed and one of the areas that people speak about is how we can get evidence to be more prominent in policymaking, how we can make it easier to give the evidence a higher profile and be able to speak about the evidence in a much more comfortable way.”

· At the Planet under Pressure Conference: "Research plays a significant role in monitoring change, determining thresholds, developing new technologies and processes, and providing solutions. The international global-change research community proposes a new contract between science and society in recognition that science must inform policy to make more wise and timely decisions and that innovation should be informed by diverse local needs and conditions". , Dr Lidia Brito and Dr Mark Stafford Smith, supported by the conference Scientific Organizing Committee. Co-Chairs (London, March 2012).


These statements link the changing role of scientists with a new relationship to the public:

· "There was growing momentum to establish a set of Principles for Science Advice as an instrument to galvanize a global commitment to evidence-informed public policy." (...) "As such, there was evidence not only of the rapidly changing relationship between science and society, but also the changing relationship between the public and their elected officials, as mediated by science". 28-29 August 2014, the International Council for Science (ICSU) organized a conference in Auckland (NZ) under the Presidency of Sir Peter Gluckman, Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand that addressed the issue of "Science Advice to Governments".


·  The mission of the scientist cannot be limited any longer to producing and disseminating knowledge because of the social and economic impact of scientific discovery. Scientists now have a collective responsibility to contribute to the citizens debates/discussions about priorities for the science activity, the scientific policy as it were. Prof. Jean Marc Levy-Leblond as developed in "Pour une nouvelle politique scientifique" in "Le Monde Science et Techno (10/11/2012).


How should science centers react to this global change in relation to their own mission and, in particular, to their key activity in building exhibits?

Allow me to isolate only one sentence out of the above citations and references. It relates to the ICSU conference in New Zealand: "As such, there was evidence not only of the rapidly changing relationship between science and society, but also the changing relationship between the public and their elected officials, as mediated by science"

This may be the key for us to understand what our new role should be. It tells us we need to go beyond the traditional self-explaining exhibit and the limited public engagement or relevance to our communities. I am indeed more and more convinced that we are facing a new deficit model regarding our connection with the community. There are of course significant exceptions, but overall, the connection with the community seems to be an increased effort to convince the community that they need us, while I think we should focus on the opposite question: "how can we help the community?"

Most of our science centers are in urban areas and today many cities face increased problems of sustainability because of global challenges for the planet. Cities increasingly understand the need to base their decisions on scientific evidence and the scientific community. The "Future Earth" program steps up to help in that context. If we then hear the message that the ICSU conference concluded with: “the evidence for a changing relationship between the public and their elected officials, as mediated by science" we should understand that there is a special role for science centers in the future which is to educate the public about the science that helps the community to make the right decisions.

After all, and citing George Hein, did he not say it already?  "What could be more worthwhile than consistently considering how our educational activities might support democracy and social justice? The important point is not only be that there is an unequivocal educational purpose for all museum activity, but also that education should be progressive, that the educational purpose be in the service of improving society". George E. Hein: Progressive Museum Practice; John Dewey and Democracy. August 2012.


Thanks again to Walter Staveloz for sharing his thoughts with ExhibiTricks readers!

How can museums be more effective in building bridges to their communities?  Let us know in the "Comments" section below.



Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "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!)

To find out more about working with Paul Orselli and Paul Orselli Workshop, check out the POW! website.

ReWind: Building Internal Capacity

In honor of an article I have in the current (January-February 2012) issue of ASTC's Dimensions magazine entitled, "Internal Capacity: Making a Good Museum Great," I thought I'd reprise the post below. Enjoy!

If there is one silver lining to the continually oppressive economic news, it's the opportunity for museums and other organizations to focus (or re-focus) on building their internal capacity.

It might sound funny for an independent museum professional like myself to advocate for museums being able to develop and create programs and exhibits internally, but I am a strong believer that all types of museums should build upon the strengths of their existing staff and other institutional resources, rather than automatically looking for outside help. (See my recent posting on the importance of in-house exhibit workshops, for example.)

One way for museums to stretch their resources in these tough times is to look for ways to increase such internal capacity.

Art Museums, as one obvious instance, are starting to think more carefully about how the items in their collections might be reinterpreted or redisplayed to create new exhibitions, or even "mini-exhibitions" of a few works, rather than booking traveling shows, or trying to mount expensive "blockbusters."

Any type of museum could benefit from taking a fresh look at their programs and exhibits to try and creatively, and economically, improve them. Is there a way to slightly change or reconfigure a troublesome exhibit component to make it more interesting for visitors? Can you rethink or revitalize an exhibit in storage, and bring it out of retirement? What about building upon a current news item to rapidly develop a combined education program and mini-exhibition on the topic?

So why not try to stretch your museum's ideas (and budget!) by thinking some more about internal capacity?


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 Automatic 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!)

What Happened to the Maryland Science Center's Exhibits Department?

Soon, the last person remaining in the "Exhibits Department" at the Maryland Science Center (MSC) in Baltimore will be shifted out of their current position.   (If you can call what is now just one person a "department" --- until a few months ago, there used to be an actual department of exhibit designers and developers at MSC.)

So one of the larger science centers in the U.S. will not have an in-house Exhibits Department to design/develop/fabricate new exhibits.  Instead, the Maryland Science Center will have an "exhibit maintenance group."  That seems both sad and unfortunate to me.  Doubly so, because it's unlikely that the Science Center field, in particular, or the Museum field, in general, will publicly discuss and wrestle with the ramifications of what's going on in Baltimore.

I'd like to share the museum's side of things --- the thinking about some grand institutional reorganization going on in Baltimore --- some clever new approach to designing and developing exhibitions.  But honestly, after persistently sending emails and leaving phone messages with the Museum's CEO, Van Reiner, and various administrators and departments, I've gotten no response on the subject.

That is, until today when I contacted the PR firm that works with the Museum to see if I might finally get any sort of comment on the elimination of the MSC Exhibits Department.  Lo and behold, a few minutes later I finally did receive a response from Christopher Cropper, the Senior Director of Marketing at the Maryland Science Center.

Here it is:  "Thanks for your calls about the exhibits department at the Maryland Science Center. The Maryland Science Center policy does not allow comment on decisions related to employment. Therefore, no one will be able to answer additional questions about our exhibits department." 

Fair enough --- I know when I've been given the brush-off, but that doesn't prevent me from posing a few questions about MSC's precipitous actions:

• Certainly these are tricky times for museums, but does it make sense to respond to budgetary pressures by vacating your institution's internal capacity to develop and design exhibits?

• Is it fiscally and professionally responsible to "outsource" wholesale the functions of an entire Exhibits Department? Will that lead to "better" exhibits?

• Given that the ASTC Conference is being hosted by Maryland Science Center later this year, might MSC staff be willing to share their thoughts on their institution's future approaches toward exhibition development with their museum peers?  If not, I hope we as a field are forthright in discussing the consequences of MSC's decisions to eliminate their Exhibit Department during the Conference.

Tricky times, indeed. 

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 the Latest 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!)

Building Internal Capacity

If there is one silver lining to the continually oppressive economic news, it's the opportunity for museums and other organizations to focus (or re-focus) on building their internal capacity.

It might sound funny for an independent museum professional like myself to advocate for museums being able to develop and create programs and exhibits internally, but I am a strong believer that all types of museums should build upon the strengths of their existing staff and other institutional resources, rather than automatically looking for outside help. (See my recent posting on the importance of in-house exhibit workshops, for example.)

One way for museums to stretch their resources in these tough times is to look for ways to increase such internal capacity.

Art Museums, as one obvious instance, are starting to think more carefully about how the items in their collections might be reinterpreted or redisplayed to create new exhibitions, or even "mini-exhibitions" of a few works, rather than booking traveling shows, or trying to mount expensive "blockbusters."

Any type of museum could benefit from taking a fresh look at their programs and exhibits to try and creatively, and economically, improve them. Is there a way to slightly change or reconfigure a troublesome exhibit component to make it more interesting for visitors? Can you rethink or revitalize an exhibit in storage, and bring it out of retirement? What about building upon a current news item to rapidly develop a combined education program and mini-exhibition on the topic?

These are the types of questions that a knowledgeable museum professional from outside the organization, with a fresh point of view, can help answer.

As a matter of fact, I'm about to formally announce the launch of a new service called the "Exhibit Dr." designed to help museum staffers, as well as independent designers helping museums, to stretch their existing resources, and to "prescribe" the answers they need to solve their knotty exhibit problems.

So stay tuned, as ExhibiTricks readers will be the first to find out when the Exhibit Dr. is "in"!