Margaret Middleton on Family Inclusion in Museums

                                                       (Photo Credit: Matthew Clowney)

Margaret Middleton is a Boston-based exhibit developer and designer. A museum geek and queer activist, she has spoken all over the country about the importance of family inclusion in museums. Most recently Margaret produced Mimi's Family: Photography by Matthew Clowney, an art exhibit for children featuring a family with a transgender grandparent.  

We are happy to welcome Margaret back to ExhibiTricks to share her thoughts on making museums more welcoming places for diverse families.

What does family inclusion mean?

Families make up 40% of all museum audiences (American Alliance of Museums, 2006 Museum Financial Information).  “Family” is meant to refer broadly to intergenerational learning groups, but all too often it becomes a code word. We often use “family” to mean a nuclear family with two heterosexual, legally married parents of the same race and their biological children, residing in the same household. 

According to Strong Families, “4 out of 5 people living in the US … do not live behind the picket fence—[their] lives fall outside outdated notions of family, with a mom at home and a dad at work.” Museums who aren’t actively engaging families who don’t fit that codified definition aren’t serving the majority of families.

Family inclusion is about actively welcoming diverse families in museums.

How can museums accommodate a greater diversity of families?

Representation

Just as you strive to incorporate racial diversity in your signage and marketing, make sure that visual depictions of families in your museum are varied. Include single parents, same-sex parents, multi-racial families, and multiple generations. If you have a reading nook, populate it with books that show many kinds of families. This is a good list to start with.

Seating

One of the subtle ways museums signal the type of family they expect is through seating. Instead of fixed benches or square tables with four chairs, try modular seating that is easily moved and reconfigured by visitors to accommodate a variety of families. Make sure to include several seating heights to accommodate visitors of different sizes. Bean bag chairs are fun but they are tough for older folks and anyone with mobility issues. If you use bean bags, make sure there are more accessible options available too.

Bathrooms

Gender inclusive bathrooms can meet the needs of transgender and nonbinary family members or anyone else who may not feel comfortable or safe using gender-segregated restrooms. They are often single-stall and accessible so they can accommodate wheelchairs, strollers, and anyone who needs assistance in the bathroom, including children. They often have changing tables too (which should also be present in both men’s and women’s restrooms).

Unfortunately, signage for gender inclusive bathrooms often reads “Family Bathroom” and depicts a family like this:

Opt for a more inclusive sign like this:

All-Gender Restroom sign available at: mydoorsign.com 

Family memberships

Make sure your policies fit your expanded definition of “family.” Instead of defining a family membership as a membership for two adults and their children, offer flexible memberships that accommodate families with any number of adults and children and charge accordingly. This makes room for single caregivers and families with more than two adults in them. 

Do away with mandatory gendered honorifics like Ms. and Mr. and instead of “mom,” “dad,” or “parent” categories, simply use the word “adult.” Family memberships should not be limited to “members of a household” so as not to leave out families that live apart like divorced families or families with hired caregivers.

What’s a good place to begin?

Museums are not exactly known for being nimble when it comes to change. If you’re not a top decision maker at your museum, policy and infrastructure changes may be harder for you to influence. One of the easiest (and cheapest!) ways to cultivate an institutional culture of family inclusion is to start expanding your museum’s definition of family through language.

Host a brown bag lunch to discuss the meaning of the word “family.” You can also use the Family Inclusive Language chart I created (below) to talk about the assumptions we make about our visitors and how to avoid embarrassing and even hurtful interactions. The new words you choose will change the way you greet visitors at the admission desk, give tours, write label copy, compose tweets, and update the Facebook page.

These language shifts are simple, but don’t mistake them for being superficial. Words have power. In fact, according to cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky, “Studies have shown that changing how people talk changes how they think.” You actually have the power to challenge your own implicit bias.

A few carefully chosen words can go a long way in helping visitors feel more welcome in your museum. Start with language, and before long it will be even easier to make the case for further change.

You can follow Margaret on Twitter @magmidd. To see Margaret’s work and to learn more about her family inclusion workshops, visit her website. Family Inclusive Language posters can be ordered here: zazzle.com/magmidd 

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Can Social Psychology Predict Successful Museum Project Teams?

Did you ever notice how particular teams or working groups at some museums always seems to produce interesting, successful projects, while other museums filled with equally likeable and intelligent people never quite seem to get their projects to fly?

I kept coming back to memories of successful (and unsuccessful!) museum project teams as I read the fascinating article in the New York Times about the research conducted by the Project Aristotle group at Google, entitled "What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team."

The article is really worth reading for yourself, but I'll give you a bit of the punchline in this post.  (SPOILER ALERT!)

After looking at over a hundred groups at Google, the Project Aristotle researchers determined that the key factor for project teams to become successful was "group norms."

Roughly translated, that means that each group's "culture" determined the outcome of the group's work more than any other factors --- not age, gender, education, experience, even overlap between group members on different teams.

From the article:

"What interested the researchers most, however, was that teams that did well on one assignment usually did well on all the others. Conversely, teams that failed at one thing seemed to fail at everything. The researchers eventually concluded that what distinguished the ‘‘good’’ teams from the dysfunctional groups was how teammates treated one another. The right norms, in other words, could raise a group’s collective intelligence, whereas the wrong norms could hobble a team, even if, individually, all the members were exceptionally bright."


Successful project teams shared two common qualities.  On good teams, members spoke in roughly the same proportion:

"As long as everyone got a chance to talk, the team did well.  But if only one person or a small group spoke all the time, the collective intelligence declined."

Secondly, all the good teams had something the Project Aristotle researchers called high "social sensitivity."   Which means that successful team members were skilled at picking up on nonverbal cues --- like tone of voice, or facial expressions, to determine how other team members were feeling.

So given their findings, and Google's strong desire to improve the success of project teams, did the researchers draw up a list of prescriptions for teams to follow?  Not at all!  Rather, the Project Aristotle group shared their data and findings with people and assumed groups and their leaders were smart enough and motivated enough to incorporate the findings into each working group's "culture."

But most importantly, even for a data-driven company like Google, everyone in the organization came to realize that success was not always something that could be "optimized" or driven strictly by some one-size-fits-all business principles.

Again, from the article:

"Project Aristotle is a reminder that when companies try to optimize everything, it’s sometimes easy to forget that success is often built on experiences — like emotional interactions and complicated conversations and discussions of who we want to be and how our teammates make us feel — that can’t really be optimized."

And I think that is what holds tremendous promise for the future of museums and our projects --- that our interactions with each other as museum workers, and our interactions with the people who visit museums, can be grounded in rich (and yes, sometimes complicated) emotional experiences.

Onward!

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Stick to it! A resource list of tapes for designers.

Tape is one of those things that you often use, but rarely think about.

So here's a listing of a variety of speciality tapes for your creative design toolbox!  Just click on the title link above each tape description to go to a web page to purchase that tape or for more info.


3M SOLAS Tape
"SOLAS" stands for "Safety Of Life At Sea" and it is super-durable reflective tape that was designed originally to be used by the Coast Guard. It's strong. It's shiny. What more could you want? It may also be useful outside your exhibit pursuits on bikes, backpacks, or cars.


Gaffer's Tape
If you think duct tape is useful, try Gaffer's tape. You can think of Gaffer's Tape as duct tape without the sticky residue. It's the standard tape in the film and theater worlds. Best of all, the adhesive is designed to not rip off paint. You can leave Gaffer's tape stuck to a wall for days, and then remove it without tearing up the wall surface or leaving sticky gunk behind.


Blue Painter's Tape
The "blue masking tape" is great because it doesn't mar or mess up walls.  Great for painting/masking of course, but also super when putting together large paper or cardboard prototypes that need to interface with walls, floors, or windows.

Vypar X-Treme Tape
X-treme tape is a non-adhesive, self-bonding wrap. It's not really "tape" since it's not sticky. But it really grips and wraps around wet stuff or slimy stuff --- think water exhibits, hoses, bubble exhibits, etc. Once it's in place -- it is NOT coming off! You just pull on the tape and it fuses to itself under tension. As a bonus it comes in a range of colors as well.



Here are two variations on good old reliable duct tape:

Gorilla Tape
Gorilla Tape is like regular duct tape on steroids. Sure, it's much stickier, but it also adheres to uneven/rough surfaces.


Clear Duct Tape
From the creative minds of 3M comes "clear "duct tape! It is less noticeable than standard duct tape, but more importantly, 3M claims it lasts 6 times longer than the standard variety, having been engineered for extreme temperatures and UV exposure.




Vet Wrap
A "self-clinging" wrapping material that does not require tight compression.


Instant-bonding Glue Dots
Adhesive "dots" that require no drying time, are clean and easy to use, and work on a variety of materials. Glue Dots bond instantly to any surface.


Terrifically Tacky Tape
This is double-sided craft tape with red liner that is super strong. (The bond actually increases after the first 24 hours it is applied.)  This is the same kind of ultra-thin, very sticky tape as "3M 4910 VHB Tape" but TT tape comes in shorter-length rolls so it is less expensive.


EMPTY EMPTY and PACKED PACKED tape rolls from Benchmark.
Use on crates for traveling exhibitions so you don't mix 'em up!
(Benchmark sells lots of other interesting exhibit and mount-making supplies as well.)


3M Dual Lock Reclosable Fastener System
Clear self-mating reclosable fastener with clear acrylic adhesive on the back. This is the "mushroom" topped style, rather than hook and loop, so it fastens to itself and doesn't collect fuzz like the "hook" half of velcro.


Colored Plastic Vinyl Floor Marking Tape
Great for outlining areas on floors or walls.  These tapes come from Identi-Tape and are highly adhesive and resistant to water, oil, fungus and chemicals, have a semi-gloss finish, and can be written on with permanent markers.


1/4"-wide Colored Plastic Vinyl Tape
Also from Identi-Tape, these 6-mil vinyl adhesive tapes are available in a 14 colors plus clear in 36-yard long rolls. These tapes are ideal for constructing lines and tables on dry erase boards, identification of small tools, decorative striping, etc.


Hugo's Amazing Tape
The cool thing about Hugo's Amazing Tape is that it only sticks to itself.  This makes it great for things that need to be wrapped and re-wrapped, or opened and closed, on a regular basis.  Hugo's tape can also be used as a temporary clamp or stabilizer for irregularly-shaped materials as well.


And that also wraps up this post about tape!  Do you have any favorite tapes that we've missed here? Leave us the info in the Comments Section below!



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Looking for some additional FREE exhibit resources?  Check out the POW! website.

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Edifice Complex and Museums

Here's a quick museum business quiz --- answer true or false.

1) A museum can be too big.

2) A museum can be totally"self-supporting" financially.

Depending on your answers to those questions, you may or may not believe that museums (especially in the U.S.) have a serious "edifice complex."

That is, the blind belief that somehow merely constructing a GIGANTIC building, funded through a combination of hopelessly over-optimistic attendance projections and/or slightly dubious loan arrangements, will create a successful, sustainable museum.

Part of what brings this all to mind is the sad and distressing news out of Miami, concerning the Frost Museum of Science — a signature project at the heart of the new Museum Park downtown that has run out of cash before construction can be finished.  The Frost is not merely a project "too big to fail" but "too big to finish."

In an eleventh hour move, the Frost project will be finished, but at a wrenching emotional price to the museum --- the museum's namesake funders — Phillip and Patricia Frost — announced that they're going to bail out the museum with a bridge loan to keep construction going. But they also exacted very tough terms: they’ve effectively “fired" the entire current 41-person board of the science museum.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose.  Full disclosure: I consulted on the Frost project up until late 2015 and I really admire the creative team there.  I sincerely hope they can move forward and open the museum in a positive and sustainable way.

Unfortunately, Miami's Frost Museum is hardly the exception to the museum edifice complex.  Here's a short list of news story links to ponder in a similar vein:


Newseum

Museum of Jewish Heritage

Exploratorium (here and here)

MOSI (Tampa)

Science City and Prariefire  (A geographically-related pairing in my view)

Please Touch Museum (here and here)

The National Children's Museum

Chattanooga History Museum

All museums with problems that could be reasonably tied to their (overly?) large new facilities or expansion plans.


I offer these links and examples not merely as a litany of pain, or a map to the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, but as a plea to museum and civic leaders:  If you think it is difficult to build a new museum, it is much, much, much, more difficult to create a thriving and sustainable cultural institution that is responsive to the communities surrounding it.

Maybe there is something ingrained in the American psyche and in the mindset of wealthy philanthropists that prevents modest, truly sustainable projects from moving forward when more grandiose alternatives always seem to be waiting in the wings.

Before completely despairing for the museum business, I'll offer the example of COSI in Columbus, Ohio as an example of an institution saddled (for a variety of political reasons) with a new building that was too large and unsustainable from the day it opened in 1999, that has managed to claw its way back (over the past 16+ years!) through, for example, a variety of community partnerships that involved sharing and leasing unused space inside COSI.  (You can read more about COSI's institutional evolution here and here.)


Like most addictions, edifice complex is probably best kicked if it's never started in the first place, but, lacking that, I hope museums will continue to be smarter (and smaller!) with their facilities and financial projections in the future --- especially given the changing demographics and expectations of cultural consumers.




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Customer Service 101 from the Disney Institute

What does customer service have to do with exhibitions?

Everything!  

Even if your museum has the world's greatest exhibits, if visitors' interactions with staff are lacking, you will create unhappy and dissatisfied customers.  Here are some comments from a colleague's less than stellar experience from a recent family visit: "I was actually quite underwhelmed by the new museum. A lot of broken stuff: broken keyboards in Maker Space. Piece #9 missing in catenary arch. Floor staff talking to each other, looking at phones. Hey folks, hate to bother you but got a spare #9 in the back?"

OUCH!  My friend and her family couldn't use an exhibit because a piece had gone astray, and she felt like the floor staff didn't even care.  Interacting with museum visitors is a tough job that requires dedication and training to do well.  But many, if not most, museums don't have the staff or resources to provide high-level, consistent training in interacting with museum guests.

Fortunately, I've found that the Disney Institute (the part of Disney's empire that offers professional, business, and customer service training) provides a wealth of free online information with great tips about providing exceptional and memorable customer interactions.

A recent article from the Disney Institute mentions a number of their foundational principles regarding customer service, but one of my favorites that can be applied to museum (and exhibit design!) work is "purpose trumps task."

Disney helps their employees recognize that it is ok to be "off-task" if you are "on-purpose."  If you and your employees can anticipate the needs of your customers, you can far exceed their expectations.

A recent example from my own exhibit design work involved making an interactive for a small museum that seemed really anxious about the maintenance needs for a digital tablet component. During our conversations, I offered a low-tech alternative that both the museum client and project designer liked better, and that was less expensive on the front-end to produce, and less expensive on the back-end due to minimized maintenance and replacement costs.  I purposely listened to the museum client's needs and offered a collaborative suggestion that recognized their concerns, instead of merely completing a task that everyone had initially agreed to before I was brought into the job.

(Another fun example of being on-purpose is the story of "Captain Pizza" an airline pilot who ordered pizza for an entire plane delayed on the tarmac.)

There are many other actionable Disney Institute gems like "Listen Beyond the Obvious" and "Why Satisfaction is Dangerous" that can easily carry over to museum/exhibit/design work.

So click on over to the Disney Institute website to find some customer service tips that you and your staff can put into action.



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.  And if you want to create amazing exhibit experiences that lead to increased customer satisfaction at your museum contact Paul Orselli and POW! today.

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Creative Design Toolbox: FotoJet

FotoJet is a fast, fun, and FREE online app for your creative design toolbox.

You can use FotoJet to create a variety of collages (like the 3D image collection below) or other photo effects using your own images (or the easy-to-use FotoJet templates) and then save and download the finished images to your computer.

FotoJet even provides templates for various Social Media sites, so you can create headers for your Twitter or Facebook or Instagram accounts.

So click on over to the FotoJet website to see what you can come up with yourself!



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!)