Museum/Exhibit/Design Inspiration: Real-Time Data Sites

In addition to being a perfect blend of science, art, and technology, real-time data websites provide a soothing thrum of information that I find mesmerizing and relaxing. These sites can also inspire great museum/exhibit/design ideas.

Some of my favorite real-time data sites are listed below:

Wind Map gives a real-time visualization of wind speeds in the U.S. It's like a giant video infographic! The Earth website pictured at the top of this post offers a more three-dimensional view of wind around the entire globe.

While you monitor the skies, check out planefinder.net, a site that allows you to locate commercial aircraft during their flights.

Returning to Earth, you can track tectonic activity by seeing the geographic locations of active earthquakes and volcanoes at this site or view NOAA satellite data, including infrared, visible light, and water vapor views.

Finishing up on the terrestrial side, EarthCam is a website that lets you easily choose and view real-time webcam feeds from exciting places worldwide.

I'll finish out this post with a favorite digital "eye candy" site.  Google Trends Hot Searches gives you a constantly scrolling feed of current trending searches from the popular search site.

I hope clicking on these sites inspires you and brings you enjoyment! Did we miss any of your favorite real-time data sites? How have you used real-time data sites in your exhibitions? 

Let us know in the "Comments" section below!

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

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Gatherings

I've been thinking a lot about gatherings lately.

One reason is that my son Philip got married this past weekend. (Congrats, Dani and Phil! ❤️)  

Another reason is that an international gathering of museum professionals is about to converge on Chicago for the 2024 edition of the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) Annual Conference.

Both a professional conference filled with excellent colleagues and an auspicious occasion like a family wedding actually have several things in common:

• Everyone is gathering for an event that is important and meaningful for them

• You are seeing people you care about that you may not have seen in a while

• Things will happen at the event that people will continue to ponder after they return home

• You will meet new people 

• There will be dancing and drinking!

All this to say that what makes a successful event are the people who create a community of sorts there.  

All this noodling also leads to what Brian Eno calls "scenius" -- the idea of a creative community -- rather than "genius" -- the focus on one creative individual.  Check out this super short video of Brian Eno explaining the concept.

 

That idea of scenius really resonates with me and makes me think of many examples of powerful creative communities -- Apple Computer, Burning Man, the Harlem Rennaissance, Andy Warhol's Factory, and, yes, even museums like the Exploratorium.

So I hope the next gathering you attend will be a true coming together of diverse individuals forming a spirited creative community!

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

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Can a Museum Become a "Small Giant"?

In the excellent book Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big, author Bo Burlingham contends that there is more to "growing" a business than getting bigger (and getting bigger quickly!)

As the book's subtitle suggests, companies featured in the book (such as Ani DiFranco's Righteous Babe companies, Clif Bar, and Anchor Steam Breweries) have concluded that simply making a business larger is not nearly as important as maintaining high standards and not confusing one goal for the other.

One interesting aspect of Small Giants is that the different companies came to their conclusions about quality and size by various paths. Some companies and founders/directors/employees seem to have always had an intuitive sense of the mission of their particular business and were willing to pass up growth if that meant sacrificing their original principles. Other people running companies that grew too fast or grew for the wrong reasons only came to embrace "quality over quantity" after suffering personal and business disasters due to growth for growth's sake.

I often think of this constant tug of war as it relates to museum expansion projects.

Sometimes, upon hearing of a campaign to make an existing museum "bigger and better," I wonder if they couldn't increase visitation and income by "just" becoming better. Admittedly, that is hard and incremental work that doesn't lend itself to sexy capital campaigns.

What do you think?

What are some of your favorite museum examples of "small giants"? 

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

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FREE Museum Resources

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

The Great Big Exhibit Resource List

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

The Exhibit Cheapbooks

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

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

Museum FAQ Videos

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

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

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

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

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

Museum/Exhibit/Design Inspiration: Disney Research

Many museum folks dislike Disney and its theme parks. But even if you're not a Disney fan, it's worth checking out what the Disney Research folks (and their research partners) are up to.

On the Disney Research website, they present research papers and show videos of some of their cool concepts like "Stuntronics" (which uses robotic technology to produce stunt-double animatronics)  or "Magic Bench" (pictured below) which introduces "mixed reality" experiences and characters into an environment without headsets. 

The Disney Research website offers dozens of inspirational ideas (including, in many cases, information about materials used) that can really push you to consider new technological possibilities for your projects -- even if you have to adapt them to museum-sized budgets! (Paper Electric Generators, anyone?)

For more information, visit the Disney Research website and check out the DisneyResearchHub on YouTube as well. 

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

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High Quality = Internal Capacity

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 their weaknesses and where to look for help in those areas.  

Put simply:

High Quality = Internal Capacity 

As a practical matter, developing a genuinely 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 in thoughtful experiences, staff, and expertise for the long term. ("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? 

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

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