Do you "Value" your museum?

I am hearing a lot of talk about the recession being over. While big businesses may have gone through the process of becoming leaner, snapping up bargains on the stock market, and recalibrating projected sales and inventories for 2010, I am guessing the economic picture for most museums continues to be cautious at very best.

In doing a simple search of “museums raise gate prices” it looks as though many museums have done an initial rate hike in early 2009 and many have since followed suit. For many this is met with mixed reaction. I think it is fair to say for most museums it costs far more than the price of admission to bring a person through the door in the first place, and for other places that are free its not an issue. But recently on an education list serve I saw a question regarding how to charge for a special exhibit, and weather or not to offer discounts to chaperons who also attend.

What to charge school groups is always touchy. In a perfect world we would have everything be free, and for those of us in education I think we fear razing prices, or charging what the “experience” is really worth as we see it our duty to perform it. But in the end I think that most museums are undercharging for school visits. Movie tickets for children range from $7-$12. A bottle of soda is almost $2. The latest toys are designed in clean environments and seldom are cheaper than $200. A Children’s meal of barely recognizable food is $4. So why are we charging students $4-$5 only to enter our institutions? Are we the equivalent of chicken parts or are we white meat? Is the experience we are providing at our institutions less exciting and engaging than the latest Hollywood movie? Mine isn’t. My museum is amazing and I meet people everyday who tell me when they worked in our Blacksmith shop, saw the two headed cow, or watched as a farmer plowed a field for the first time.

I am not advocating hitting schools with high admissions prices, but I did have a recent wake up call when comparing programming costs with some other museums and with general opportunities for school groups. I think we need to be ok with charging adults who come. I think we need to be ok with charging at least what we pay our museum teachers an hour for the price of admissions to our museums. In many cases we may even be able to increase access to other areas of our museums, or try providing more pre-visit material or combine with distance learning programs.

I am using this time as an opportunity to ramp up the school visit experience with more hands on activities, and more expressly developed experiences linked to state standards, all while maintaining a sense of play and whimsy in what we have to offer. In the end I think my visitors will value me more because I valued myself first.

Galleries with Training Wheels

image from ehow

In respnse to this postfrom Reach Advisors I posted a response that was long enough I am going to use it as a regular post to talk about an idea I had for training galleries for people new to the museum experience. Enjoy?

Wow. Is the visitor at fault...
When I taught school there was a sure fire way to tell someone who had no business teaching school. They complained about the students. They would go on how students did not arrive in the class with the requisite academic knowledge, manners, or they did not appreciate the pearls of wisdom that the state was mandating we ram into their minds .A standard joke with these burnout types was "This job would be great if it wasn't for two things: Parents and Students!"
So I believe any museum (and I really think that there are almost none who really think this) that suffers from a similar feeling about visitors is shooting itself in the foot. Those burnout teachers take advantage of a government run education system that fails to remove bad elements, and students are required by law to attending them. Museums don’t have ready made patrons who lack options.
Visitors are changing. Donors are changing. I think people are actually more apt to come to a museums today, but (and here is another school tie in) since NCLB schools have cut cut cut arts and culture. Children have no frame of reference, or idea of what a museum experience should be like. We are far enough into high stakes testing that new teachers even lack experiences with cultural institutions. So there is no indoctrination into this part of our society. Museums will have to do more of the indoctrinating.

I would like to suggest galleries with training wheels. What if there were a gallery with 3 paintings/sculptures/historic objects/natural history things? What if there were no labels with dates, artists and what the viewer should think, and feel? What if an educator took small groups and challenged the viewers to share their opinions, thoughts, and feelings about the pieces and provided positive feedback no matter the individual interpretation. What if they introduced ideas that others have written or published about the same work? Would this help people know what they were supposed to do with static works that do little more than sit there with no buttons, no way to tag, or thumb up or thumb down.? I think so.

You could still have more advanced galleries with less scaffolding. You could have interactive galleries with visitors able to engage and respond. Here you may find cell phone tours, places to jot down your reactions to showcased works, the traditional gallery tables with interactive activities, and maybe even some screens to touch or watch.

Other galleries could be dedicated as quiet zones. I think reverence for the Mona Lisa, Michal Angelo's David, not to mention Edward Hopper's Woman in the Sun would be an excellent idea. Museums would not assume everyone knew they were to zip it and stare at art in awe and bask in the brilliance of the creator. These are not innate, or even more advanced human traits. They are learned skills. Ones that museum should bring to the public. Signs or docents ( not chastising by saying “DON”T TALK EAT TAKE PHOTOS SPEAK OR BREATH IN THE PRESSENCE OF THE ALMIGHTY ART!”) would endeavor to explain to visitors the prized nature of what was on exhibition. Why society has deemed it important, rare or beautiful. That the public is invited to take in the images in a contemplative environ, and that this place is special to many and please keep that in mind as you look. Show your recognition by being respectful to your neighbor. This is what I would tell my students in The New Orlens Museum of Art, or The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute or at The Wall South. Small life lessons I was lucky enough to teach. We should all endeavor to share them at our own museums.

Ethics and Social Media

Look up Ethics and Social Media and you will get a variety of approaches depending on the industry or discipline that is being focussed on. There are many rule of thumb suggestions and even more on ethics in PR and Marketing.
In September I have been asked by The Upstate History Alliance to facilitate a conversation on the implications of ethics and social media. When thinking about this discussion, there are a host of possible topics and directions we can go in.
For example:

• Simple rules of thumb about the pitfalls of posting inappropriate material on your Facebook page.
• Perils of friending your boss.
• Your personal vs. your professional persona or brand as it relates to social media applications such as twitter, Linked In or Facebook.
• What are the implications of having an immense amount of personal information living on line for an almost infinate period of time.
• Who owns your work and can your institution enforce rules about your online behavior.
• Can I check facebook at work.

So these are just a few of the things I have begun to think about. But this conversation should revolve around your questions. I am sure we could all sit around, make smores, and tell horror stories or offer opinions on things we already have a handle on, but what I would like to task you with is taking a look at a few blogs I have gathered, read through, and then take a look at various museum friends that you have on Facebook. (If you are not on Facebook please join and send me a message. If you want to see inappropriate behavior I am an excellent source!) Also just look up museum blogs on google and spend some time reading. See if there are people who are writing not from the standpoint of an institution, and notice if their work world and blog world seem intertwined.
Then I would like you to dial up this blog again and post issues you don't have answers to. Questions you need answers to, or personal choices you are having difficulty reconciling. If someone posts the same question as you already have, that is fine. Knowing that many people have the same questions is a big help to me in helping to guide the discussion.
Try and post at least 24 hours before we chat, and I'll bring the marshmallows!

Ethics and Social Media

As social media adoption increases, do ethics get left at the doorstep?
The Many Voices of Social Media

Museum Ethics from AAM

The Museums are TRASH TALKIN'

So, I was waiting to post this but MUSEUMS FROM THE YEAR 2000, just released a post so I can't wait to appear to be a John come late.

So there have been a few articles and posts that have gone back and forth this past week. The institutions have maintained their decorum but still there have been some intelectual body blows made by either side. It’s like battle of the museum nerds and I love it. Lots of good sparing over the importance of visitor engagement real vs. virtual and the old fight over objects or not objects.
For my two cents this industry is overly dominated by curators and object people. ( Did I mention I may not always be in museums?)
I don't think anybody wants a museum to be not about stuff. We just want everybody to have access to it and be able to engage in a social context. This is where collections care and visitor experience clash because it is a natural tension.
People should relax. It’s about listening and achieving balance. Both sides need to acknowledge a need to provide more equality of thought and control in museums development and identity. It’s bad when families fight. That’s when the bad guys take advantage or gain the upper hand (think shopping malls and water parks, oh and the federal government.)
I am heartened that the conversation is heated but respectful. Most corporate bodies can't even muster talking to themselves. Keep up the trash talk. It’s all in good fun!

In this Corner weighing in at 98 pounds : Nina Simon

In this Corner weighing in with an impressive institutional history of over 120 years: The MIA

In this Corner (the unfortunately named) Prerogative of Harlots Blog

In this Corner the money loving(kidding!) Museum Audience Insight Blog

Learning to Play

This week I received my new membership card from The Strong National Museum of Play. This is one of my favorite spots to spend with my kids. I could and perhaps will, do an entire post about what they are doing right in their membership department. I always come away feeling valued, and the value in membership is always made up three fold as I take my membership from there to Boston, to Philadelphia, to Binghamton. But again this is not a post about membership, it’s about exhibit design.
We go to The Strong A LOT. We drive 4 hours, stay at our favorite hotel and play play play. My kids go back time and time again, not repeating the same activities, but diversifying and going deeper into the exhibits each time. They test their world. As children in a certain age group they are concrete thinkers. So manipulating the physical universe through play is providing them endless opportunities for self-discovery and learning. My Friend Paul Orselli in recent months bemoaned the obligatory “Grocery store Exhibit” and I tend to agree with him, but my kids love to cook in the deli, and ring up the other children who come through the line, and they know everyone has a job. They interact with children they have never met before, but it is intuitive play that almost always goes well.
So are you pickin up what I’m layin down. Awwww Yeahhhhh. Big people museums! What is our play? What would drive us to return and return again? I love Edward Hopper. I could stare at his work endlessly. It is art that reaches into me and speaks to who I am. This is awesome and a great museum activity, but I don’t drive to New York City to see his work 6 times a year. I don’t have memberships at museums designed for staring at stuff.
Humans love to learn. Not in the formal school kinda way but in the authentic designed and exploratory ways that museums all too often are not. The Museum I work at, I visit with my family almost every weekend for the same reason I go to The Strong. The local Art Museum a scant 30 minutes away with an amazing collection of modern art, I never have gone to with my family or outside of work. Exhibit designers must think about play. They must think about learning through play. In a time where learning has been relegated to a certain agreed upon facts that are tested in standardized formats, museums represent hope to a nation that is being under challenged. The question is are we up to meeting it?

What are the Museums Saying?

So in museums we do a lot of talking. Our panels, signs and websites are chock full of language. I always wonder who writes it and why does it sound so similar no matter where or what museum I am in?
We believe in words almost as much as we believe in the objects they are used to describe, but I often question if we are using the right words, or if our words hold any meaning to visitors.
I randomly picked intro text either from the home page or one click into the visit page of some major museums around the country.


Take a look. Is the langauge advancing what the institution wants? These are all from the visit me or home pages. Are there words and phrases that are more or less meaningful than others? Do these paragraphs convince us in our nano attention spans to decide to stop surfing and go to these museums?
I want to know what you think of museum web site language!




The Wild Center has live exhibits.You can hike and explore the Museum's 31- acre campus with naturalist guides or on your own. There are theaters with high definition films, plenty of hands-on nature, and hundreds of live animals from rare native trout, to river otters, to turtles the size of walnuts and many other often hard-to-see residents of the woods and waters. Learn more about the indoor and outdoor exhibits.

Overlooking one of the nation's most culturally vibrant cities, the Philadelphia Museum of Art welcomes nearly a million visitors each year, encouraging them to embark upon a walk through time that extends across two millennia and six continents.

Discuss with your children what they think they might see at a museum of modern and contemporary art. There aren't any dinosaurs here; rather, we have sculptures, paintings, photographs, drawings, and even design objects like a helicopter and cars.

Location
1601 N. Clark St.Chicago, IL 60614312.642.4600
> Get directions
Parking
Our parking lot is located at the corner of Stockton and LaSalle.
> Learn more
Admission
The Museum offers several ticket options.
> Get ticket information
Museum Hours
Monday–Saturday
9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
Sunday
12:00 noon–5:00 p.m.
Dining at the Museum
Enjoy breakfast, lunch, coffee or a snack in the new North & Clark Café.

Andrew Jackson always welcomed visitors to his home. Since The Hermitage opened as a museum in 1889 over 15 million people have crossed its threshold. We invite you to become part of that tradition. Plan your family, group, or school visit to The Hermitage today

I Don't Know Anything About Museums

I never thought I'd work in a museum but I am.
I have been writing about museums, education, and social media for a while now. I have had various blogs over time and have always been challenged to keep them going. I think with my use of twitter I have finally found a true outlet for my thoughts and ideas and interests. It has been a place where I have stayed mostly professional, sought to share things that I believed others with similar career interests to mine would enjoy, and I almost never use it as a platform to kick my dog. (Metaphorical dog. No mail please!)
But Twitter is too brief. It’s the kind of thing that helps me keep up with the latest’s news in social media, education, non-profit world stuff and even local entertainment for families. So I thought I could take my blog the twitter route. There are plenty of times I want to write an extended post about a great exhibit I've seen, or talk about an innovative practice in management, or just crow about a cool web site or ad campaign. Before I was limiting myself to topics concerning social media or education. But the truth is I am a middle manager who used to be a school teacher. I knew nothing about museums but was made Associate Director of Education and placed over a plethora of projects. The main reason for the success is meeting audience needs, establishing relationships, and empowering those who you work with to be leaders.
So these are the kinds of things I am interested in and will be writing about. I don't have all the experience in the world but I do have opinions. I do aggregate data. And best of all I am funny. So hope you will follow me on my journey of learning about how to do my job.