Engaging Diverse Audiences

Margaret Kadoyama's thirty years in the museum profession embrace extensive experience in audience development, community involvement and education strategic planning.

by Margaret Kadoyama

I was fortunate enough to attend the recent WMA conference in San Diego.   The conference provided at least one significant outcome for me — the discovery of a new report on engaging diverse audiences from the Japanese American National Museum, published in August 2009.

I attended a session on programming for Latino audiences.  The session, Museum Mission and Audience: Tips from Collaborations with Latino Communities, was moderated by Elizabeth Morin from Youth Arts and Education for the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

The presenters were Lisa Sasaki from the Japanese American National Museum, Lorraine Yglesias from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and David J. de la Torre from La Plaza de Cultura y Artes.   The session provided many great tools and tips for engaging Latino audiences, from David de la Torre’s articulate and compelling list of strategic issues (focus on mission, diversification of board and staff, marginalization, and cultural insensitivity, among others) to Lorraine Yglesias’s focus on marketing.

Lorraine shared some great resources, including the tip to subscribe to email reports from www.mediapost.com, which provides current information on marketing for different audience segments, including Latino audiences.

Lisa Sasaki shared tips from the JANM’s Boyle Heights project, and included information on museum attendance before, during and after the project.  Lisa also shared information about a white paper that JANM recently published called The Cultural Museum 2.0: Engaging Diverse Audiences in America.  It is available to download at http://www.janm.org/projects/innovation/.

The white paper is the result of a three year project, funded by The James Irvine Foundation, in which JANM was able to holistically reassess itself and its relationship with its audiences.  I read through it and found it articulate and very timely, focusing on the issues that culturally specific museums are grappling with right now.

The section on essential questions was particularly significant.  During the course of the project, the Museum began looking closely at the interests, wants and needs of its potential audiences.  According to the report (pages 12-13), the Museum addressed questions such as:

• To what extent is the visitor experience influenced by cultural or ethnic self-identification?
• What is the relevance of the Museum to younger, multi-ethnic audiences?
• How can the Museum develop programming to engage and sustain these audiences?
• How can the Museum engage new audiences while sustaining and satisfying its current constituency?
• What impact does engaging these audiences have on the ability for the Museum to sustain itself in the future?

These essential questions mirror concerns voiced by many museums, and the report goes on to include the results of the project’s research and recommendations to address these issues.  It is timely and relevant.  I teach the JFKU Museums and Communities course, and this will definitely be required reading for the spring M&C class!

Getting Caught Up with WMA 2009

by Allyson Lazar

WMA Board Members convene near the end of the conference

Last week roughly 400 museum professionals from the Western Region and beyond* gathered in beautiful San Diego for the annual WMA conference. Buzz in the hallways indicated that the sessions were some of the strongest, most relevant, useful and enjoyable yet!

But what about the folks who weren’t there? How can they benefit from the conversations and sharing that took place? Fear not! We’ve got a lot of different ways to make sure everyone can get all caught up!

First off, there are the blog posts here at the WestMuse blog. And pretty soon the latest issue of the WestMuse newsletter will be published, focusing on the conference.

But there are other places to see what happened, too:

Back channel chatter on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23wma09
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23wma2009

Photo sets on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lidja/sets/72157622655896204/ (courtesy of Lydia Johnson)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44049949@N08/sets/72157622678753818/ (courtesy of Lydia Johnson)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17123552@N00/sets/72157622699392078/ (courtesy of Linda Poe Waterfield)

Discussions on LinkedIn:

http://tinyurl.com/yk7uu9j
http://tinyurl.com/yjzqz6s

FaceBook Updates:

http://tinyurl.com/yjx9ku5

And hey, if you have photo sets you want to share or conference discussions that are happening someplace else online, please go ahead and post them in the comments so that more people can join in!

* Not only did we have museum people from the East Coast and the Mountain-Plains, we even had one special guest who came in all the way from Australia!

Strategies for Consultants

by Allyson Lazar

Some of the tools that may be used by a contract registrar: cotton gloves, camera, notebook, pencils, flashlight and tape measure.

These days with so many layoffs, there are a lot of people running around calling themselves freelancers, consultants or contract registrars. But is getting laid off enough of a reason to “hang your shingle” out there and go independent? How do you know if you’re really ready to cut it in the world of museum consulting and contract work?

The “Survival Strategies for Consultants” led by museum collections specialist Ted Greenberg answered just those questions and more! The panel consisted of Mo Shannon, the former registrar at the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA who has now been independent and caring for the collections of private collectors for 15 years; Alice Parman, an interpretive planner from Oregon who has worked in the past both in museums and exhibit development/design firms; and Gail Anderson, who went independent as a management and strategic planning consultant after 25 years in the field.

Though they each have markedly different backgrounds and areas of expertise, each one of these panelists is doing well right now, despite the downturn in the economy. Perhaps that’s because each one of them made the conscious decision to go independent, rather than being forced into that position, and each one has taken the time to be strategic in their approach to working on their own. They all seem to love the flexibility that freelancing affords, but they caution that you have to know yourself and if being your own boss is right for you: working, managing yourself, looking ahead to new clients and projects, tracking your time (often in 15-minute increments) and tracking receipts. You have to be aware of and prepared for the additional costs associated with freelancing: health care, insurance, a higher tax rate, office expenses and marketing.

Marketing is critical–both informally through word of mouth and building connections with vendors as well as museums, and formally, primarily through websites these days. It’s also important to very carefully and strategically determine your particular skill set and area of specialization and your geographic focus–are you willing to travel? if so, how far?

Naturally a good portion of the discussion was devoted to the ever-important topic of how to set billing rates and fees, and although this is critical, I found the overall discussion even more useful. What I took away from the session was that, done right, independent consulting can be a great way to serve the museum field in a way that is both personally and financially rewarding, but you really have to examine yourself first to determine if it is the right step and if so, you must be strategic about how you approach your business.

Boards and Directors

by Allyson Lazar

Handouts from the Museum Trustee Association

Bright and early last Wednesday morning I sat in on a session on Director/Board Relations at the annual WMA conference, moderated by Jim McCreight, President of the Museum Trustee Association. His panelists were Mo King, Immediate Past Chair of the Mingei International Museum in San Diego and Derrick Cartwright, formerly the Director of the San Diego Museum of Art and now the Director of the Seattle Art Museum.

As a relatively new member of the WMA board, I thought it would do me some good to listen to some pros talk about leadership, the role of the board, building a strong board and how to maintain healthy board/director relations–and I was right! I learned a lot in this session, so I thought I’d share some of the helpful nuggets of wisdom I gathered from the session.

Two-way trust, transparency and support are key to board/director relations. Mutual respect is necessary.

The board must:

• understand their fiscal responsibility
• preserve the mission
• set policy
• be committed to the mission, strategic planning and fundraising

The director must:

• communicate effectively with the board, and in a timely fashion, particularly if there are problems
• be able to deal with constructive criticism
• handle small problems quickly before they mushroom

“If the relationship between the Executive Director and the Chair fails, you’re sunk.” — audience member

“If they are getting the job done, you don’t have to like them.” — Jim on differing styles

Tips for a strong board:

• Strategically identify board prospects–and identify them early on.
• The board should evaluate itself according to its Board Contract.
• Commitment to the mission is crucial–fundraising alone is not enough.
• Well-run, well-organized board retreats are good for keeping a board energized.
• Have orientation meetings for new board members with the Executive Director, the Chair and the Immediate Past Chair (and possibly the Development Director).
• Make sure new board members know what is expected of them in terms of both money and time.
• Maintain communication!

What would you add to these lists? Comment below!

Free, Shared, Online Tools for Museums

by Allyson Lazar (disclosure: I moderated this session)

Follow Allyson on Twitter

Technology seems to be a key buzz word in the museum world these days. Many people are still a little tech-shy, but that changes day by day. But while people may feel less afraid or daunted by the idea of online technologies, they still aren’t always quite sure what to do with them. The session on free, shared, online tools at last week’s WMA conference introduced some of the ways that Internet technologies can help with everyday projects in museums such as digitizing collections and curating and developing exhibitions and sharing information with the public.

Follow Lynn on Twitter

Lynn Bethke of the brand new Museum of Culture and Environment at Central Washington University opened the session with a brief overview of the types and range of tools that would be discussed and then demonstrated how several of these free, shared, online tools help her in her daily quest to digitize her collection. Some of the software she uses includes: Picasa and the GIMP for photo editing; IrfanView for batch photo processing and Kompozer for web page editing. Her presentation can be viewed here.

Follow Sharon on Twitter

Next Sharon Leon, Director of Public Projects for the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University spoke about one of CHNM’s projects, Omeka. Omeka at its most basic is a web publishing platform–like a blog–for museum collections that can be used as a research tool. However, that is not really doing Omeka justice. Omeka allows museums to create detailed, rich pages about collections objects, including text, photographs and videos, that can be used to develop online exhibitions. And because Omeka adheres to strict metadata standards, searching for information and keeping the information portable are simple tasks. Sharon’s presentation can be viewed here.

Bob Ketner, Virtual Community Manager for the Tech Virtual, is also working on developing

Follow Bob on Twitter

exhibitions–only while he does the developing in a virtual space, ultimately the exhibitions are created in a physical space. The Tech Virtual is a “collaborative online design platform for developing museum content”–a virtual testing ground for exhibition development and evaluation. The Tech Virtual makes use of Second Life–where only a person’s imagination limits what can be designed and built–as a virtual space for building potential new exhibits. Bob’s presentation can be viewed here and in addition he also has a list of resources available here.

Along with describing the various tools they use, the three panelists also addressed such questions as, “What does free really mean?” All of the software that they discussed is free to download, free to use. Space for hosting information and maintenance or customization of databases, software, websites, etc is not free–but it can still be cheap. And just in case words like “free” or “cost-effective” aren’t enough to get your board on board with these technologies, the panelists also pointed out that these tools allow for both evaluation and data collection–both key to the metrics that are so important to funders these days.

Although it wasn’t mentioned much directly in any of the presentations, online social networking was also very present in the session. Sharon was “tweeting” the session on Twitter using the tag #wma09 for easy searching. In one particularly great moment, James Leventhal in the audience asked about a creative commons plugin for Omeka and Sharon responded by tweeting that suggestion to the Omeka development team who were in their afternoon meeting. Talk about instant gratification!

Both Bob and Sharon mentioned that their projects are currently looking for volunteers as well; the Tech Virtual is looking for museums who are interested in making use of this virtual workshop for developing content and Omeka is looking for volunteer museums for a new hosting program that is going into Beta–that is, in addition to simply offering the software, CHNM is now offering to host museum websites that make use of the Omeka software. Anyone reading this post who is interested in either of these programs, please visit Bob and Sharon’s websites and contact them!

#WMA09 Photo Wrap-Up

Never fear, there will be more blogs posted about specific sessions coming to WestMuse, but I wanted to take a moment to point everyone in the direction of a fantastic set of conference photos, courtesy of Lydia Johnson and to share a few of the places and moments that have made this conference so great for me. Thank you to everyone who organized a session, a pre-conference workshop, a lunch, an event, or who facilitated discussions and presented ideas and of course to everyone who came and made this conference so rich and successful.

A post-WWII display at the San Diego Air and Space Museum. SDAM is where we volunteered for CSI: Registrars and where a closing reception was held for conference organizers. They have the most amazing shop in the basement where volunteers build real planes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A koala naps at the San Diego Zoo. Douglas G. Myers, CEO of the Zoo, graciously offered free admission to the Zoo and the Wild Animal Park for early arrivals to the conference, along with a discount at the shops!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A display of art books at the Atheneum in La Jolla. Set in a beautiful historic library, the Atheneum is an inspiring home to art and music collections that also hosts live music events.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Santa Fe railroad passes a small country fair at the San Diego Model Railroad Museum. Hidden away in a basement in Balboa Park, the SDMRM offers 27,000 square feet of railroading fun--making it the largest accredited model railroad museum in the country!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The flight deck of the USS Midway. Docents donning leather jackets indicating over 2000 volunteer hours served guided WMAers through the longest-serving aircraft carrier in the Navy fleet, including up here to the flight deck. President and CEO "Mac" McLaughlin gave a rousing welcome and extended a shop discount, free simulator rides and gifts of signed coffee table books to the attendees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

San Diego made a stunning backdrop for the conference. Thanks to the Host Committee and the VP for Programs for providing us with such an amazing and inspiring setting!

Keeping Staff Afloat

By James G. Leventhal

Rosalind Bedell

On Tuesday, I was lucky enough to be invited to be a part of a session entitled Sustainable Work Practices: Keeping the Staff Afloat at #wma09 organized by Rosalind Bedell, Human Resources and Volunteer Director, Nevada Museum of Art and Program Committee Co-chair for WMA, San Diego.

In difficult economic times how do you keep the staff sustained and on board? This session looks at alternative staffing models including part-time work, job sharing, working from home, as well as the problem of burn out. In addition, staff spends time texting, on the internet and cell phones. Should this multitasking be incorporated into the work day? When and how much is acceptable? Are these ways of working models for the future?

I started the session off talking about the new work model — weisure — 24/7, total interconnectedness and the impact of the use of social media as part of a plan for institutional enhancement and the impact of organizational horizontilization.

Increasingly, it’s not clear what constitutes work and what constitutes fun [be it]…in an office or at home or out in the street…all of these worlds that were once very distinct are now blurring together.

- Sociologist Dalton Conley, New York University

In the non-profit sphere we have all been doing the work of three people for a long time, and now with new technology we can do the work of five or more.  But this might not be good.

Regina A. Petty, Esq of Fisher & Phillips

I purposefully made an effort to “fill the room with joy,” to quote one of the other panelists and to help, in that way, to prepare for the presentations to follow by Valerie Nelson, Director, Human Resources, Autry National Center; and Regina A. Petty, Attorney, Fisher & Phillips LLP.

Valerie Nelson talked about how the Autry has navigated these difficult times and Regina Petty spoke about in a focused and detailed manner about the issues every organization is presently dealing with:

• Hiring freeze and pay freeze
• Compensation reductions and furloughs
• Voluntary programs
• Reductions in force

Petty’s presentation was incredibly helpful and really well received.  Her presentation can be viewed on SlideShare here.  She presented daunting facts like, “People furloughed or working part-time rose from 3.7 million in June 2008 to 6.5 million in June 2009.”

Valerie Nelson and Rosalind Bedell during Regina Petty's presentation

Petty also drew particular attention to the legal issues around furloughs, noting that employees are strictly prohibited from performing any work during the furlough period.  This includes checking work-related email and voice mail.  Regarding social networks, and their impact now, Petty cautioned that an employer’s Social Networking Policy:

• Prohibit unlawful harassment/ discrimination
• Prohibit use of Company’s Proprietary, Confidential Information without express authorization
• Confirm no expectation of privacy where Company-provided system or e-mail
• Prohibit use of employee work e-mail address for social networking account

Thanks, Rosalind.  It was a great session.

Were you there?  What was your take-away?  How do we continue that sense of dialogue — finding encouragement and constructive advice during the challenging financial time in the industry, indeed most every industry in the United States?  Share your thoughts, please.

WMA Unplugged

By Stephanie Almeida

This morning I took some time to unplug completely (no blackberry, laptop or iPod) and take a walk along the beach here in San Diego at the WMA Conference.  As I listened intently to the world around me, suddenly bereft of the continual beeps, pings and whirring that I usually have clouding my senses, the world around me became clearer.

There were surfers paddling against the ocean current fighting to catch the next wave.  I watched as some surfers let the waves carry them lazily – no desire to fight for the small incoming waves – instead, the floated in a group with their friends for the perfect BIG wave to leap upon their boards and ride it as far as it would take them.   Some surfers were alone in the ocean apart from the others.  I watched them fight for both the large and small waves – looking at each wave as a chance to rise and ride and travel back to the beach again and again.

I was walking in the sand very close to the water and I immediately became more conscious of my own steps.  Here the sand was packed tight and secure beneath my feet; every now and then I felt the dips and divots as the tiniest of waves gently touched the sand beneath my toes and left impressions and crevices behind me as I walked.  I moved back to the deep, shifting sand and trudged on – looking up in the direction of road alongside the ridge separating the traffic and noise from the sand and sea.  There were people scattered about up high along the ridge sitting on park benches watching everything from above.

I thought about all of the people in my life and who they were and how they would react to these surroundings and where they would “fit in” among these vignettes.  Some would be the surfers…trying to ride waves of success…fighting hard for each accomplishment or working together to succeed with big ideas.  I thought about the others who would be most comfortable walking on the secure sand leaving little impressions of them on the beach.  I thought about some who would be trudging slowly and methodically through the dense and heaping sand.  Of course there were others who would be content watching it all from high above – hands off, eyes on.

I thought about who I was and how I react to things and I realized I am truly a mixture of all of the above.  When it comes to the future of Museums – where we are now and where we are going – I am out there looking to catch the next wave, watching and hoping to give the big and small waves a shot and working with groups to catch the big ones too.  I am walking along the safe sand too, leaving my impression as I go.  I am trudging through the deep sand sometimes; feeling like I am using muscles I didn’t know I had with each step and moving forward even though sometimes I find it difficult to go on.  And lastly, I’m observing.  I am observing where everyone else is going and contemplating how I can go there too – maybe even going there faster and better and stronger then the people I see in front of me.

Where are you going?  How do you fit into this mix?  Are you watching?  Are you walking?  Are you wading?    Take some time to unplug soon and ask yourself the same question.  I hope you find this as enlightening as I did.  The best news of course is that wherever you are and however you are interacting with the places and people around you, you’re not alone.  I am continually surprised, impressed and amazed with the Museum professionals I meet at these conferences.  I know we are all pieces that make up the bigger picture of the future with WMA.

Do you tweet?

by Allyson Lazar

No, I’m not asking about your abilities to do bird calls; I’m asking if you participate in the micro-blogging phenomenon known as Twitter. Sure, the WestMuse blog is a great way to read about exciting and informative sessions and events here at WMA 2009, but even just writing up a short blog post can take a little time and thought. But quick real-time updates about the conference are being tweeted all the time!

As a micro-blogging site, Twitter asks one simple question: “What are you doing?” and you have 140 characters or less with which to respond to that question.

So, are you in an amazing session right now that you just can’t wait to tell people about? Did you just overhear a great one-liner in the exhibit hall? Get on Twitter and share it with us! It’s free to sign up and use Twitter.

Don’t have a computer? You can still be a part of all the tweeting by using your mobile phone! Just be sure that however you tweet, you include #wma09 someplace in your post so that everyone knows that you are talking about the conference and can more easily find your tweet!

History, Storytelling and Why We Matter

by Allyson Lazar

Bob Welch, Keynote #wma09

This morning’s keynote address by journalist/storyteller/author Bob Welch was a rousing feel-good, inspirational affirmation of all that we, as museum professionals, do and love. In his address, he answered the question, “Why is history important?” Certainly the old adage holds true that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it, but Mr. Welch’s comments went far beyond this idea to give a more complete and robust answer to the question.

I cannot begin to try to adequately capture all that he said and shared in one short blog post, so instead I will just recount little snippets that I found particularly resonant. Some may be direct quotes, others are paraphrases but all are his ideas. I just think they are worth parroting.

1. The past informs us to be better caretakers for the future. We do not live in a vacuum; we have inherited a legacy and we will leave a legacy for those who come after us. As keepers of our cultural heritage, it is our duty to leave “the campsite better than we found it.”
2. History inspires us and thereby changes us. When we feel inspired, we are motivated to act in new ways that are in accord with our inspiration.
3. History dispels myths and corrects misconceptions of and from the past.

Mr. Welch went one step further, too; he spoke about how to present history through storytelling–and after all, storytelling is really the business that we are in. Here are some of his pointers on storytelling:

• You need the confidence to know you have a story to tell and the humility to ask people to help you tell it better.
• Storytelling can and should be used to unlock other people’s (the audience’s) stories (create resonance).
• The object is not important. What the object represents is important. What the object represents is dreams. The object fuels the imagination.

Finally, Mr. Welch gave us a vital equation that we should all take to heart as we struggle through these tough economic times:

desperation + imagination + dedication = Good Things.