Happy New Year!: Physician, Heal Thyself

By James G. Leventhal

Panel on Innovation at WMA09 San Diego: Lori Fogarty, Director, Oakland Museum of California; Douglas Fogle, Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs at the Hammer; Ted Russell, Senior Program Officer for the Arts, James Irvine Foundation; and Angelina Russo, Associate Professor, Faculty of Design, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia

Please join for an amble through some issues of interest…  (The last time I did this here it was about technology issues and museums.  This time it is about a couple of things that have arisen about the state of museums generally.)

A very important conversation just happened here on the radio this week, and we want to be sure to help further both the broadcast and the on-going, necessary exchange through westmuse.

Scott Shafer hosted a dialogue on KQED’s Forum entitled Museums in Recession. KQED notes:

The number of adults attending arts and cultural events in the U.S. has dropped to its lowest level since 1982, when the National Endowment for the Arts began tracking it. While there is some good news – California ranked near the top among states for art museum attendance – the study found the decline to be especially prominent among Latinos. We discuss the role of museums in a changing demographic.

Those whom KQED’s Forum engaged included:

• Elizabeth Merritt, director of the Center for the Future of Museums
• Gregory Rodriguez, op-ed columnist for the Los Angeles Times and founder and executive director of Zocalo Public Square (see Allyson Lazar’s recent westmuse post “Sit Up and Take Note”)
• Jim DeMersman, president of the California Association of Museums (check out their gorgeous, new site http://calmuseums.org/) and director of the Amador-Livermore Valley Historical Society
• Lori Fogarty, executive director of the Oakland Museum of California

To listen now click here.

These are scary times, friends.  The Claremont Museum of Art is closing. “Two and a half years after bursting into life in a historic, former fruit packing plant, the Claremont Museum of Art is on death’s door,” writes Suzanne Muchnic on the LA Times blog Culture Monster.

In Fresno, CA an “..exhibitor pulled 65 etchings by Marc Chagall over the weekend fearing the Metropolitan Museum is about to shut for good...[being]  more afraid that he’d be unable to retrieve the art if the faltering museum padlocks its doors.”

On the other hand:

Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs completed its run at the Dallas Museum of Art as the most popular exhibition in the Museum’s history, drawing in 664,000 ticketholders since its October 2008 opening. Additionally, the Museum reached a historic high in attendance, welcoming for the first time more than one million visitors to date in the 2009 fiscal year.  The King Tut exhibition, which was accompanied by more than 500 special programs, brought in thousands of first-time visitors from throughout the region and nearly 110,000 students to experience the Museum and its encyclopedic collections.

And with King Tut’s present reign at the de Young in San Fransisco, the museum is now reported to be one of the few museums in the country that is able to remain in-the-black based on admissions income, a phenomenal even unheard-of accomplishment for anyone who has tracked a museum’s bottom line.

One of our nation’s finest museum leaders Ron Chew had some thoughts posted this week for the Center for the Future of Museums blog:

I’ve been thinking about what I learned in China, and the little exchange with the tour guide and the driver. Sad to say, they were right. The most memorable and engaging places were not the museums – the air-conditioned enclosures with objects protected behind glass and neat little labels – but the living spaces: restored temples, rustic gardens, village courtyards, public squares, orphanages, and outdoor and indoor markets. These well-trafficked spaces – where daily life is lived and lots of things just sort of happen – were the places where I learned the most and found the greatest inspiration.

What do we do as museum professionals, when industry thought leaders like Ron Chew fundamentally question what museums contribute to a tourist’s understanding of another culture?  Having been to China recently, I do not really agree with Chew’s assessment of museums there.

The Forbidden City may be one of the world’s largest and finest museums.  As Chew concedes “In Beijing, the Forbidden Palace is called a museum.”  Then he questions it after his visit, “Was all of that a museum?”

Terra Cotta Warrior Museum, Xi'an, China -- talk about inspiring awe and wonder.

But what greater re-purposed, repossessed, once-limited access stately collection has been so transformative?  Isn’t that one of the fundamental definitions of a type of  museum à la the Louvre?  And isn’t the Eastern reverence for the object something to which museums should aspire?

In fact, I was quite struck by how much the word “museum” was adopted in China, perhaps or, um, of course to attract tourism.  But is that bad for our industry?  Our cultures?  Our globe-spanning societies?  One of the world’s great mind-boggling experiences is to visit the Qin Shi Huang Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum in Xian.

And even the traditional “air-conditioned enclosure” model-type museum in Xian — the Shanxi History Museum — as desolate, large and new-though-musty as it was…was a really important time-space experience for me and my wife in our understanding and appreciation of our shared experience in China, our shared humanity.

Now, I might imagine Ron’s piece for the Center for the Future of Museums was mainly anecdotal.  He might generally agree with me in more direct dialogue.  I also find it interesting that Chew may have been so successful in his life’s work to help the museum field to fathom better the transcendent power of museums.  I see the term “museum” as a meaningful catchall that invites and inspires.  He may still find the word limiting, or more something to excel beyond.

Where are we?  Is a retrenchment necessary?  Are we diluted by audience-focused missions?  Or not diverse and relevant enough?!

As part of a dialogue on Museums 3.0 called Museum as Soup Kitchen Elaine Heumann Gurian asks for feedback as she posits, “It is clear to me that museums could be much more helpful and timely by changing hours, job retraining, health care information and all manner of social service.”

And one of America’s great chroniclers of this nation’s history of museum’s Marjorie Schwarzer responds in a comment that captures an inspired and spontaneous spirit:

HI Elaine, I am in the middle of writing an article for Museum News on how museums responded in the 1930s (before the WPA) and have spent two days digging through archives from 1929 – 1934. The results are fascinating! As expected, museums were slow to react in the 1930s, since no one really knew what was going on or how deep the impact would be. We have the gift of history, archives and insight to help guide us and that’s a lot! But here are some things that they did do that are noteworthy: a) they looked at new technologies (in this case, it was radio broadcasts!); b) they re-focussed their collecting on American-made items; c) there was a huge effort to document and archive; c) they began to advocate for employee benefits (in those days, that meant pensions for retiring folks); d) they began to develop and evaluate games (!!); e) there was an enormous push toward educational activities and adult education — including free re-training for “unemployeed persons”. And this was all before the WPA was enacted and occured organically.

To read Scharwzer’s fascinating, above-referenced article Bringing it to the People/Depression in its published state at the AAM archive on line click here.

As we explore these questions collectively and continue to face international financial and political disruptions, 2010 promises to be a big year for museums.

For one thing, all eyes are and will be on the Oakland Museum of California:

In May 2010, the Museum will welcome back visitors and introduce the reconfigured History and Art Galleries. The new galleries will include digital and interactive features to encourage visitors to experience California’s many stories and voices, and add their own. Much of the signage and exhibit copy will be in Spanish and Chinese, as well as English. Californians can expect to see their history and culture represented throughout the Museum.

There’s lost of upside here, people.  Despite the bad news, we’ re hanging strong in fact.  In the KQED Forum discussion Elizabeth Merrit says,  “One of the great things about America is that anyone can start a museum, and often does…”  Thanks, Dan Spock, for pointing out to me that The Big House, The Allman Brothers Band Museum finally just opened in Macon, GA.

Cultural Transcendence at the Wing Luke

The bottom line is that museums can make a difference.  Ron Chew taught us with his brain seeds, his Wing Luke Asian Museum, an industry standard bearer for community-driven, identity-based institutions.

And it is this very, present exploration being led by those within the field that proves the ability and perhaps the need for museums to continue to innovate in meaningful ways.

Join the conversation!  Give your feedback here.  And be a part of WMA in Portland 2010 for #wmaportland75.  Session proposals are being accepted now on-line.

If you would like to participate by submitting a session proposal, please first read the guidelines here; then download the submission form,; fill it out, and email it to the Program Committee co-Chairs, Jacqueline Cabrera and Merritt Price at wmaportland2010@gmail.com by January 15, 2010.

OR

If you prefer to submit your session via an online form, please CLICK HERE!

Rights and Repro Discussion at the Gilcrease in Tulsa

By Michelle Maxwell

The gardens at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, OK

Recognized as one of the nation’s premier museums, Tulsa’s Gilcrease Museum features some of the finest and most-renowned collection of art, artifacts, and historical archives that document and depict the American experience. The Museum is a national treasure that generations of supporters have been proud to call their own.

I came on board the Gilcrease in July 2008 when the University of Tulsa and the City of Tulsa entered into an historic partnership to begin a new chapter in the life of the Gilcrease Museum.

In its new role as steward of the Museum and its collection, TU is leveraging its nationally recognized academic expertise in history of the American West, art history, anthropology and archaeology, law, management, and marketing to propel Gilcrease into a new era. Security and protection of the collection are important parts of our stewardship. Today, many museums are facing the challenges of maintaining current operations with a dwindling budget.

Protecting the collections includes not just the physical collection but also the intellectual property rights of that collection. The digital age has changed the rights and reproduction process making it much more complicated than it was in the ‘old’ days. Because of confusing, sometimes contradictory issues regarding intellectual property rights, many rights and repro staff are scrambling to keep up with the digital age. Registrars, curators, rights and reproduction coordinators, photographers, and collection’s managers have voiced a clear and growing need for reliable and understandable guidance on rights and reproduction issues.

The Gilcrease Museum is organizing a webcast that will feature two of the leading rights and reproduction attorneys from across the nation who will address some of these issues. This first webcast will be held in late February. If you are interested and would like more information, please contact me directly:

Michelle Maxwell, Rights & Reproduction

Gilcrease Museum

michelle-maxwell@utulsa.edu

(918) 596-2788 (918) 596-2770 fax

Before Moving Forward and Goin’ All Digital…a Glance Back

By James G. Leventhal

Westmuse Quarterly Newsletter

Last spring the Western Museums Association took its newsletter WestMuse digital in two ways.  The printed version became a pdf, thanks to Publications Manager Valerie Huaco and this blog got started for consistent, ongoing updates – an open forum for members, nonmembers and every once in a while friends from Australia and other countries, as a valued offering of the Western Museums Association.  The value you get and give others by investing in WMA.

The next step in WMA’s transformation will be to set up digital renewals and move all of the listings to that process. And thankfully you’ve encouraged it.  Accordingly, when a survey email was sent around by WMA Exective Director Elida Zelaya to supporters, asking if taking the newsletter digital was OK, there was a request from several members to make renewals digital, too.  Thank you.

Following #wma09 in San Diego, the Western Museums Association has taken on some necessary restructuring — to read more please see President Aldona Jonaitis’ post San Diego Sun, Sustainability and Seriousness.

And so WMA Board member Allyson Lazar is now heading up the effort toward digitization.  And along the way, just now she was going over the list of Corporate Sponsors.  It’s a great list.  Thanks again.

But as we transferred over the names from a spreadsheet to a web listing, preparing to move them into to a new web-based renewal system, we noticed that portions of the list were out-of-date.  These things happen.

C. David Robinson (1936-2008)

In fact, they’re quite typical for this kind of process.  You miss things.  Especially when supporters pass away, and if someone is not regularly going over the notices.  One of the names that was still on the WMA list was that of C. David Robinson.

The thing is, we could not let this pass without taking this opportunity to draw attention to a remarkable life that still only too recently left our midst in early 2008, and a life that shows just how rich one life can be.

As a supporter of the Western Museums Association, Robinson also represents the breadth of experience WMA stands for and, well, the indefinable character of the organization and the varied people and institutions engaged with WMA.

Chalfant David Robinson led one of those extraordinary twentieth-century lives.  He was born in 1936, in New York and moved to Washington, D.C. at a young age.  According to his obituary in The Washington Post (from which several details below are taken – to read the original article by Matt Schudel click here):

• Mr. Robinson attended St. Albans School and was a graduate of St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H. He received a bachelor’s degree in art history from Princeton University in 1957.
• An outstanding athlete, Mr. Robinson was captain of the Princeton hockey team and participated in rowing. He competed in trials for the 1960 Olympics in crew and also played rugby.
• After college, he served as a Marine Corps officer for three years, and then entered graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving a master’s degree in architecture in 1965. His primary mentor at Penn was the renowned architect Louis Kahn.

“The (building’s) scale is intended to put visitors in the shoes of the small characters who inhabit the Peanuts world," C. David Robinson, Architect

Mr. Robinson began his career in San Francisco with the firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and in 1970 was a founder of Robinson, Mills & Williams. Later, he was a partner in the firm of Polshek and Partners before founding his own architecture office in 1997.

Additionally Robinson’s experience included:

• The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for the Visual Arts at Stanford University
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
• Yerba Buena Center for Visual Arts in San Francisco
• Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives
• San Jose Museum of Art
• Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco
• Utah Museum of Fine Arts
• Washington State History Museum
• And designs for residences that house major art collections for such clients as Eli Broad, Frederick Weisman, Rene di Rosa, and John Berggruen

Redmond J. Barnett, WMA Board Member and Head of Exhibits at the Washington State Historical Society, remembers working with David Robinson in 1990 on the “program plan” for the Washington State History Museum – the instructions to the design architects about the size and location of each area: “David was tactful but firm, taking direction from the staff but not bashful in warning us to cut our grand ideas down to the probable budget.  His experience as a designer informed his advice as a planner.”

Robinson was also a notable art collector who contributed an important collection of 150 early photographs to the National Gallery of Art in 1995, including works by William Henry Fox Talbot, who is credited with inventing the photographic process in 1839, as well as prints by such pioneers of photography as Eugene Atget, Carleton Watkins, Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Walker Evans and Robert Frank.  As a a major collector of 20th-century art, he served on the boards of the San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archives at the University of California at Berkeley, among others.

Perhaps most famously, Robinson was the chief architect of the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, Calif., which opened in 2002.  Speaking about the project Robinson told the Los Angeles Times in 2002, “Every design decision has been based on a single question: Would Sparky [Schulz's lifelong nickname] be comfortable here?” adding, “We have done our best to suggest the playful whimsy of his cartoon world.”

And the Schulz Museum has blossomed.  One of the more interesting aspects of the Museum and Research Center’s work is their traveling exhibitions.  Now, five years after the Museum and Research Center’s founding, the traveling exhibition program that began in 2001 with Speak Softly and Carry a Beagle: The Art of Charles Schulz remains a vibrant aspect of the Museum and Research Center’s offerings.  The Schulz Museum now has available three exclusive traveling exhibitions that tell the Peanuts story:

• Inside Peanuts: The Life and Art of Charles M. Schulz, an in-depth exploration of Schulz’s creative process spanning his fifty-year career
• Peanuts at Bat examines the Peanuts Gang’s ill-fated baseball adventures and Schulz’s love of the game
• And To the Moon: Snoopy Soars with NASA covers the history of the Apollo 10 mission and the Peanuts characters’ role in that flight.

To the Moon: Snoopy Soars with Nasa started its tour at the San Diego Air and Space Museum this past September 2009, while WMA was in town.

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.

Touring the World, Virtually

View of the Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey from the vantage of the minaret, a piece of a spherical panorama. Photo © Gross Brothers Media LLC

As part of TechLab at #wma09, the Gross brothers of Gross Brothers Media presented on their amazing virtual recreations of real-world spaces, places, objects and paintings.

Here’s what they have to say:

We are very excited to be here in San Diego with the Western Museum Association.  For the past few years we have been shifting our focus a bit from historic architecture to museum and gallery spaces.

We are participating in a very exciting project with the Samuel H. Kress Foundation to digitally bring the Kress Collection – about 3000 works distributed among almost 100 museums across the United States – together on the Kress website.  Visitors can view the Collection by repository or artist, and in a dozen museums that hold the largest sets of the Collection, visitors can view high-resolution spherical (360×180) panoramas with “hot-spots” that link to zoomable high-resolution scans of the artwork.  Sculpture is also viewable as “object files” that allow the viewer to rotate the pieces around as if they were on a virtual lazy susan.

One of the most intriguing features of the panoramic presentation is that it preserves the intent and logical sequence of the exhibition, and allows side-by-side comparisons.  The intellectual and aesthetic intent of the curator is preserved, which is especially useful for scholars and students.

Please visit our website for links to some of our latest projects, and feel free to contact us with any questions you may have or if you are interested in creating a virtual museum of your own.  Also, we wanted to thank our colleague Forrest Wittenmeier at Sweet and Baker Insurance Brokers in San Francisco for introducing us to the WMA community.

To view the Gross Brothers walking tour of Al-Haram Al-Sharif click here.  The Gross Brothers also worked on a Best Practices Guide to Digital Panoramic Photography — [pdf] for the Institute of Advanced Technology in the Arts and Humanities (IATH), University of Virginia, Charlottesville Society of Architectural Historians (SAH)

The Gross brothers have served as Co-Directors of the Williams College Virtual Architecture Project since its inception in 2002, under the direction of Professor Eugene J. Johnson, Amos Lawrence Professor of Art. The result of this project is a unique collection of over 1400 high-resolution spherical panoramas that represent many of the greatest monuments of Western and Islamic architecture.

Michael and Barry have been working with digital panoramic photography since the 1990’s. Their photography of art and architecture has been published or displayed at Williams College, Williams College Museum of Art, University of Virginia, University of California, Los Angeles, Saudi Aramco World Magazine, University of South Africa Johannesburg, University of Vienna, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Princeton School of Architecture, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, ARTstor, and others. They have presented their work at Texas A&M University (Fall 2005) and Williams College (Summer 2007).

In 2006, both Michael and Barry were Visiting Fellows at the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities at the University of Virginia under the direction of Professor Bernard Frischer, where they served as project coordinators and editors of the IATH Best Practices Guide to Spherical Panorama Photography – a guide to the creation of photographic virtual reality documentation of World Cultural Heritage Sites, commissioned by ARTstor and the Society of Architectural Historians. Gross Brothers Media LLC was founded by Michael and Barry Gross in July, 2006.

On-line Engagement and Metrics (#WMA09, Monday at 11:00 a.m.)

John Maccabee

One of the first sessions to kick of #WMA09 will be A1 Metrics Of Success: How to Measure & Account for On-line Social Engagement for Museums on Monday morning at eleven o’clock (right after the Keynote by Bob Welch).  The  panel will explore the intersection of sincere, social, on-line engagement and mission-driven value
assessment. The presenters are:

• Stephanie Almeida, Independent Museum Consultant
• Tim Hart, Head of Institutional Research, J. Paul Getty Trust
• John Maccabee, Founder & Principal, City Mystery: A Gaming Company
• Melissa Rosengard, Principal, Vision Dot Org

The conversation will be moderated by James G. Leventhal, Director of Development & Marketing, Judah L. Magnes Museum.

Tim Hart from the Getty will start.  Hart’s presentation will focus on mission-driven metrics.  And his presentation will be followed by John Maccabee.  John will take that concept one step further by presenting on his successful practice of developing Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) for museums.  These games bring together on-line communities and create a whole new level of engagement on the ground.

What are ARGs?

Below is a summary by Georgina Goodlander of the Smithsonian American Art Museum on John’s last project “Ghosts of a Chance:”

"...everybody play the game..."

In the fall of 2008, The Smithsonian American Art Museum  (SAAM) hosted an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) titled “Ghosts of a Chance.” This was the first ARG in the world to be hosted by a museum. The game offered both new and existing museum audiences a novel way of engaging with the collection in its Luce Foundation Center for American Art, a visible storage facility that displays more than 3,300 artworks in floor-to-ceiling glass cases.  ARGs are immersive gaming experiences that “deliberately blur the line between the game and the real world. Players investigate the world of the game using the same tools with which they interact with the real world such as websites, email, telephone conversations and even in-person discussions with actors playing game characters.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_(game), referenced 15 September 2008]. Ostensibly, “Ghosts of a Chance” (ghostsofachance.com) invited gamers to create objects and mail them to the museum for an ‘exhibition’ curated by two game characters posing as employees. But the ‘game within the game’ was also a challenge to uncover

clues to the narrative that binds those objects, and to investigate the way objects embody histories. The game culminated on October 25 with a series of six scavenger-hunt-like “quests” designed for players of all ages. Over 6,000 players participated online and 244 people came for the onsite event.

At this Monday’s session, John will start to give a peak at his next, multi-institutional venture Pheon.  Pheon.  Pass it on!

Will We Be Going Inworld?

Then after spending time rollicking on the green, playing games and moving in and out of the matrix, we are going to move headlong down the rabbit hole, and explore Second Life with Melissa Rosengard and Stephanie Almeida.

A Wide-View of the Landing Spot Area at the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum in Second Life

Starting from the basics and some intros, together Melissa and Stephanie will showcase just how far along the world of museums and education are in Second Life.  There’s a “museum” in Second Life dedicated to Frank LLoyd Wright, with FLLW sites fully recreated.

And this fall, Linden Lab, the Makers of Second Life and Second Life Work announced the first statewide rollout of a virtual learning environment in the world.  The Transforming Undergraduate Education Program, at the University of Texas System, recently awarded a grant to fund the initiation of a pioneering statewide virtual learning community of students, faculty, researchers and administrators in Second Life, that offers an innovative, low-cost approach to undergraduate instruction. (source: https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/learninginworld/blog/2009/09/15/the-first-statewide-rollout-of-a-virtual-world-learning-environment-the-university-of-texas-system-in-second-life.  To read more click here.)

Crossposting: It’s a Hi an’ a Ho, Green Ranger!

Elizabeth Ellen Merritt has blogged about the ecological cost of conferences at the Center for the Future of Museums blog.  Her latest post on one of the projects that she has inspired at #wma09 San Diego follows, “…speculating that in the future our consciences (not to mention our pocketbooks) will make us think three or four times before winging or wheeling our way across the country or the world for professional development. What are the unique, irreplaceable aspects of face-to-face training that webinars and other virtual training will never replace? When we do choose to travel, how can we reduce the environmental impact, while making the most of the unique benefits of such opportunities?

To explore this theme, Stephanie Almeida, an independent consultant specializing in establishing museums in virtual worlds, is preparing to don the cape and mask of the Green Ranger to attend the Western Museums Association meeting next week in San Diego.

Trailing her bag of recyclables behind her, Stephanie will explore questions such as: what’s the best way to reduce your energy use in a hotel room? How do you hustle a low-impact cup o’ Joe? How do you choose a restaurant that contributes to the “greenness” of your trip?

Elizabeth Ellen Merritt, Director, Center for the Future of Museums

I [Elizabeth Ellen Merritt, Director of the Center for the Future of Museums] will help chronicle the Green Ranger’s adventures—look for updates on this blog and on WestMuse. Join the conversation as we explore the pros/cons, myths and hype surrounding carbon offsets, “locavore” culture and green hotel practices.

If you are coming to the conference, you can join the experiment! Bring a coffee mug to personalize with a “Proud Greenie” sticker, and use it for the duration. (The sticker, and other Green Ranger products, are available at Café Press.) Estimate and share with us your own carbon cost for your trip. Whether or not you are coming, comment on this post for suggestions for Stephanie on what she should track or try—what are your tips for green travel? What do you think is the best use of her time in San Diego?

Originally posted by Center for the Future of Museums at 10:17 AM on Oct 22, 2009

Joining Forces for Sustainability: Balboa Park Cultural Partnership (#WMA09, Monday at 1:35 pm)

How do we make it through these challenging times with museums and historical societies closing their doors or implementing hiring freezes after a sustained period of expansion?  One approach is to join forces.

To quote from one of the underlying themes of the work occurring in the San Francisco Bay Area as part of the National Arts Marketing Program:

As more and more advertisements try to capture your prospective patron’s attention, it‘s becoming clear that it is no longer enough to just do more. We have to start marketing smarter because, honestly, there’s only so much that an arts organization can do by itself to gain a foothold. We have to collaborate.

On Monday, October 26, 2009 the afternoon session of the first full day on the Western Museums Association meeting in San Diego will include a session to discuss the formation and strategic planning of the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership (BPCP) and describe its activities including the Balboa Park Learning Institute, business services, advocacy, sustainability, marketing, public relations, governance, parking and on-line collaborative.

Gail Anderson

Presenters: David A. Lang, Executive Director, Balboa Park Cultural Partnership; Paige Simpson, Director, Balboa Park Learning Institute; and Rory Ruppert, Collective Business Operations Manager and Director of the Balboa Park Sustainability Program will be joined by Gail Anderson, President, Gail Anderson and Associates as moderator.

Foundational work in the creation of the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership has occurred with two studies:

• The Soul of San Diego (2006)
• Keeping Balboa Park Magnificent in its Second Century (2008)

David A. Lang, Executive Director, Balboa Park Cultural Partnership

As an overview Executive Director David A. Lang summarizes BPCP’s history:

Established as a nonprofit organization in 2003, the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership is the collaborative body and collective voice for 24 diverse arts, science and cultural institutions in Balboa Park whose 500 trustees, 7,000 volunteers, and 3,500 staff serve more than 6.5 million members and visitors annually. Our mission is to enrich the cultural life in and beyond San Diego by facilitating collaboration among Balboa Park’s cultural institutions and with the community; to enable the cultural institutions to achieve their full individual and collective potential; and, to preserve, enhance, and make accessible the arts, science, and cultural assets of Balboa Park for present and future generations. The Partnership facilitates collaboration in areas such as education, operations, governance and advocacy, marketing and PR, and sharing and communication.

While neither part of the session, nor really a part of the Western Museums Association, per se, another amazing aspect of the collaborative work at play in San Diego, Rich Cherry heads up the Balboa Park Online Collaborative (BPOC).

Cherry is more focused on the Museum Computer Network (MCN), amongst other professional organizations.  In fact the upcoming 37th Annnual MCN conference later this year has the working theme of “Museum Information, Museum Efficiency: Doing More with Less!”  And Rich Cherry and the Balboa Park Online Collaborative helped bring together the #sfmetrix session WMA co presented last August at the SFMOMA.

Legler Benbough, Philanthropist (1909-1998)

The Balboa Park Online Collaborative is made possible in large part by the The Legler Benbough Foundation.  For many decades, the Benbough family helped shape the City of San Diego. Legler Benbough’s father, Percy Benbough, founded the Benbough Mortuary and was mayor of San Diego from 1935 until his death in 1942.  Legler Benbough, as a businessman, civic leader, philanthropist and rancher was an important contributor to the civic and cultural life of the City throughout his lifetime. He expanded the mortuary business after his father’s death to become owner of the largest group of mortuaries in the United States.  With no direct heirs, Mr. Benbough made a decision in 1985 to establish a charitable Foundation that would promote his interest in helping improve the quality of life for San Diegans.

The Foundation was initially funded with proceeds of business operations. In 1987, the Benbough ranch in Rancho Santa Fe was transferred to the Foundation and sold. In 1999, the principal funding of the Foundation occurred on the settlement of Mr. Benbough’s estate.  As of December 31, 2008, the grants from the Foundation to date totalled Twenty Million Eight Hundred one Thousand three Hundred thirteen Dollars ($20,801,313) and the assets on hand net of liabilities were Twenty Nine Million Eight Hundred Fifty Four Thousand Three Hundred and Forty Eight Dollars ($29,854,348). (source: The Legler Benbough Foundation)

San Diego is lucky.  And as many of us know, the best way to cultivate, engage and encourage extraordinary support is to keep friends and donors informed.  But what do you do if there are limited resources?  An extremely important part of the ongoing collaborative experiment is underway in San Francisco — the Bay Area Big List.

According to those who are running the Big List:

In many cities across the country, arts groups have started new experiments in collaborative marketing designed to harness the collective energy of the community. These have helped increase both first-time and return attendance levels for the community at large — essentially raising the tide by working together instead of working against each other.

Later this week in the San Francisco Bay Area there will be free workshops that will focus on how 112 arts organizations of all types have collaborated to form one of the largest “Big List” list cooperatives in the country. The Bay Area Big List, which currently holds information for over 430,000 unique arts-going households, is fast becoming one of the largest list co-op programs in the country.

This collaborative model, in which companies gather their mailing lists together in a centralized pool to be cross-referenced, checked for accuracy and tagged with demographic information, allows arts organizations to market smarter, reach new arts-hungry patrons and get a higher return on investment.

Each convening will feature a panel of local arts organizations and Big List administrative staff discussing the impetus of the Big List, the other collaborative efforts that have emerged in conjunction with that program, and the future of collaborative marketing in the Bay Area.  Panelists will include representatives from SFMOMA, ACT, Berkeley Rep, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Oakland East Bay Symphony, and more.  A full description and the RSVP form (required) can be found at www.theatrebayarea.org/tide.

The free sessions will be

• Thursday, October 22 (San Francisco), 10AM-12PM (SFMOMA, Wattis Theatre)
• Thursday, October 22 (South Bay), 3PM-5PM (San Jose Repertory Theatre)
• Friday, October 23 (East Bay), 10AM-12PM (Aurora Theatre, Berkeley)
• Friday, October 23 (North Bay), 2PM-4PM (Cinnabar Theatre, Petaluma)

It is programs such as these above that help the big arts organizatiosn equal as much as they do the small ones.  Everybody benefits.  And what’s this year’s theme for #WMA09?  “A Rising Tide,” right.  All boats, people.  All boats.

And these sessions in the San Francisco Bay Area about the Bay Area Big List?  Their theme/title?  Raising the Tide.  All boats, people.  All boats.

See you in San Diego!

(Raising the Tide is part of the NAMP/Wallace Marketing Workshops series. The National Arts Marketing Project (NAMP) is a program of Americans for the Arts and is sponsored nationally by American Express. In the Bay Area, these free workshops are further supported and developed with a grant from The Wallace Foundation in partnership with The San Francisco Foundation, Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund and Theatre Bay Area.)

Safeguarding Culture through Sharing Resources (#WMA09, Tuesday at 10:55 a.m.)

By Barbara Maron

Coachella Valley Preserve looking NE (click photo for link)

The desert splendor of the Coachella Valley has been created, in part, by an unusual geological feature: the periodic movement of the San Andreas Fault.

To address the ever- present threat of earthquakes, 15 months ago local museums and historical societies of the valley formed a group called the Coachella Valley Emergency Preparedness Network (CVEPN). Members from 14 organizations met to develop an emergency plan, obtain cargo containers, and write grants to protect collections and structures in the event of any natural disaster. The group’s monthly meetings have been informative, encouraging, and well attended.

Our museum, Cabot’s Pueblo Museum in Desert Hot Springs, is relatively new. We have little professional infrastructure in place, and no professional museum personnel on our staff or board. We have yet to produce a proper inventory of our collection- in fact, we are still going through boxes to determine what our collection consists of. For us, CVEPN has proven invaluable.

Cabot's Pueblo Museum

CVEPN has provided us with a venue for talking through ideas with seasoned museum professionals and it has given us valuable learning opportunities, such as a class about light offered at the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum by staff from the Getty Center in Los Angeles. Asking the professionals we meet at CVEPN what they recommend as a “next step” for our institution has also led to illuminating discussions.

The passion for heritage, nature, art and architecture shared by members of CVEPN offers promise that alliances and agreements among our institutions will develop to support our shared missions. Now we are all excited to join others at the WMA Conference and share our concerns and aspirations for the future.

[Note: Ms. Maron's post is a preview of #WMA09 Session E2 "When Natural Disasters Hit - Safeguarding Culture through Sharing Resources" on Tuesday, October 27th  from 10:55 am - 12:15 pm.  Her session will also include presentations by Barbara Keedy Eastes, Vice President, Palm Desert Historical Society; and Mario Juarez, Representative, Palm Springs Air Museum.  The discussion will be moderated by Ginger Ridgway, Curator/Director of Programs, Agua Caliente Cultural Museum.]

The Mythological Museum Visitor – The Young Cosmopolitan

By Adam Rozan

The author at the Oakland Museum of California, showcasing and Creative Time presents Mark Tribe's Port Huron Project 5: The Liberation of our People.

The Targeting Young Cosmopolitans in Museums study was born out of a 2009 session of the Association of Midwest Museums conference entitled, The Next Generation: Targeting Young Audiences in an Uncertain Economic Climate.

The report was designed to measure the energies involved in young cosmopolitan programming by examining 170  museums, varying in size, affluence and scope.

The term “young cosmopolitan” describes a hybrid generation born out of Generation X (those born between 1967 and 1977) and Generation Y (those born between 1978 and 1993). They “are exceptionally social, ethnically diverse, college educated, technologically savvy, and have a creative and open mindset.” Alexandra Gregg, co-author of the Targeting Young Cosmopolitans in Museums survey, wrote earlier in a post on WestMuse:

YoCo – young cosmopolitan – because it focuses more on a psychographic than on specifically drawn lines of age, gender, etc. YoCos are the people who are highly social, are all over Facebook and iPhones, and are curious, creative, and cosmopolitan. It’s the people who go to the Hirshhorn’s famous after-hours event in DC, or the Hammer’s Bike Night in LA… But YoCos can still be understood in terms of geography and economics – they tend to gravitate around cities and have a general US buying power of $924 billion.

A recent cover from Time Out New York reads, “You’re smart. Cultured. And you’ve never been to the Rubin?… Museums: The Actually Cool Guide.” Inside the article reads as a tasting menu of New York city’s many museums, highlighting various activities, events and parties held each month targeting this cosmopolitan audience.

Despite such articles, this scene is not the norm across the country, rather the opposite–only 37% of museums that participated in the Targeting Young Cosmopolitans in Museums study offer such programs.

With the key attributes of the YoCos in mind (e.g. highly social, college educated, creative, etc.), why are the other 63% of museums studied in this survey not engaging these audiences? Funding, limited staff time, lack of board support, and “not enough time to organize an effective program to YoCos,” prevailed as the primary reasons provided. Furthermore, 8% of those surveyed felt “this demographic cannot be reached” and accordingly another seven museums provided that this target group was not relevant to their institution. While seven museums are far from a majority, can any institution truly afford to ignore this diverse and knowledgeable audience?

YoCo programming remained the primary responsibility of the education and programming departments for 51% of the study, and sadly, only 7 museums reported “cross-departmental collaboration (primarily between education and marketing),” and only one institution had a “YoCo team with representatives from marketing, events, development, etc.”

The 77% of museums that host YoCo programs reported having clear goals and objectives, and used terms like “attract,” “welcome,” “target,” “reach,” or “increase attendance” to describe some of their goals; another group used “engage” or “educate” to best describe their objectives. Because only 23% of respondents “have or consult a young adult advisory board or related committee,” it is not surprising that some of the museums felt they were not adequately targeting the YoCo audience.

What is to be done with YoCos?

Time Out New York’s article on museums highlights activities such as “behind the scenes tours, lectures, films, and even the quirky B-movie nights,” which are similar to those mentioned by the museums surveyed. These events usually occur at night and are aimed at attracting YoCos to museums. The evenings differ between alcohol and no alcohol, tours to lectures, and so as I have written earlier here at WestMuse:

At first, with young adults the need was to create the parties, and provide the invitation. Now, that they are arriving, and are interested–isn’t this the time to change our programs, exhibitions, and other existing models of activity? Let’s begin to re-think how visitors act and interact inside galleries, and with our collections. Asking what is the role and purpose of exhibitions, and programs, and how our visitors are to use them and participate. Maybe the best place for the deejay is inside the gallery, on a Saturday afternoon, next to the collections?

Rethinking our visitors and the visitor experience is paramount to the successful museum, not just in outreach exercises, but in the delivery of the modern museum visit. What that means is unique to each museum: however, we can no longer avoid the new rules assumed by today’s modern audiences. The lives of YoCos are defined by their digital identities and social and cultural connections with their psychographic interests. The balance between one’s iPhone and one’s personal life has merged, and yet at the same time the need to socialize, learn, and interact has never been more present.

Museum of Modern Art Twitter Sign in to Recommend STRETCH A yoga class at MoMA surrounded by a video installation by the Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist.

In many ways we are entering an era focused on experiences. In the 2009 Museum Section of the New York Times, Carol Vogel writes:

Yoga classes and bicycle get-togethers may not be your typical museum fare, but in these rough economic times, anything goes…But lean times are bringing out a pioneering spirit as museum officials strive to develop creative strategies for what is undeniably a new world… Most, if not all are expanding their public program. More than before, institutions big and small have adopted the same mission: to transform once-hushed museums into vibrant cultural centers where the activities go far beyond what’s hanging on the walls.

Today’s economy has given permission to experiment, and has required us to evolve.  Audience development for museums is not by any means a new pursuit, nor is recognizing underserved audiences within our institutions. Moving away from demographic pursuits to psychographics and augmenting our institutions to today’s audiences is necessary to captivate today’s audience and tomorrow’s patrons.

(Note: Special thanks to Kathleen McNally for her assistance with this article!)