On Sunday, October 25 WMA held a pre-conference workshop at San Diego’s Museum of Photographic Arts called “Getting Comfortable with Visitor Comfort.” The goal of the workshop was to help participants and the museum assess how the museum’s experience met visitors’ comfort needs, and therefore was an experience they might want to repeat. The facilitators (in alpha order) were Paul Gabriel, Vivian Haga, Beth Katz, Steve Tokar, and myself. We were extremely fortunate to have Kenshi Westover with us, an amazing videographer and editor, as well as Joaquin Ortiz from the museum staff. During the workshop they shot a total of 6 hours of video, which Kenshi is editing down into segments.
This first segment is about entrances and exits. The workshop participants were each given cards with roles to play, and sent out into the museum with very little priming to see how the museum experience worked for them in this role. Roles varied from temporary physical conditions, like pregnancy, to learning differences like dyslexia.
In the video, you’ll see the participants identified by name and then the role they were playing.
Slide from Porter's Presentation ot the Museum Computer Network Conference Attendees in Portland 2009
Describe the purpose, size, and topical scope of the conference.
Describe the attendees, making an attempt to capture their occupations, roles, ages, experience level, interests, and the extent to which they engage with each other.
What were some of the highlights of the conference for you? Best sessions? Best conversations? Most interesting person you met? Feel free to describe the top sessions in as much detail as you’d like.
What were some of the takeaways from the conference? Did you resolve to act on something you heard there? Did you share information about the conference with colleagues (either inside or outside of your institution)?
What would you change about the conference, if you could? (Keep this positive. One or two ideas only: we don’t want to alienate conference organizers from other meetings!)
Was there a conference backchannel? Can you describe it? Did you participate in it?
Would you attend again? How frequently?
What was the cost of the conference (and of travel/lodging). Would you consider the conference good value for money?
Margaret Kadoyama's thirty years in the museum profession embrace extensive experience in audience development, community involvement and education strategic planning.
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!
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
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.)
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?
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.]
A recent contact called some of the planners at WMA “the Funky Bunch” LOL. I love the name, it does fit, BUT we are still professionals designing a professional program for you. When asked what I am most looking forward to offering at this year’s conference in San Diego, I have to say the hands-on Resource Clinics first.
On Tuesday October 27 from 5:45 pm – 7:45 pm, the Resource Clinics offer delegates an opportunity for brainstorming, immersion learning, or direct advice from industry experts in one-on-one, small group, or hands-on formats.
In each of these amazing sessions, not only will you get to work with experts, but also to brainstorm with your peers and to learn form those around you. It’s these kind of meet-up groups that can really make all the difference at the conference.
H4 Resource Clinic: Creative Education, Facilitator: Melanie Fales, Executive Director, Boise Art Museum
H5 Resource Clinic: Grant Writing, Facilitator: Norma Gurba, AV Grantwriting and Consulting
I encourage you to sign up for one or more of these clinics (sign-up sheets will be at the registration desk). Looking forward to sharing a few more highlights as the dates for San Diego near…
Nam June Paik, TV Buddha (1974) Closed Circuit video installation with bronze sculpture
What kind of stuff is coming up at #WMA2009? How ’bout Navigating New Media in Collections without Going Adrift…
Time-based media such as video art, sound sculptures, oral histories, and other recorded media have been entering our museums collections and exhibitions for decades. The care and management of these works continues to challenge registrars and collection preservationists around the world as media changes are tied to the continuous advancement of technology.
How do we preserve these works without compromising the artists’ intent? How do we, or should we, apply museum collection standards onto this migrating medium? Join your fellow registrars, collection managers, conservators, and media technical managers in an open dialogue as we discuss current issues, preservation advancements, and other challenging museum practices surrounding time-based artwork. Proposed speakers represent a range of collections managers/registrars as well as media specialists outside of institutions. This pre-conference workshop will cover a broad range of material and illuminate current challenges and viewpoints in this media/technological field.
Moderated by Jacqueline Cabrera, Associate Registrar for the Getty Villa, J. Paul Getty Trust, this Pre-Conference Workshop will feature:
I looked at vibrant acrylic artwork alongside the other avatars in attendance, and learned the reasons behind each figure represented within the art and each design and symbol in the background of each piece.
I did this from the comfort of my living room wearing a tee shirt, track pants and bare feet with a dog sniffing elbow and an eight year old girl shoving Barbie dolls with broken legs waiting to be snapped back into place into my line of vision every few minutes.
click to see more
I learned a little bit about the town of Opatów (Apt, in Yiddish) in Poland. During the 1930’s, about 10,000 people lived in Apt. Of that 10,000, more than 6,500 were Jews. The paintings, which in my opinion could be best described as Jewish Folk Art, were a study of Mayer’s experiences as a child growing up in this town in pre-WWII Poland. I was transfixed by the use of color and the sheer number of subjects in the works we looked at.
One of the paintings that I think will stay with me forever was called “Synagogue”. This piece depicted a synagogue with interior walls covered with stained glass windows and beautiful interior paintings including a coat of arms of the twelve tribes of Israel and zodiac signs. This work actually contains more than one hundred and thirty people (I counted personally!) – many of them carefully painted
click to see more
with delightful facial expressions. There is a holy ark with torah scrolls, a Rabbi, a Cantor and a host of men, women and children attending the service. The women were separated from the men (so as not to distract them from prayer) and some of the brightest colors in “Synagogue” are found in the clothing that the children are wearing.
Another favorite of mine in this exhibition was called “Shaving the Corpse”. It depicted more than fifty people all focused on a body outside a cemetery in the center of a village. The note card that is given when the work is clicked on contained a story about the work. A rich man in the town had abandoned his religion. He cut his hair and shaved his beard, wore non-traditional clothing and attended synagogue only once a year. The man became very ill and during that time his hair and beard grew back. He soon passed away. The Rabbi ordained that before the man could be buried, he needed to be groomed back to his cut-and-shaved look. The reason for this? God wouldn’t recognize him any other way.
Each work in this wonderful exhibition is a combination of experience, personal recollection and even a lesson in history. There were a number of times that an avatar in attendance said “wow, I had no idea…” and I feel so strongly that art like this has an important place in every group or culture.
The Second Life exhibition of Mayer’s work was actually a simultaneous presentation of the work. People in New York City and Warsaw had the opportunity to attend the opening in First Life (affectionately known by many as Real Life). The images have been shown already at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkley, CA and in Mayer’s hometown in Apt. They are currently able to be seen in First Life at The Jewish Museum, New York and in the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow, Poland. Some of Mayer’s works will be soon traveling to Amsterdam for an exhibition there as well.
click to see more
Of course, if you’re not a world traveler, you can see this exhibition from the comfort of your own home – just like I did – if you are ready to take the leap into a Second Life and join in the culturally rich environment waiting there for you.
Hi, I’m Steve Tokar, and I’d like to invite you to a couple of San Diego Conference sessions that we’ve organized on the topic of visitor comfort.
Here’s what we mean by comfort. The last time you and your family visited a museum, could you find your way around easily? Were there enough places to sit? Were the labels readable? Were there multiple/alternate ways to enjoy and learn? Were the restrooms comfortable? Was there reasonable food, and a nice place to eat it? Were there spaces to just chill out and take a break from museum-ing?
Think about it for a minute, then sign up for our Pre-Conference Workshop and/or Session. Also, please share your thoughts on the topic here on this blog.
Pre-Conference Workshop
Increasing Visitor Comfort to Encourage Return Visits
Sunday, October 25, 1-5:30 PM
In this tough economy, we need to do everything we can to welcome visitors and encourage them to return, become members, and support the museum financially. Visitor comfort is known to aid learning, promote mental and emotional receptivity, and increase the likelihood of a return visit; yet in many museums, comfort is not a priority.
In this pre-conference workshop at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego’s Balboa Park, participants will explore practical, economical, and simple ways that museums can help make visitors comfortable by accommodating their physical, psychological, neurological, and social needs. Participants will work together to assess public areas of the host museum in terms of comfort and accommodation and suggest potential improvements.
Most critically, they will collaborate with the host museum staff to examine potential barriers to making those improvements and create strategies to address and overcome those barriers. Findings will be presented in a session at the conference.
If you can’t make the workshop, please come to our session. Prior attendance at the workshop is NOT necessary in order to have a good, meaningful time!
Conference Session
Getting Comfortable with Visitor Comfort
Wednesday, October 28, 9:55-11:15 AM
This session offers practical and simple visitor comfort tools to apply at your museum, using the results from our pre-conference workshop at the Museum of Photographic Arts as a starting point.
Joan & Irwin Jacobs Theater at the Museum of Photographic Arts
Experts in design, visitor experience, and physical and learning disabilities will deconstruct what we learned from our host museum and how it might be more broadly applied to museums in general, while museum staff weigh in on the workshop results and share what they learned. Panelists and attendees will suggest and critique practical, economical, and simple ways in which all museums might increase visitor comfort-physically, psychologically, neurologically, and socially.
Meet the presenters:
Steve Tokar Writer, exhibit developer, media consultant, advocate for seating, readable labels, & more comfort in general “Please Be Seated” blog: http://stevetokar.wordpress.com/
James G. Leventhal
allysonlazar
vhuaco
Susan Spero
cherylhinton
aldonajonaitis
lyndak
rick31252
creativemerc
lidja
Angelina Russo
elidaz4wma
Vicky Murakami-Tsuda
irodriguez_ybca
policemuseum
Kristen
klandon
richcherry
David
Leslie Madsen-Brooks
Katie Williams
Stephanie Weaver
Moving too Quickly
stevetokar
stephaniesbloggiespot
melrosengard
balboaparkculturalpartnership
California Association of Museums
mkadoyama
Rachael Faust