This is the second part of a multi-part video series documenting our October 25 pre-conference workshop on visitor comfort at the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park, San Diego.
Participants role-played as visitors with either learning differences or physical disabilities. They based their roles on brief, half-page profiles, written by Paul Gabriel (differences) and Beth Katz (disabilities), that described the important characteristics of their personas. Participants did not see their profiles before the day of the workshop. Each was randomly assigned a persona and had about 15 minutes to get familiar with it before going out into Balboa Park and naively visiting the museum in character, from entering the building to leaving.
This segment deals with participants’ experiences with some of the most very basic aspects of visitor comfort: labels, seating, and interactives.
Personally, I’m struck by the depth and seriousness with which the workshop participants experienced the museum from the viewpoints of their characters. They took their rather brief (if detailed) profiles and just ran with them. This gave them some valuable insights into comfort and accessibility issues, I think.
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.
Rachael Faust is a JFKU museum studies graduate student. Previous to her academic studies, Rachael worked at the University Art Gallery at UCSD and at the Portland Art Museum. Since moving to the Bay Area, she has volunteered at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology and has been an intern at SFMOMA and the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle.
By Rachael Faust
After completing my first year at John F. Kennedy University, I spent the summer coping with the fact that I would soon be faced with the daunting task of undertaking a thesis project. Summer came and went, and at the end, I found myself without a revelation of what this dynamic topic would be.
As fall quarter quickly approached and as people began to inquire about my amazingly innovative thesis topic, I quickly devised plan B: crashing the 2009 Western Museums Association annual conference in San Diego where I hoped to find a veritable assortment of fresh ideas and topics just waiting for further exploration. Plan B turned out to be far more effective than plan A (waiting for a revelation). I encourage my fellow grads who are still on plan A to stop waiting and quickly sign up for a museum conference.
Of all the conferences I could attend, I chose WMA because of the interesting and diverse session topics and the manageable size and length of the conference (the student discount price was also rather alluring). A preconference workshop titled, “Navigating New Media In Collections without Going Adrift,” caught my attention because my current studies focus on collections management and I have become particularly interested in the care and preservation of time-based media works.
San Diego. Image courtesy of Lydia Johnson.
The presenters for this session included registrars from MOMA and LACMA as well as LA MOCA’s media exhibition technician and an LA based freelance media specialist. I hoped that the information they presented in this session as well as the questions raised by the museum professionals in attendance would point to areas that needed further investigation (read: my fingers were crossed in hopes that they had an extraordinary thesis topic for me).
The preconference workshop not only gave me a handful of possible areas to research that could lead to relevant thesis topics, but also gave me an opportunity to test out a few of my own ideas.
Is it possible for museums to share or loan exhibition media equipment to one another?
How are museum staff being trained to handle, install, preserve, and repair media works and their related equipment?
What happens when artists don’t want to migrate their media-based artwork to newer formats? The work will eventually die. Should museums collect works with such short life spans? Do museums continue to store the remains of the dead artwork?
I was able to ask these questions and others to a captive, knowledgeable audience that I may not have had access to otherwise; the dialogue I enjoyed with museum professionals at WMA could not have been easily facilitated on my own.
In the proceeding days at the conference, I ran into several of the speakers, and they all went out of their way to stop me and say, “hey, I was thinking about your questions and….” Everyone I introduced myself to at the conference was excited that I was a student and was eager to learn about my potential thesis work.
The WMA conference exposed me to new ideas, expanded ideas I had already been tinkering with, and provided access to museum professionals from a diverse range of museums. I left the conference with a direction for my thesis work and at least a dozen business cards of museum people who said they would be more than happy for me to contact them in the future.
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?
First, I want to thank everyone involved for making the annual WMA Conference in San Diego such a successful event. Special thanks go to Elida Zelaya and Valerie Huaco who worked tirelessly to welcome our arrival in San Diego. I also want to thank the Program Committee and the Host Committee, both of whom corralled the collective wit and experience of colleagues and volunteers to present an excellent series of sessions, workshops and social events – many of which concentrated on issues of sustainability – a topic that is on everyone’s mind. Finally, I would like to thank the vendors and sponsors who supported the Conference, including our lead sponsor, the Barona Cultural Center and Museum.
WMA San Diego 2009
As you may have heard at the Conference, the Western Museum Association is undergoing a restructuring process to ensure that our 74 year old organization continues to thrive. Despite careful monitoring of the budget by the Board of Directors, WMA revenue is far below target, an unfortunate result of the strain felt by all not-for-profits during the current recession.
The goals of the restructure are to create a business model that cuts overhead costs and thus streamlines administrative activities. The new model includes eliminating the positions of Executive Director and Publications and Media Manager, closing the physical office located in Berkeley, CA, and investing in digital communications vs. printed materials, among other administrative cost reductions.
In the next few weeks, the Executive Committee and Task Force will create various business models that will consider 1.) maintaining the organization at a base level 2.) estimating costs and overhead associated with the 2010 Annual Meeting in Portland and 3.)possibly suspending the 2010 Annual Conference in Portland to invest resources in the 2011 Annual Meeting in Hawaii. Each of these business models will take the best interests of the membership as our first priority.
We will also investigate innovative ways to keep the membership involved and networking throughout the next three years. We have discussed developing a series of regional events, sessions, webinars and partnerships with like professional organizations in an effort to serve you better. We welcome your ideas as we explore more ways to network throughout the region.
Each of our institutions have been faced with making difficult decisions in the last year and no decision is harder than that which involves talented and devoted employees. Please join me in thanking Elida Zelaya and Valerie Huaco for their hard work and dedication in serving the WMA. On behalf of the Board and membership, I would like to thank each of them for their valued professional service and their heartfelt commitment to the organization.
We will continue to keep our members up to date on the progress of the objectives mentioned here. Together with the Board, I am committed to the health and well being of this spectacular organization. I am gratified that so many members and friends have already stepped forward to volunteer their help and I look forward to many more doing so. Together we will thrive and celebrate happily the 75th anniversary of WMA in 2010!
I welcome your comments and invite you to contact me with any questions, concerns or ideas you would like to share. My direct e-mail address and phone number are aldona@jonaitis.net and (907) 978-1903.
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!
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.
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:
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.)
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…
The caller was so enthusiastic her voice bounced right out at me. Guess what! She wanted us to know that she had found a cheap hotel room to stay in during the annual meeting of WMA. Wasn’t that great? Did we want to tell the membership?
So here’s how it works. WMA starts looking at where to hold the annual meeting two, three, even four years in advance. Once a proposal has come in from museum folk interested in hosting our community at thrilling sites and institutions, Elida packs her bag (carry on only for this gal) and goes to visit the city in question. She tours five to ten hotels (and keeps them straight in her head!) to assess meeting spaces, accommodations, transportation, walkability, and always price. She haggles, she asks, she looks under the bedspread, all in a quest to provide the perfect combination of affordability, comfort, and meeting space. You see, access to the meeting space for the general session, exhibit hall, and every break out room, is a function of how many beds we promise to fill at a hotel. So if you stay at a different hotel, and we fail to meet the minimum number of beds filled, WMA may have to pay a fine. Did I say fine? I meant ransom – it’s a number pushing six figures.
In other words, it’s a package deal: please stay at the conference hotel, join in the conviviality and convenience, and help us to secure the shared space we rely on for excellent presentations and networking. Be sure the hotel knows you’re there with WMA, and if you end up staying for fewer nights than planned, let reception know asap so another museum-head can claim the space.
By 
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.
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
kkosasa
kwhitney0net