Visitor Comfort, Part 2: Visiting the Museum in Character

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.

-Steve Tokar

Visitor comfort, part 1

By Stephanie Weaver

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.

Fishing for Fresh Ideas in San Diego

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.

David Porter Presentation about #wma09 at #mcn2009

By James G. Leventhal and David Porter

Click here to viewDavid Porter at #MCN2009 Talking about #wma09David Porter’s presentation to the Museum Computer Network annual meeting in Portland this past Friday. THANK YOU, MCN for inviting WMA to be a part!  The following questions were asked:

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?

And the other participants on the panel included:

TED – Nik Honeysett
CAA – Beth Harris and Steven Zucker
WebWise – Diane Zorich
SxSW – Paco Link
MW – Bruce Wyman
SI2.0 – Nancy Proctor
AAM – Douglas Hegley
AFTA – David Green
THATCamp – Beth Harris and Steven Zucker

Thanks for the invite, Susan Chun and MCN!  This is such a great way for us all to keep up evaluative process as we maintain a rolling assessment of the value of “carbon-based conferences.”

President’s Message: San Diego Sun, Sustainability and Seriousness

By Aldona Jonaitis

Aldona Jonaitis, President

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.

Engaging Diverse Audiences

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

by Margaret Kadoyama

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WMA Unplugged

By Stephanie Almeida

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

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

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

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

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

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