A holiday message from Aldona Jonaitis

Here in Fairbanks the day is at its shortest, the sun rising at 10:57am and setting at 2:39 pm.  Outside it’s -17.6 degrees.   When it’s this cold there’s no wind, so the snow just stays where it fell, and there are several inches of snow decorating the trees.  Cold, snow, short days – one might think this is a depressing time of year.  But it is absolutely not.

The low sun filters through the atmosphere in some way so the skies are iridescent  blue.  The horses stand outside, happy and content in their shaggy coats.  The cold creates an otherworldly stillness rich with the essence of winter.  I happily sit inside my warm house, surrounded by dogs and count my blessings.

I myself have had a very good year.  I retired from my job of 15 years at the University of Alaska Museum of the North and am enjoying being busy with many tasks of my choice, including president of the board of WMA.

WMA has had a difficult year.  The national recession has taken its toll on not for profits, and income from our membership and conference attendance was substantially less than in previous years.  As a result, the board had to make some very hard decisions, including laying off the dedicated and hardworking staff and agreeing to run WMA by volunteers.  One could be depressed by this unfortunate turn of events — but not us!

The board, and many other WMA members, have been contributing time and effort to keep our organization going.  This is something to be very grateful for.  And, interestingly, this situation has offered us all a valuable opportunity to reinvigorate WMA with new ideas for how we serve our community, how we communicate with our membership, how we organize our conferences.  This opportunity is also something to be grateful for.

And there’s something else.  As museum professionals, we do only good.  We educate.  We preserve and protect our world heritage.  We create new knowledge.  We provide safe environments.  We offer intelligent amusements.  During these difficult times, we offer an optimistic perspective on the world.  And that is something major to be grateful for.

I wish you a very happy holiday.

Aldona

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.)

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!)

Elida’s Choice: Director’s Favorites pt. I

Elida Zelaya, Executive Director

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.

• H1 Resource Clinic: Career Planning & Resume Review, Facilitator: Rancy Breece, Transition Consultant, DBM
• H2 Resource Clinic: New Directors, Facilitator: Heather Ferrell,  Executive Director, Salt Lake Art Center
• H3 Resource Clinic: Evaluation, Facilitator: Wendy Meluch, Evaluation Consultant, Visitor Studies Services
• 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…

They Called Me Mayer July’s Second Life

By Stephanie Gabrielle Almeida

Click image to see more screen shots from They Called Me Mayer July opening in Second Life

Look no further than the nearest comfy couch or recliner for the future of Museums and Museum exhibitions.

I had the honor of attending a gallery opening at the Tachles Gallery in Second Life for the Mayer July (First Life name:  Mayer Kirshenblatt) exhibition.  I met up with others from across the world – some of the cities represented were Warsaw, New York City, San Francisco and Stockholm.

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.

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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

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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.

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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.