ExhibiTricks

Exhibit Design Resource: Online Articles from NAME

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:09:00 +0000

Where can you find a treasure trove of FREE exhibit design articles online?

Thanks to NAME (The National Association for Museum Exhibition) there are now entire editions of their twice-yearly journal, The Exhibitionist, available online in downloadable, digital form.

The most recent issues are not available, since receiving the journal is a benefit of NAME membership (you are a NAME member aren't you?) Leaving that aside, there are some great articles on subjects ranging from exhibit RFPs to tips for prototyping to add to your exhibit design references.

Click over to the NAME website to check things out for yourself!

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Celebrate Independents Day and IMPs!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:18:00 +0000

No, that's not a misspelling in the title.

Even though today is Independence Day in the United States, there are thousands of independent museum professionals (IMPs!) who can provide fresh new ideas, as well as valuable exhibit fabrication and/or design skills for your museum.

So why not seek out a local IMP to brainstorm ways to work together on your next project?

You'll be expanding your list of community resources and doing your part to help support the economy as well.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

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Museums Worth A Special Trip: Summer Vacation Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:36:00 +0000

Since we've entered the summer travel season here in the U.S., I thought I'd point out a few "Museums Worth A Special Trip."

This time around, here are three suggestions that combine fun, science, and the Great Outdoors:

1) Montshire Museum of Science The Montshire is one of those "gems" that everyone who visits considers their own little secret. In addition to creative and unique interactive exhibits, Montshire's building is surrounded by 110 acres of woodland and nature trails along the Connecticut River.

2) The New York Hall of Science. In addition to the hands-on exhibits inside, the NY Hall offers some wonderful outdoor activities as well. Joining the outdoor Science Playground this summer is Rocket Park Mini Golf. With two real NASA rockets looming in the background, Rocket Park Mini Golf reveals that the same laws of motion and gravity that guide the path of a spaceship control the motion of golf balls here on Earth. Playing off the retro styling of the 1960's (evoking the Hall's roots as part of the 1964 World's Fair) the nine-hole miniature golf course is gigantic fun!

3) Chanticleer Garden While not technically a museum, this charming "pleasure garden" just outside Philadelphia is filled with whimsical touches including a carved stone living room set (pictured above) and interesting pathways, bridges, and artworks that both complement and highlight the surrounding landscape and plants. Every single member of my in-house testing team wants to go back for another visit!

Have your own summer suggestions for Museums Worth A Special Trip? Let us know in the Comments Section below. Happy Trails!

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Electronic RFPs, Please.

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:28:00 +0000

I recently completed an RFP that requested six paper copies in addition to a digital version of the proposal. Why not just skip the multiple paper copies and eliminate the rigamarole involved with collating and FedExing and just accept electronically submitted PDFs?

It seems to me there are only two arguments against this modest proposal:

1) "Making people go through the process of preparing multiple paper copies of PDFs shows that they are serious about submitting." The previous statement is actually a paraphrase from a museum person, made when I suggested that electronic/PDF responses be allowed. I don't think I could summarize how mindless much of the PDF process is better than that.

2) PDFs of finished submissions with graphics and images will be too large to easily send electronically. Well that's a bogus excuse, and here's why: YouSendIt.

YouSendIt is a service that lets you easily transmit large files (up to 100 MB, using the free version) without any FTP hassles or email bouncebacks.

Even though a standard of Electronic RFPs might not happen anytime soon, you can put YouSendIt to good use in your own workstream today.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

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Exhibit Design Resource: TheGameStore.com

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:06:00 +0000

For a recent exhibit project, I needed to prototype a set of "spinners" (the rotating arrow devices found in a million board games.) I could have mickey moused something out of laminated cardstock or Sintra, but instead I ordered a set of DIY plastic spinner arrows from TheGameStore.com.

Why buy something (albeit a cheap something) instead of just mocking it up with duct tape and string? Two reasons: 1) I wasn't going to be around to "babysit" the temporary prototype to make "wear and tear" repairs on the fly for the client, and 2) The pieces I bought from the "Game Parts" section of GameStore's website can ultimately be used in the final version of the exhibit component. I love making good stuff cheap!

Have fun nosing around The GameStore.com website. I'm sure tucked in amongst the dice, timers, and spinners you'll find something useful for your next project!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

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Exhibit Design Resource: Nature Rocks

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:44:00 +0000

Richard Louv, the author of Last Child in the Woods, contends that many kids have "nature-deficit disorder." That is, aside from the pallor created by too many rounds of Wii, or surfing the Web, children (and adults!) often lose touch with nature, due to lack of access, or lack of interest.

Many museums, like the "worth a special trip" institutions the Montshire Museum of Science and ECHO Science Center (both coincidentally in Vermont --- must be something in the water...) help visitors appreciate the local environs and encourage people to enjoy and appreciate the outside as well as the inside.

But what do you do if your museum is in a more urban setting, or you just need some fresh ideas for nature/outdoor programming at your institution?

Fortunately, The Nature Conservancy and REI have teamed up with the Children & Nature Network to create Nature Rocks --- a website chock-full of ideas, maps, and activities geared towards empowering families to enjoy nature. One of my favorite features is the Google Maps mash-up that lets you find natural places and facilities to explore.

So what are you waiting for? Take a break from that darn computer and go explore the outdoors outside your door!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

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Museums In The Middle

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:01:00 +0000

I'm worried about museums. Specifically "museums in the middle."

As will come as no news flash to intrepid ExhibiTricks readers, the wretched economy is playing havoc with the museum biz (and all the adjunct players like designers, fabricators, architects, etc. who work with museums.) Just the other day, Design Craftsmen announced they were closing up shop after 40 years.

But this posting is about "museums in the middle" as in middle of the bell curve.

Not BIG museums like those that form The Smithsonian, or MOMA --- these battleships will keep moving in the same direction even if you cut their engines tomorrow. To borrow a phrase, these iconic institutions are simply "too big to fail."

Nor am I concerned about many smaller museums, the ones that didn't overbuild, the quirky little gems that bask in the love of their respective communities --- they've always lived by their wits, rather than endowments or visitor attendance projections, and will continue to do so, even if their forms and formats change somewhat.

No, I'm worried about the mass of mid-sized, perfectly nice, but not exceptional, museums who bought into the notions that the only way to get better was to grow bigger, or to jump onto the traveling exhibits treadmill to boost visitation statistics. When the donor and governmental money was freer-flowing it seemed like every building expansion, or every dodgy ploy to boost attendance, was a smart bet.

But now in the midst of this recession/depression/whatever these notions have become largely unsustainable --- and thus comes the reduction in staff, the reduction in hours, the reduction in, let's be honest, quality and service to the public.

So what happens now? What's the best way to use this time to rethink and reshape our current museums? I'm worried that many museums --- traditionally risk-averse, will just shrink their operational footprint and wait until things "get better."

Rather than just waiting, how can we thoughtfully, and boldly, use this time to make things better now?

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like movies!)

200th ExhibiTricks Post!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:34:00 +0000

Today is my 200th ExhibiTricks post! Since I tend to be more of the tortoise than the hare regarding blogging, that is an accomplishment indeed.

I'd like to thank everyone who reads and subscribes to the ExhibiTricks blog. I really appreciate your support.

As I look back at the last 200 posts (and look forward to the next 200!) I think some of my favorites have been the interviews with Tim McNeil, Harry White, Kathy McLean, Nina Simon, and Aaron Goldblatt. All of them well worth re-reading.

I'm still on my crusade to eradicate crappy PowerPoint presentations from museum conferences, but if you have any other suggestions for future posts or other aspects of the ExhibiTricks blog, please let me know.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

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Exhibit Design Inspiration: Canon Creative Park

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:40:00 +0000

O.K. maybe it is some sideways advertising for Canon computer printers, but the Creative Park website sure is filled with lots of fun projects to produce utilizing your (even non-Canon) printer. Also, I like the idea of combining high-tech and low-tech techniques to produce projects.

The Creative Park is divided up into categories (things like Paper Craft, Calendars, and Cards) that you can choose from. Once you click on your selection, a PDF with instructions and all the pieces is downloaded to your computer.

There's even a Science Museum category that has Insect, Universe, and Dinosaur projects you can work on! (There's an amazing Architecture section as well that let's you assemble models of buildings and monuments from around the world.)

So fire up the computer, get out the scissors and glue, and check out the Creative Park website for yourself.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like movies!)

Plants vs. Zombies

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:06:00 +0000

Plants vs. Zombies is a super fun game developed by the folks at PopCap. (I've been "testing" it to learn more about interface design.)

I admit this isn't the usual kind of posting for ExhibiTricks, but I figured since there has been so much talk recently about games and the "future of museums" that I would share a recent favorite computer game of mine. (Also I feel compelled to make the conversation about "games" and "the future" a little less serious/ominous and a little more fun --- they're GAMES, and MUSEUMS, people!)

PvZ is just the sort of goofy (and witty!) kind of experience I think museums could benefit looking at and thinking about as they continue to move forward in their forays into interactive and/or social media. (Not the Zombies part, per se, but you get my point.)

One of the best things about PvZ is that you can tell the people who developed it had fun putting it together. That's the mark of a good museum or museum exhibit, too, I think --- when you feel like you get a sense of the time and effort and enjoyment that a real person put into creating something, as opposed to some bland mediocre exhibit experience that feels like it was put together by --- well --- Zombies.

So take Plants vs, Zombies for a spin. There's a free demo to download via PopCap's website, or you can purchase the game there as well.

BRAAAAAAINS!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

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Wanted: Museum "Fans"

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:25:00 +0000

How would museum staffers do things differently if they were trying to increase the number of museum "fans" instead of "customers" or "guests" or "visitors"?

I mean "fans" like those who attend college football games or people who stay at the Mandarin Oriental Hotels or who line up at midnight to buy Harry Potter books.

It will be a great day when museums become so popular that people are scalping admissions tickets outside instead of shuffling around half-empty exhibit halls.

But until then, how do we create more museum "fans"? Give us your best ideas in the Comments Section below.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

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Subhead Anti-Slip Stickers

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Tue, 26 May 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Safety design in museums is an often overlooked opportunity to combine form and function, but safety doesn't often equal beauty. To that end, let me commend to your attention the Subhead website.

Subhead Anti-Slip Stickers is the name of a company that sells (wait for it!) anti-slip stickers, those adhesive-backed non-skid materials often seen on stair treads.

And not just any anti-slip stickers, COOL anti-slip stickers!

For the many museums that have water exhibits or other slippery surfaces that they don't want visitors to slip on, Subhead's stuff seems like the perfect blend of safety and style. (Or you might just want to trick out your skateboard or Segway --- especially if you have a pirate/oceanic fetish!)

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

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Thinking Inside The Box

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:36:00 +0000

I like to keep a stash of interesting junk --- stuff I've found from trolling through the aisles of hardware stores, toy stores, office supply stores (o.k. just about any store!) or "leftovers" from previous exhibit projects. It's fun to look at the products on the store shelves and consider the possible exhibit uses for such items.

Having "junk boxes" nearby gives me the opportunity to think about creative reuses for common materials, and also provides a good supply of prototyping fodder for when I'm putting together exhibit ideas.

The design company IDEO employs a similar practice by keeping sets of materials in its offices to serve as inspiration during design projects or creative meetings. The New York Times wrote an article about the practice.

So here are four quick links to serve as inspiration for either starting (or re-stocking) your own "idea box"

Creative reuse of office supplies.

How to repurpose toys to aid in stem cell research.

High Tech/Low Tech Garden Lighting.

A different way to use Sticky Notes.

Have fun tinkering, AND thinking "inside the box"!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like movies!)

Help ExhibitFiles Crack 100!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:36:00 +0000

ExhibitFiles is one of the most important websites for people who care about museum exhibits, period.

What's that? You're not an ExhibitsFile member? So click here now to join up! (It's free, and will only take a minute or two ...we'll wait.)

Now that everyone reading is a member of ExhibitFiles, I hope you'll take the time to post a "Review" of an interesting exhibition you've seen, or a "Case Study" of an exhibition you were involved in creating.

Despite all the time and effort that goes into creating exhibitions, the museum business has been traditionally very lackadaisical about documenting the processes and products involved in exhibition design and development. In many cases, once exhibitions (even incredibly amazing ones!) were dismantled or retired, the information about them --- POOF! --- simply disappeared.

ExhibitFiles was designed as a repository for valuable information, criticism, and documentation regarding exhibitions --- a resource freely shared that everyone could learn and benefit from. Thanks to Kathy McLean from Independent Exhibitions and Wendy Pollock from ASTC for approaching NSF to get the ExhibitFiles project funded. (Also a shout-out to Jim Spadaccini and the Ideum crew for the excellent site design!)

I notice that the ExhibitFiles counters for both "Case Studies" and "Reviews" are nearing that magically round number of 100. So let's make an effort to move ExhibitFiles past that magic "100" mark and beyond!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like movies!)

Not Another Grocery Store Exhibit!

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:39:00 +0000

I was very fortunate to be able to give a presentation on exhibition development and exhibits resources during the Emerging Museums Pre-Conference during the recent ACM (Association of Children's Museums) meeting in Philadelphia.

We had lots of fun at the Pre-Conference discussing unusual places to find exhibits resources , making prototypes, and even blowing stuff up in a museum MacGyver moment (really!) but I ran out of time before I could slice up a few "Museum Sacred Cows" related to museum exhibits.

But before I finished my talk, I threw a chunk or rhetorical "red meat" to the crowd by saying that I'd be quite happy if I never saw another kid-sized grocery store exhibit in a children's museum ever again. Given the raised eyebrows and open-mouthed stares from many in the audience I thought I'd share the top five reasons why I dislike grocery store exhibits:

1) Grocery store exhibits are the anthithesis of "green design."
Dumping a truckload (literally!) of fake plastic produce and grocery items onto shelves and into bins sets a tremendously bad example for sustainable exhibit design practice.

2) Grocery store exhibits are unfair to museum floor staff and volunteers.
These galleries might more accurately be called "entropy exhibits" since the main activity for young visitors seems to be to madly rush about pulling every facsimile grocery store item off the shelves, shoving them into the miniature shopping carts or onto the phony checkout conveyor and then leaving. The poor floor staff and volunteers assigned to this area then, Sisyphus-like,
engage in resorting the mess left behind again and again as new visitors enter the mini store.

3) Grocery store exhibits are just creatively lazy.
When I visit a museum with one of these areas, I instinctively think, "well, they must have run out of good exhibit ideas." Despite all the high-minded rationalizations --- "the kids are learning about food groups" or "our grocery store shows visitors where milk and tomatoes actually come from..." I say if that was really what you wanted to get visitors thinking about, there are only about a dozen more entertaining and interesting ways to address those particular topics in an exhibition format than riding the tired mini grocery store warhorse once again. (Although if food groups or farm to store topics were high on your exhibit"wish list" to begin with, I'm not sure I'd want to visit with my kids in the first place.)

4) Grocery store exhibits send at least as many unintended messages as intended messages.
I'd really rather not send the message that it's alright to tear up an exhibit area and make a mess and then leave it to other people to clean up, or that shopping for food is some sort of wacky leisure activity instead of a necessity. If we really thought carefully about the ideas that kids are leaving grocery store exhibits with instead of blithely, and automatically, assuming that frenetic activity in an exhibition area equals "fun" or "learning" we might try out some different ideas.

5) Grocery store exhibits are the worst sort of craven fundraising ploys.
One of the most common reasons I hear directors defend their choice of a kid-sized grocery store exhibit is "We can easily get a sponsor for this." Believe me, after 27 years in the museum business, I understand the need to fundraise, but are you trying to create unique, amazing exhibit spaces, or just sell chunks of museum real estate?

Unfortunately most museum "sacred cows" come from just the sort of "well this is the way we've always done things" or "I've heard it works amazingly well at Museum X" sort of thinking.

What do you think? Do you have some of your own favorite museum "sacred cows" you'd like to throw on the fire? Let us know in the "Comments" section below.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like movies!)

Sign Up For The Exhibit Doctor

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:07:00 +0000

The Exhibit Doctor has an antidote to the economic "doom and gloom" in the museum world.

We'll send you exhibit resources you can put to use right away (including directions to make an interactive exhibit every month!) 12 times a year to help you stretch your exhibit development resources.

It's a great deal, so head on over to The Exhibit Doctor info page to find out how to sign up!

"The goal is to create an exceptional moment in people's lives."

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:20:00 +0000

Muscle Up! is a short film by Aaron Stapley and Sarah Castelblanco that serves as a real inspiration for museum folks singing the recession blues. The title quote of this posting comes from one of the businesspeople interviewed in Muscle Up!

As reflected by the film's title, the film covers the many ways that creative folks can build the "institutional strength" to push past all the bad economic news and put into action ways to work smarter and to really create a unique niche for themselves.

While the people interviewed for the film are all small business/entrepreneurial types, every bit of what they have to say is relevant for anyone who works with, or for, museums. So give Muscle Up! a look and load up on great ideas to help your museum create those exceptional moments.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like movies!)

Museums Matter

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:43:00 +0000

Given the constant drumbeat of dire news, it seems important to take a deep breath and think about how important museums continue to be in the lives of so many people.

I really enjoyed this short film, "Spark" that was created by the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, and produced in association with the American Association of Museums, and I hope you do too.

Post-Conference Musings

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:21:00 +0000

As the AAM and ACM conferences pack up their tents and roll out of Philadelphia, I'm thinking about the types of conversations that happen (or don't happen) at professional museum conferences.

It would be interesting to think of ways to: 1) Capture the types of meaty conversations that happen in hallways, restaurants, and bars outside of the confines of formal sessions. Or perhaps make sessions a little more conversational. 2) Give people a (anonymous?) forum to comment on conference topics and happenings in a truthful and professional way without feeling like they were committing professional suicide.

Suggestions and ideas welcome in the Comments Section below.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

The Culture of Playwork Session at ACM

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 02:48:00 +0000

I'm currently in Philadelphia for the ACM and AAM museum conferences. Definitely one of my favorite sessions at the ACM conference was "The Culture of Playwork from the U.K. to the U.S."

Four presenters, Joan Almon, Penny Wilson, Erin Baker, and Rachel Grob each spoke eloquently about the value of play in the lives of children and adults, as well as the emerging profession of "Playwork."

I really want to think some more about all the meaty issues introduced during this session before I write some more about it, but in the meantime I hope you will visit the websites of the presenters' respective organizations: U.S. Alliance for Childhood, Play Association Tower Hamlets, KaBOOM!, and The Child Development Institute.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

The Exhibit Doctor

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:27:00 +0000

In these tricky economic times, museum staff and independent designers really need to find new ways to stretch their exhibit development dollars and discover fresh exhibit resources. That’s why I’m proud and pleased to launch The Exhibit Doctor® during the ACM and AAM museum conferences in Philadelphia this week.

Several times a week I receive informal calls or emails from colleagues asking for suggestions regarding exhibit technology, or for solutions to exhibit problems that have them stumped. Folks are always grateful for my ideas, so I thought The Exhibit Doctor® would be a great way to formally help out my fellow exhibit designers and museum colleagues.

What do you get when you sign up for your annual Exhibit Doctor membership?

• The “Monthly Checkup” A digital newsletter crammed with dozens of descriptions and reviews of interesting new exhibit tools and resources that is emailed directly to you 12 times a year. These are all practical exhibit resources that you’ll be able to put to use right away.

• The “Exhibit of the Month” In addition to “The Monthly Checkup” we’ll also send you directions each month to construct a simple interactive exhibit component that will “freshen up” your museum galleries or provide ideas for future exhibition projects.

Click here to download an abbreviated example of The “Monthly Checkup” as well as a sample “Exhibit of the Month”

• Six “Mini Consultations” Sometimes you just need a quick answer to a thorny exhibit question. That’s what these “mini consultations” are for. Contact us with your exhibit issues, up to six times during the course of your Exhibit Doctor membership year, and we’ll provide a useful solution or point you to a trusted resource --- fast!

You get all these budget-stretching and time-saving exhibit resources for an annual fee of just $499. That's less than the cost of just one day of exhibit consultation! If you’re really looking to economize, you can sign up for just “The Monthly Checkup” (No “Exhibit of the Month” or “Mini Consultations”) for the low annual fee of $199.

The Exhibit Doctor® program will begin soon, so just click here to be notified when registration begins!

Social Media at the AAM Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:45:00 +0000

Both the ACM (Association of Children's Museums) and AAM (American Association of Museums) Conferences will be taking over Philadelphia next week --- and so will the Bloggers and Tweeters!

I'm pleased to have been invited by AAM to submit some posts to this year's official conference blog, and you can also follow conference updates on Twitter by searching for the #aam2009 hashtag.

See you in Philadelphia or Cyberspace!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

A Conference Without PowerPoint?

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 12:46:00 +0000

My quixotic quest for adding some more zip to museum conferences by subtracting PowerPoint (or at least really lame PowerPoint --- like reading off your bullet points...) from the equation looks like it's starting to bear fruit. I started instigating a year ago with a posting on ExhibiTricks before the Denver museum conferences (see the original blog entry below.)

Here's an update from some recent events: I'm happy to report that the recent MAAM "Creating Exhibitions" conference had a large number (a majority?) of non-computerized presentations that actually fostered conversation and interaction amongst the participants.

For those of you heading to Philadelphia next week for this year's ACM and AAM conferences, the fine folks from ACM allowed Peter Exley and myself to host an officially sanctioned Pecha Kucha event on Monday, April 27th from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. in the "Philadelphia Ballroom" on the Mezzanine level of the Sheraton Philadelphia City Center located at 17th and Race Street. If you're registered for ACM, come join us! (Did I mention Cash Bar?)

I also hear rumblings that ASTC will be holding some Pecha Kucha and other alternative presentation formats at this year's conference in Fort Worth.

I don't suppose we'll ever get the "Museums and the Web" folks to release their death grips on their laptops and LCD projectors, but at least we're off to a good start with moving beyond talking head PowerPoint presentations at some of the other museum conferences...

Soon two of the big museum conferences, The Association of Children's Museums (ACM) and The American Association of Museums (AAM) will be taking place. And many, if not most, of the presenters at both these conferences will be packing a laptop loaded with PowerPoint presentations.

Even if each of these PowerPoint presentations is able to start smoothly without technical glitches involving projectors, connectors, and software, usually a big IF, I'll ask the question many of the folks trapped in the conference rooms will be thinking: "Why are some of the most creative people in the world using such powerful computer technology to present such boring, non-interactive speeches?"

Honestly, when is the last time you did something more at a conference presentation than sit on your fanny and stare at the screen and speakers on the dais for 75 minutes or so before the moderator apologizes for running long and leaves only time for one or two audience questions, if any? Most of the time, the talks could have easily been given, and often greatly improved, by eliminating PowerPoint.

Couldn't we just BAN PowerPoint from Conference Presentations?

Lest you think I'm a raving Luddite, I happily embrace computers and technology in all facets of the museum world, but I just think that the staid PowerPoint approach stifles creative presentations and dialogue between conference participants. (And, after all, even such eminent thinkers as David Byrne and Edward Tufte have wildly different takes on the topic.)

Even if you don't believe the museum world is ready to go "cold turkey" on PowerPoint, there are less drastic alternatives.

Mary Case, of Qm2, put me onto a short WIRED magazine article (and video example, seen at the top of this posting) about a presentation technique called "Pecha Kucha." As the article notes, pecha kucha (Japanese for "chatter") applies a simple set of rules to presentations: exactly 20 slides displayed for 20 seconds each. That's it. Say what you need to say in six minutes and 40 seconds of exquisitely matched words and images and then sit the hell down. As a quick Google search indicates, pecha kucha is catching on around the world. Why not give it a try at museum conferences to wean us off of bloated corporate-style presentations?

Another way to open up the conference format to alternative presentation styles may be as simple as "A Day Without PowerPoint". Pick one day during the conference that ALL presentations must be done without PowerPoint (or similar computer tools like KeyNote, for those trying to weasel around the ban!) Add a check box on the conference proposal forms that allows session chairs and participants to indicate their willingness to present sans PowerPoint and go from there. As a bonus, you get monetary and environmental gains from eliminating the projectors and associated technologies from the conference sessions for one day.

So, I beg all of you filling out evaluation forms at ACM or AAM to write "A Day Without PowerPoint" on each one you turn in, or better yet look for ways to eliminate PowerPoint from YOUR next talk!

Have some presentation tips or tricks you'd like to share? Let us know in the "Comments Section" below.

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Museum Exits and Blue Slushees

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:42:00 +0000

A Blue Slushee --- one of those sweet drink concoctions consisting of frozen chemicals and sugar, usually an impossibly bright color that guarantees it is not "natural" was the motivation for this post.

I've written previously about the importance of the "Entry Sequence" (things like reasonable parking fees, pleasant guards and admission personnel, easily understandable admissions prices) in setting a pleasant starting tone for a museum visit.

It turns out that the "Exit Sequence" for a museum visit is just as important, and that's where the saga of the Blue Slushee drinks on sale in the lobby of "The Franklin" (formerly The Franklin Institute of Science) in Philadelphia begins.

Our family, consisting of two adults and four kids, had arrived right at opening time on a busy day, so we were able to park our car in The Franklin's parking structure and get our tickets to go inside without much fuss. After several hours of zipping around the various exhibit halls (including at least six round-trip passes through The Giant Heart for our youngest) we were all ready to leave and get outside to grab a late lunch.

However, to exit The Franklin we now had to march right past a stand smack in the middle of the lobby selling what could only be generously termed "junk food" including big clear plastic cups of fluorescent blue Slushee drinks. Needless to say, our hungry, and slightly overstimulated, 4 year old took one look at the bright blue treats and wanted one right away. When we gently refused, she had a fuss all the way to our lunch destination several blocks away.

Did this wreck our visit to The Franklin? Certainly not, but it did leave a bit of a bad taste in our mouths (even without drinking the Blue Slushees!)

It also raised a few questions:

• Why is The Franklin selling sugary junk mere steps away from their Giant Heart exhibition that repeatedly stresses the importance of eating healthy foods?

• Why is The Franklin pulling the same cheesy trick that roadside carnivals and supermarket check-out lines pull, namely, trying to shake the last few dollars out of you by sticking colorful impulse items between you and the exit?

Leaving aside the fact that you can't bring food or drinks into the exhibition halls right next to the lobby, or that The Franklin has a perfectly fine restaurant (that sells actual food!) just outside the lobby, I just think The Franklin is better than this. Don't you?

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A "Playful" Interview with Aaron Goldblatt

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Orselli) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:05:00 +0000

Aaron Goldblatt has an intense interest in what makes both museums, and their visitors, "tick". He was kind enough to answer a few questions for the ExhibiTricks blog, and I hope you enjoy reading his responses as much as I did.

What’s your educational background?

BFA in sculpture from Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts)
MFA in sculpture from Rutgers University. I attended High school in Maryland suburb of DC, and Grade school on military bases in the US and in Germany.

I Studied ceramics in North Carolina and still make pots now and then. I trained as a welder and carpenter.

What got you interested in Museums?

True to the data in visitor studies – I grew up going to museums to become a lover of museums as an adult. Every family vacation centered on visits to museums in the US and Europe (my father was an army doctor and we were stationed in Germany from 1961 through 1963). Through the 1980s I worked as a technical designer and fabricator for many sculptors, installing their work in museums around the country. I loved the art but loved the museums more – and the possibility that one could think about addressing a whole host of arenas beyond art through this curious medium of exhibitions.

Life on the road in the 1980s was fun but not sustainable. The birth of my daughter led me to hunt around for grown-up, stable employment. How funny that it would be Please Touch Museum! They were looking for an Exhibits Manager and with great skepticism in 1990 I applied for the job. I had in fact heard of children’s museums and my daughter and I had great fun at the National Children’s Museum in Washington, DC the previous year.

My skepticism grew from: 1. Worrying how I would maintain my studio practice in the face of a full time job, and 2. Would this children’s museum business just be silliness? Well, I got the job. 1. My studio practice was great for a year, but the job at the museum proved so compelling and rewarding in ways I thought previously could only come from making art that I happily closed up that shop. 2. It was silly in the best of all ways, and it was lots of other things as well.

I found myself in a place and at a time where creative thought was encouraged, teams of smart people worked on things that seemed to matter in ways that had never occurred to me before. The audience proved to be demanding, shrewd, and responsive. I also found myself in a community of children’s museums that were doing really interesting work nationally and they were enormously welcoming. I can’t exaggerate how refreshing it was to find an environment that deemphasized individual authorship and valued a collective focus on measurable success.

What has prompted your interest in "Play”?

At Please Touch Museum play was the currency of the realm. We talked about it all the time; we looked for it in our work and discovered that a playful process was necessary for a playful product. I started to wonder what play really was. I watched my daughter play alone and with her friends and figured way more was going on than what I understood. I looked at my own propensity to build things and thought the pleasure I derived from it must mean something larger.

A poet friend gave me a copy of Homo Ludens, by Johan Huizinga and it blew me away. Someone had actually thought about this stuff in a really deep way! He connected play to human behavior in the most fundamental way and placed it in a comprehensive historic context.

In 1997 I came across The Association for the Study of Play (TASP) and was once more blown away. There was a whole community of scholars from every conceivable discipline examining play systematically. Primatologists studied play among bonobos. Sociologists were studying rough-and-tumble play among boys in immigrant communities in Chicago. Early childhood educators were watching toddlers play among strangers in institutional settings. All of them struggling to define this slippery notion of play. The work of Brian Sutton-Smith and Bernie Mergen, both of whom had important relationships with Please Touch in its early years, opened my eyes even further.

In truth, I have found play to be my home for some years now. It is the filter through which I look at almost everything. I know my students weary of hearing me gas on about it.

Tell us a little bit about Storytelling Bootcamp, and how it got started?

I teach in the Museum Studies Graduate Program at the University of the Arts. During a strategic planning retreat a couple of years ago, a former student, Victoria Prizzia, and I found ourselves in the same breakout group. We talked about storytelling as a central characteristic of our task creating exhibitions. It occurred to us that it might be fun to begin every year, with the entering students, in a storytelling intensive workshop for two or three days. All kinds of people could troop through telling stories from their particular perspectives. Actors, curators, financial analysts – anyone who is interested in deriving meaning from a data set of some kind. There would be individual and group storytelling workshops. That way, each cohort of students would share some sense of the breadth and potential of stories. The idea of the workshop at UArts may or may not ever take off, but Victoria and I continued to talk about it.

It struck us that such a workshop could be enormously valuable for a museum considering any kind of important project. As a consultant, I have run up against problems when the museum cedes too much decision making control to an outsider. We felt that if the museum took control of the creative process right from the gate, they would be in much better shape when real planning and design took place – whether they hired out the services or kept them in-house. We also felt it could be a way for a struggling institution to refocus its efforts on what really mattered – and most importantly, in a playful way. The idea of prototyping the exercise at the MAAM Creating Exhibitions Symposium was an easy leap. We’ll see where it goes.

What are some of your favorite online (or offline) resources for people interested in finding out more about play?

Not in any particular order:

The Association for the Study of Play I love this organization. If I could afford it, I would go to their conference every year.

The American Journal of Play. I subscribe to both the digital and paper version because I still need the paper in my hands.

The Strong Museum in Rochester NY made the bold leap to become the National Museum of Play a few years ago. They host TASP administratively and became the archives for Brian Sutton-Smith’s papers (he is generally regarded as the father of the contemporary study of play).

The International Play Association is primarily an advocacy group and their site is excellent for seeing what’s happening around the world (good and bad) in children’s play.

The National Institute For Play is a little overly focused on the work of one guy, Dr. Stuart Brown, but his work is really interesting, and it’s his organization after all.

There are tons of books out there. Some have been enormously important to me, but I don’t presume to think that any particular one would have a similar impact on anyone else. I do think that if folks just dived in a bit, they would start looking at all kinds of resources in different ways.

Richard Louv’s book, Last Child in the Woods, is not specifically about play, but it got me thinking about specific arenas of play and the need to vary the “playground,” so to speak, and to honor them all.

What has happened to me, and has frankly tested the patience of my family, is that I have become much more conscious of play; when it is happening and when it is inhibited. I find myself watching people closely when I think they are playing and I try to figure out what they are doing (or not doing). I have grown to respect the specifics of play and many of the activities that are probably not play, but are critical to the development of play (exploration, for example).

What advice would you have for fellow museum professionals, especially those from smaller museums, in developing better stories for their exhibitions?

I share your instinct: start with the stuff. What do you have? Of what you have, what do you see as most important? Why is it important? Why does/should it matter to your audience? I always seem to come back to the question; what are you trying to accomplish? These are questions that need to be answered internally by the organization (with outside help if necessary) and fully embraced by the staff and the board. They need to be answered before any thinking about a capital project gets under way. Without it, how do you know you’ll like what you build, or if your visitors will have any interest?

The scale of the operation or the project is immaterial. A $50M operation is just as capable of losing its way as a $50K operation (maybe more so). The amount of resources spent on a project is also less relevant than one might think. Being really clear about why a project is important and what is to be gained by doing it is way more than half the battle.

What do you think is the “next frontier” for museums?

You know, six months ago I would have ignored this question – thinking that it is simply hubris to pretend to look into a crystal ball. I am now no more prone to predicting the future, but the current economic crisis has made me think a lot about what I’d like to see. If anything good can come out of this quagmire it is the realignment of what we regard as having value.

Museums do not exist in a vacuum and they have partaken in an orgy of expansion in the last few decades like many sectors of our society. I have participated directly in that process and remain in a business that depends on some sort of continuance of that phenomenon. But it’s not all good and it’s not all necessary. What is most important, it is not all sustainable. I don’t care how green a new building or exhibition is, all too often the fundamental question is not being asked – is it really necessary? Are there ways we could do this without building a new facility? The “necessary” part is a tough one because it refers to a larger set of criteria than within the institution in question. Just because we can do it, doesn’t mean we should.

I would love to see museums do some real soul-searching and look closely at what they have/do of real value – maybe even articulate what value means in the context of their missions and collections. The political Right has had a firm grip on the term “values” for a couple of decades and used it as a cudgel against anyone standing on their margins. I think we are at a place and time when we can reclaim a wider, less punitive sense of value, and deploy it for collective enrichment (in the deepest sense of that word) rather than individual enrichment (in the most superficial sense of that word).

I realize how hopelessly naïve and idealistic this sounds. Oh well.

What are some of your favorite museums or exhibitions?

I share your love of the City Museum in St Louis. I think the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh is astonishing. The new Please Touch makes me cry, it is so beautiful. The Tate Modern is an act of heroic salvage. Eastern State Penitentiary is without peer.

Fred Wilson’s Mining the Museum gave me permission to think about play in arenas that are serious and urgent.

I suppose I could tick off a long list of individual museums and exhibits (and even specific objects), but I am true to the data in other ways, too. Like most museum visitors, the experience for me is almost always a social one. I am with my wife (a museum dork as much as me!), or other family members and friends. If the experience offers us some way to connect over something of wonder – I am blissful. If the curatorial voice is too intrusive, or if we are mistreated by the institution (e.g. over-charged, filthy restrooms, stupid rules), I walk away unhappy. Depending on my and my group’s mood, we might have a marvelous time even if the exhibition is weak. It will be memorable because of the social interaction of my group and probably not because of the exhibition.

I’m not entirely sure where I’m headed with this, but if my experience is any guide, I suspect we, as exhibition planners and designers, have both more and less to worry about.

Can you talk a little about some of your current projects?

I am very excited about the pending completion of an exhibition now under construction at the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania. There are great activities throughout the whole arboretum, but the centerpiece is a 450 foot long, 45 feet high boardwalk into the canopy of a temperate forest. There will be a giant birds’ nest and a net-climb suspended almost 50 feet above the forest floor. The whole point is to get folks to engage with trees in ways they never could before. This is a perspective reserved for squirrels and arborists. I can’t wait to see if it works – if people, offered a way to play in the trees they normally do not get, show signs of treasuring trees more.

We also have a project with a charter school in Camden, NJ. The big idea there is to make a place where students are encouraged to take seriously their own part in creating the material culture around them. We designed a gathering place where classes of all disciplines can do projects focused on Camden – its politics, development (or lack thereof), arts, infrastructure, etc. – all through the lens of junior and senior high students.

If money were no object, what would your “dream” exhibit project be?

I don’t mean to sound self-righteous, but money has almost nothing to do with it (well, maybe not nothing). We’ve all seen projects that suffered from too many resources as an ideological starting point. Lavishing expensive materials on an idea makes it neither better nor worse. It just dresses it in expensive materials. Sometimes it even hides a good idea. You know better than most that duct tape is a wondrous material. I’m not even talking about necessarily lowering production values. There are lots of ways to do really good design with less than glass and stainless steel.

Some situations do indeed demand a serious commitment of resources – like an installation outside, or something that will be fully, physically engaged with. We are, after all, responsible for our visitors’ safety and we don’t want it to look like a pile of garbage one week after opening. But there are a million ways to get there and spending more money is a guarantee of nothing.

I am not too picky about content either. Really great visitor experiences can be derived from almost any content and really boring experiences can be wrung from the most compelling content. It is extremely easy for me to get excited about content. Given the time to drink deeply of that content and imagine cool ways to engage with that content, I’m happy.

Thanks to Aaron for taking the time to share his insights with ExhibiTricks readers!

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