Qm2 - Museum Insights

Texas Supports the Smithsonian

2011-09-25T21:53:00.011-04:00

Imagine my surprise when I arrived at my favorite Dallas spot, Hotel Belmont where everything and everyone is hipper than me, to find half naked young men preening in the bar, flexing their tattoos, preparing for the Jason Brooks tattoo catwalk at Dallas Contemporary. The walk occurred at 9:00 pm and was on a 6:00 am flight from Washington.

When I arrived in FTD airport, I learned the local museums were open free, in support of efforts to keep the Smithsonian in my home town free to the American people. Well, of course, I did my part and visited the Amon Carter where I particularly enjoyed their Allure of Paper: Watercolors and Drawings from the Collection, a magnificent exhibition to from their permanent collections. Also spent time in the Russell and Remington Study Center, extremely well done. Then down the very hot street to the Cattle Raisers Museum housed inside the spectacular Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. It was packed with families enjoying every sort of exhibition. It was a joy to see this place hum. The collaboration between the science museum and the cattle raisers is one to be emulated throughout the museum world. The director of the CRM is also the director of the National Cowgirls Museum next door. How's that for gender equality?

I finished the afternoon at the recently opened BRIT: Botanical Research Institute of Texas, with perhaps the most enthusiastic staff I’ve encountered in decades. They are so happy to finally have a beautiful space in which to show off their important work, to invite the public to.

I can’t sign off without out mentioning Smoke, the restaurant attached to the Belmont. Breakfast this morning was ricotta cheese pancakes, lighter than a feather, with apricots and cream and an actual rasher of bacon. Lasted me until a dinner of chicken with baked beans on a bed of watermelon and greens.

Sadly, I didn't make it to the catwalk. Just can't hit the long ball anymore.

Busman's Holiday

2011-07-02T16:12:00.010-04:00

Driving most of the 170.2 miles of the Garden State Parkway last week put me in mind of What Exit? an exhibit about the NJ Turnpike created by SallyYerkovich during her tenure at the New Jersey Historical Society still online.

At the top of the Garden State Parkway, we stopped at the Morris Museum, lead for many years by Steve Miller. For almost a century this general museum has been devoted to art, science, history, and theater and its collections support these disciplines. Remarkably, it houses one of the world’s most comprehensive collection of mechanical musical instruments and automata, the Murtogh D. Guinnes Collection.

The museum provides a steady offering of changing exhibitions, including while we were there, Jersey Rocks: A History of Rock and Role in the Garden State, curated and organized by Claudia Orcello. NJ supported a unique mix of performers and places, technology and talent that dominated the airwaves and rocked the nation.

Paul D’Ambrosio recently took the helm at Fenimore Art Museum,Cooperstown. This summer he filled the house with Frida Kahlo, modernism from the Munson Williams Proctor Institute, Syracuse, known to those who love it at the Munstitute. And that is no where near enough: also, early drawings and watercolors by Edward Hopper, NYHSA's own glorious collection of folk art and the stunning Eugene and Clare Thaw Collection of American Indian Art.

Happy, Building Museums in San Francisco

2011-05-19T07:24:00.005-04:00

What do the following museum leaders have in common?Daniel Gottlieb, Patricia Leach, Julie Van Blarcom, Joe Brennan, Grace C. Stanislaus and Lial A. Jones?

Each contributed to last month’s dynamic Building Museums conference in San Francisco, presented by MAAM in partnership with WMA, IAMFA, ACM and AIA/SF. Themed around planning, building, and sustaining new, renovated, and expanded museum projects, this is the single conference, world-wide, attracting architects, museum and building professionals to discuss the challenges of this distinctive building type.

Extraordinary museums hosted at the Oakland Museum of California, Walt Disney Family Museum, The Old San Francisco Mint, Contemporary Jewish Museum, de Young Museum and the California Academy of Sciences. Each house displayed brilliant architecture, sustainability (in both the green senses) and community engagement achievements.

Oakland in particular, slightly off the beaten path, deserves a shout out. Opened in 1969, built entirely of concrete by the Eero Saarinen associate Kevin Roche on four city blocks with interior gardens over many galleries, it can be said that Oakland had a green roof decades before the term was coined. The build brought together three small museums of history, art, and science which have co-existed almost without change since that time. The current renovation respects the original architecture and mission (grounded in the radical upheaval of the time and place) and updates infrastructure, about 300,000 square feet of exhibit space, and all program offerings. All those leaky concrete roofs and garden beds are getting an upgrade, too. Now two blocks from the BART transit system, Oakland Museum is easy to get to and it is an extraordinary experience. If you can’t visit soon, I recommend Mark Dion’s The Marvelous Museum, an ambitious walk through the nooks and crooks of Oakland’s deep storage and realized in what is certainly the most marvelous publication on any museum done in decades.

We heard about the Herculean team work and flood recovery efforts of the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library and the Kentucky Derby Museum. You can witness the move of the NCSM&L’s flooded building, 140-tons, happening now. Staging necessitated by climate extremes are just part of the story of the new, all-glass Anchorage Museum. Lessons learned from building a collection and a building for it, resulting in the Phoenix Musical Instrument Museum -- a project made in a decade from idea to delivery, gives new meaning to project management. The planned move of SF’s beloved Exploratorium had us thinking about returning to San Francisco when this museum opens in 2016.

The projects were given context with in-depth discussions of financial considerations -- from how to maximize earned income to raising money in the worst economic downturn ever. The balance between stewardship, sustainability and audience needs was thoughtfully discussed, as were the latest insights on day-lighting new building projects, where and how conservation of objects fit into this work.

The Smithsonian’s Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture received the third annual Buildy Award, bestowed for outstanding construction which increases awareness within the field, and by the public at large, of the value of museums and the need for their ongoing rehabilitation and expansion to serve future generations. Claire Larkin brief inspiring acceptance speech can be read here.

Happiness, according to research from positive psychology, requires 1) meaningful work 2) mastery over the work 3) the opportunity to work with people you admire and respect and 4) a challenge that is larger than yourself. Every museum building project provides these criteria in abundance as we all learned in San Francisco.

QR Codes in Museums

2011-05-07T09:20:00.007-04:00

Our founder and friend, Will Phillips, provided the following in an email to his health club roundtable members this week. It holds for our museum colleagues, too, so I've redrafted slightly and reposted.

A QR code is a specific matrix barcode readable by dedicated QR readers and camera phones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be text, URL, or other data.

Common in Japan, created by Toyota subsidiary Denso-Wave in 1994, the QR code is one of the most popular types of two-dimensional barcodes. QR, abbreviated from Quick Response, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. QR codes can hold over 7,000 characters, providing a rich data delivery.

Natali Del Conte of CNET explains QR codes in a short video. Google encourages the use of QR codes in their Favorite Places campaign by asking business to show QR codes in their windows and advertisements, leading to rich data resource. Google's Android also moved QR adoption in the US. Since the Android market is small screen only, it is common for users to scan the QR code from a web page or another phone's screen or a print ad as Del Conte explains. QR codes can link to your electronic calendar, website, videos, coupons, promotions, and invitations.

Would QR codes on an object label in a museum usefully extend the information available to the visitor? Could discounts be offered on the museum website encourage visitation during slow times? Since interest is just building, would some visitors be attracted to this now "secret" way of gaining access? Since we all carry our phones 27/7, mobile marketing is apparently the next wave.

p.s from Mary Case: I’ve downloaded the recommended iPhone app, Neoreader, but so far haven’t had success in decoding anything. Onward!

Museum Director's Questions

2011-04-27T20:03:00.006-04:00

In a recent blog post, Nina Simon answered the ten most frequently asked questions about audience participation http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/ It caused me to think about the questions often asked by museum directors struggling with their life and work. Here are a few which came to mind easily.

From the new director: Why didn’t the board (or the search consultant) tell me about (fill in the blank)? Usually because they didn’t know. Boards are frequently extremely far from the action and don’t understand what will be important to the new director. The hiring process doesn’t lend itself to the depth of understanding that one would hope. There are almost always surprises, sometimes good, sometimes not.

How can I get the board to take their responsibility to raise money? Phased this way, the answer is, you can’t. The right question is: What is the process by which we can raise money? In other words, what is the process by which we (paid staff and volunteers) can raise money together? Participatory, heh?

How do we align all the moving parts of this complex organization? This is the best question, the real work of the director, and starts with the gathering of constituent views, highlighting those views for everyone to know, see, understand, discuss. Again, participation. Longterm, iterative. Over time, it shows in vision, mission, organization values, leadership, choice of programs and audience, finances, hiring and staff and volunteer deployment, what not to do.

When do I remove a staff member who isn’t able to do the job that needs doing? Most directors consider political fallout, institutional intelligence, personal situations, structural solutions, and legal ramifications before they let someone go. They would probably say they take too long to pull the trigger. If prudent, they understand the legal situation, discuss the release with key board and staff members once they come to the decision. If they are good at their job, they make a careful plan, and they execute exactly.

What is the best way to be evaluated by the board? Ideally, the process is negotiated when the contract is inked. The director is evaluated against a newly created strategic plan or a mutually agreed upon set of goals. It’s also fantastic if the board will agree to evaluate their own work when they evaluate the director. Usually, we don’t live in an ideal world and I’ve witnessed the most ham-handed, unhelpful evaluations imaginable, apparently designed to annoy, obfuscate, and confuse without meaning to. Awful.

Should I have an employment contract? The only downside to a contract is that the board must take positive action when the time comes. When developing a contract, I review the AAMD’s Model Museum Director’s Employment Contract http://www.aamd.org/order. I recommend taking control of this process -- everything is negotiable, use it as the first example of how you and your board will work through a process and solve a problem.

How do I maintain a life beyond the museum? Many directors don’t. They create a life in which their museum activities infiltrate virtually every waking hour, gladly. Family and friends, intellectual pursuits, travel, and hobbies form the tapestry of life, connected to the museum, one way of another. On the other hand, I’ve helped to create several sabbaticals, strongly recommend a “do not do” list and John Durel's article on the subject http://tinyurl.com/44fx982, I do know the rare director who works to live, not the other way around.

The field of positive psychology provides a set of criteria leading to happiness: meaningful work, mastery over the work, working with others you admire and respect, and working on something larger than yourself. Since mission-related museum work aligns with these criteria, it is perfect understandable that many find happiness fully engaged as museum directors

How big should the board be? The flip answer: as big as necessary to get the job done. Put another way, twelve to seventeen if you are not raising money. No bigger than 17 until each person is well orientated, clear about individual goals and action plans and well supported, proud of the collective success and of their individual giving.

What is the work of the board now? Advocacy for the museum’s mission, fund raising based on a clear plan established in conjunction with the staff, governance including policy-making and board succession, and providing civic reach. http://tinyurl.com/47vakws

What is my responsibility for the board’s success? In a nonprofit, the CEO has less authority than a for profit CEO, but he or she has the same responsibility, in the end. Everything is your fault. A great board is not an accident, it is a victory. It takes work, attention, luck, skill and a participatory mindset.

Best Nonprofits to Work For in US

2011-04-01T16:13:00.007-04:00

Members of the NHA staff dressed for the parade of the Daffodil Festival,

an annual springtime event on Nantucket.

The Nantucket Historical Association is the first museum to appear on the list of the top 50 nonprofit organizations to work for in the US.
For several years we have encouraged the museum leaders we work with to have their museum become the first on this prestigious list. Being known as a great place to work helps to attract talent. It's also a boost to the museum's reputation, a key driver of financial sustainability.

We point to Wegmans Supermarkets as the prime example in the for-profit world. Wegmans is one of the most successful supermarket chains in the country, in an industry not known for treating employees well. It is regularly ranked among the top 10 businesses to work for in the US. Its success is built on loyal customers, strong relationships with suppliers, and philanthropic community involvement. However, at the core of its success is a friendly and knowledgeable workforce. Wegmans has a saying: "we take care of our people, so that they can take care of our customers."

"The Fifty Best Nonprofits to Work For" is a program of the NonProfit Times. This year the Nantucket Historical Association is ranked #8 among small nonprofits, and #13 overall. Congratulations to Bill Tramposch and the Board of Trustees for creating one of the best places to work in America for a talented staff.

Legal Issues of Museum Administration

2011-03-24T21:49:00.007-04:00

The good folks at ALI-ABA awarded a scholarship to attend Legal Issues in Museum Administration, three days on the ethics, policy, and legal issues facing museum registrars, CEOs, boards, and legal counsels. Of course, lawyers expect the rich intellectual rigor of this presentation style and supporting material, but I am in awe.

It is old school, yeah, but when you get Lawrence Berger, PMA, and Frederick Strober, Saul Ewing, LLP engaging in legal theater over Joint Ownership Agreements of Collections, mesmerizing. Not kidding. Another long tradition are the case studies created by one brilliant lawyer and then dissected by a couple of others -- sometimes funny, sometimes surprising, always real.

There are legislation and litigation updates, presentations on the questions presented to the courts and to the practitioners over the year. One federal registrar was told this year by her overly cautious and misinformed supervisor that she would no longer be allowed to electronically record artists birth date or phone number because of new privacy laws! Now there another one for annals!

The time includes serious consideration about endowment management, healthy tensions between board and management, negotiating artists rights, conflict of interest and other governance policies, special collections, managing problem gifts, and gift acceptance policies.

While at the conference, my twitter feed delivered Historically Hardcore, the latest Smithsonian copyright infringement. The SI lawyers had already sent the cease demands but the funny ad campaign by a student had already gone viral. Check it out.

The image above is of the Kogod Courtyard at the Smithsonian Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery where a conference reception was held. Second night were were at the Phillips Collection. Both spectacular receptions.

The Dragonfly Effect: Driving Social Change

2011-03-18T22:41:00.011-04:00

The Dragonfly Effect, said by many the best book on social media for the nonprofit sector in 2010, is that. And you should read it.

But I’m writing here about the dragonfly as a conceptual model for museum organizations that have many independent and connected facets, like the dragonfly’s wings. The wings beat at high rates of speed, in different directions, attached to the body which can fly safely in any direction, carrying the wings along effortlessly. Or is it the other way around?

Library, archive, museum collections, historic house, farm, animal husbandry, archaeology, school and life-long learning programs, all have and require staff expertise, board supporters, and loyal audiences. If any of the components get out of balance, beat too fast, the body may find itself in a tail spin, lopsided, unable to maintain flight. That beautiful, fast dragonfly is also fragile and difficult to control.

To see an astounding TED talk on the resiliance of the dragonfly by Charles Anderson, click here.

Civic Reach and the Nonprofit Board

2011-03-14T19:08:00.008-04:00

Each issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) brings insight and at least one useful idea. Paul Vendeventer, President of Community Partners, discusses civic reach as a fundamental nonprofit board criteria, along with fundraising and governance skill. Civic reach brings the ability to provide a seat for the weakest among us in the most powerful places, as Vendeventer says: civic reach provides the commercial sector’s profit-driven muscle and the public-driven power to mandate by law and levy taxes. Civic reach consists of three components -- prestige both personal and professional, knowledge of the landscape in which work needs to be accomplished, and strategic relationships that can be delivered on behalf of mission-based work. Prestige. Knowledge. Connect-ability.

Vendeventer opines that people with civic reach exhibit other qualities, as well: shrewd environmental sensing; the ability to advance and defend a nonprofit mission; the ability to reach a broader public by conferring indisputable authenticity and legitimacy; and providing inside access to power. Inside access to power presupposes that the board member can install people at the necessary tables where the deals are done.

So, the three legs to the 21st Century stool of nonprofit sustainability and really great boards: good governance, a culture of philanthropy, and highly attenuated civic reach.

No Photography Please! Changing Museum Policy

2011-03-05T12:11:00.005-05:00

At the 2010 AASLH conference in Oklahoma City I made a point of visiting the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. The Memorial embodies the "power of place." The exhibition stresses the terrifying life changes that took place in the instant that the horrific bombing occurred on April 19, 1995. Segments of the ruins are on display as well as reproductions. These are not fragile objects but sturdy reminders of the explosion and the community's response. Yet photographs were not permitted in any part of the exhibition space.

It's a given that taking pictures of the people affected and impacted by the bombing would be insensitive, but memorials exist to help us all to remember. If there is no danger of damaging objects, couldn't we expect that those who take photographs would later share their photos, their emotions, and their experience with others? And isn't the act of sharing the experience another way to tell the story and extend the impact of the visit?

The second stage of my trip included a visit to Springfield, Illinois, to explore the place where Abraham Lincoln lived, worked, and with Mary raised his children. I was excited to see the lauded new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. The crowds were large and well controlled, visitor flow was well conceived, and there was an air of a festival with bus groups, families, and senior citizens throughout--mechanically it worked. Exhibits were polished. There were plenty of reproductions and contrived scenes like a log cabin and an unexpected entire room for the funeral bier.

I watched families try to engage their children, amid horseplay and childhood teasing and realized the kids were bored. The high tech stuff captured their attention in spurts, but not in depth. Unfortunately, I was ready to be impressed but was not.

And no photos were allowed here either.

Across the street from the Museum is the State House where Lincoln served in the state legislature. Nearby is his law office. These were the spaces that Lincoln strode and where he shaped the ideas and ideals that he would carry with him to the Presidency. And then there was our last stop--a visit to Lincoln's home.

A Park Service Ranger welcomed each arriving visitor on our tour. He was especially attentive to a little girl intent on completing her junior ranger worksheet. He guided us through the streets and, as we stepped into the house, he set the tone by conveying his own sense of awe and gratitude to work in such a place. Being in Lincoln's house, holding the handrail Lincoln held every day was something special for him every day. When the little girl asked if she could take a picture, the ranger responded. "Yes, absolutely yes."

He took my breath away when he continued, "We want you to take lots of pictures and look at them often. We hope you will remember everything about being in Mr. Lincoln's house and your visit to his home in Springfield."
The juxtaposition of these experiences got me thinking. Our museums and historic sites hold 501(c)3 IRS designations as nonprofits. In exchange they are expected to provide something of value--something that the public needs and wants. We honor that public trust when we serve up relevance and make the visitor experience memorable.

So, why no photographs? Why not allow people to build on their memories?

There are some good reasons. Object conservation first, then there are issues of intellectual property, donor and lender restrictions and agreements, copyrights, revenue, and reproduction rights. And we've all been in galleries or historic properties where a flashing camera can catapult us back to the present of the 21st century. It's a disturbing interruption to an experience that is meant to transport us to another time and place.

This topic of photography has become part of the debate on the visitor experience, relevance, and accessibility in museums. Some museums are leading the way and now permit photographs including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Arts & Design, and the Rubin Museum of Art, and a growing number of other organizations. So, there is movement on this front. (For more on the debate about allowing photography in museums, read David Rau's HRC post "To Click or Not to Click: How do YOU Answer this Question?") or go to the Seattle Art Museum's post on the subject.

It is time for history museum boards and staff to rethink their policies and consider the best ways to engage visitors as well as to protect their collections. That would be a start.

Museum Advocacy Day 2011

2011-02-26T19:50:00.003-05:00

Starting tonight hundreds of museum supporters -- staff, volunteers, donors, and board members -- will descend on Capitol Hill and participate in one of the most empowering rights of American citizenship -- the right to address our elected officials. Some will be surprised and disappointed to learn that they will be speaking to a staffer, not the representative. Truly, the staffers do understand the issues and do stand in well for the pols. Others will be awed by the sheer majesty of the government buildings on the Hill, particularly of course the nations Capitol and the grand pile of the Library of Congress. This year, I suspect the Dems will be so happy to see us as they are battered, and the Republicans will think they don't need to see us at all, or if they do, they won't be very polite. Keep your advocacy fresh atspeakupformuseums.org

Cleveland Jewish Heritage, Maltz Museum

2011-02-19T15:33:00.006-05:00

The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage is a wonderful example of a purpose built museum in Beachwood near Cleveland, OH, opened in 2005. One section tells the history of Jewish life and settlement in the region. Most of the objects and scholarship come from nearby Western Reserve Historical Society in this section. Another section exhibits the magnificent collections from The Temple Tifereth Israel, an internationally acclaimed collection of Judaica. A third large gallery accommodates traveling exhibitions. The museum is devoted to tolerance and understanding by sharing Jewish heritage through the lens of the American experience. This it does. www.maltzmuseum.org

2011-02-06T19:44:00.008-05:00

Traveling to Cleveland frequently has allowed me to watch the slow-walking, magnificently staged re-opening of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The $350 million dollar renovation, the relayed marathon of three previous museum directors now handed to recently appointed David Franklin can not be underestimated. A complete campus re-imagination has been led by architect Rafael Vinoly.

And CMA is free, as its original facade shouts. FR EE

This juxtaposition symbolizes the museums’ adaptability -- the most important word in a recession, 16’ high bracketing its imposing 1916 neoclassical facade.

Galleries first reopened in 2008 were a distance from the entry. Visitors were required to traverse half the museum’s basement level, which could have been a real downer. Instead, museum meisters lined the doors and walkways with information and

life-size images of what was behind. The unheralded workers of the museum see their work celebrated --conservation, education, registrar -- and visitors learn about the work. Brilliant and an exampleof the museum’s transparency.

What I really love about CMA is the object labels. They are long! The curators respect their audience and provide complex information about artists, sitters, technique, medium, place, provenance, and much more. People in Cleveland read.

Vinoly’s Design will unite the old and new buildings under a high flying roof that will undoubtedly become Cleveland’s 21st Century meeting magnet. Every time I look, I see more!

Rafael Vinoly

Situational Leadership

2011-02-02T17:11:00.006-05:00

I'm posting today for my colleague, John Durel.

If you, as the chief executive of a nonprofit organization, are not spending at least 75% of your time on external affairs, you are impeding your organization’s success. If your focus is primarily on internal capacity and operations – managing people, managing money, working on systems and procedures – then you are failing to perform a role that only the executive director can play.

Nonprofit executives must be out in the community meeting with civic and business leaders, learning about civic issues and concerns, looking for opportunities, advocating for the organization, cultivating relationships, and raising money. It is only by being out there that the leader can see her organization as others perceive it. Being aware of their concerns and ambitions will sensitize you to opportunities and challenges on the horizon. Being known, liked and respected by others will open doors.

In addition to being out and about, you must bring outside leaders in. Invite them to lunch and to see your operation. The purpose is to inform and educate them about the work of your organization, to get their thoughts and advice, to nurture relationships, and ultimately to invite them to participate financially in the important work you are doing.

Each organization will define its community based on its constituents. Whom do you serve? Who else serves this population? Who can support you? Who has knowledge or power to help you? Who sets the civic agenda? You must have a system for identifying the people most important for you to get to know and a strategy for engaging them.

Letting Go of Internal Matters

Some executives fail to spend enough time on external activities because they are more comfortable working on the inside. They choose to attend to internal matters and put off external meetings. If you are more comfortable sitting around a table with your staff than having lunch with a local business leader, then you must find a way to gain the skills and confidence to do the latter. The more you put it off, the more you hurt your organization. (See the management briefing “Your Public Presence” for more on this.)

Some executives are concerned that if they are not around, things will not be done properly. They don’t trust their staff to do the right things in the right way, especially if something unexpected occurs. If you feel this way, this is a failure of leadership on your part. It is your responsibility to develop staff leaders who are able to make good decisions in the best interest of the organization.

Developing Staff Leaders

You can use the following “Situational Leadership Model” to develop the leaders on your staff. Your goal is to improve their competence so that you can delegate important decisions to them. The model is adapted from Ken Blanchard, Leading at a Higher Level (2006)

In order to develop leaders you must adapt your own leadership style to their needs.

Be Happy!

2011-01-26T22:31:00.007-05:00

Every executive roundtable meeting develops its own theme. As snow threatened the Capitol on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, the new Qm² museum directors roundtable emerged with a surprising theme: be happy! Despite serious issues discussed, everyone walked away wearing the cloak of leadership a little more lightly. As always, the directors set the agenda. Topics included:

Rewarding staff without money
Web 2.0
Moving toward a 501c3
H2 revise board appointment process
Transition from old to new leadership
Launching a new board
Organizational Life Cycle
Tension between bureaucracy and entrepreneurship
How to show/demonstrate organizational benefit to your community
HR Evaluation process
H2 deal with rogue board member
Getting ready for a new boss
Transition from old to new leadership
How to keep your head in two games, fully engaging in your current job while keeping an eye open toward what is next.

Geographic Bliss

2011-01-22T11:40:00.004-05:00

Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss engages with the most positive of insights (how could a book on bliss be otherwise?). We're not talking the left-coast, follow-your-sort-of bliss. Rather, Weiner is a soft-core NPR corespondent counting the happiness index from the Neatherland to Bhutan, to Qatar, to Moldova, to Iceland and many other points latitude and longitude. He recounts the history of positive psychology and proceeds to quantify differences the globe over.

Yet another measure of diversity: in Switzerland, happiness is boredom; Bhutan, it is policy; failure is a big part of happiness in Iceland. Where we live? The USA? Weiner doesn't give us good guidance when it comes to our home country and this is wise. We wouldn't believe him anyway.

Layered Links to Museum Exhibits

2011-01-16T12:07:00.013-05:00

Reading Patti Smith's Just Kids I am reminded of the tiny slice I know about my icons or probably anything. Yes, she is the Mother of Punk Rock, but who knew she was Robert Mapplethorpe's lover, muse, lifelong friend and creative consort? Just Kids won the National Book Awards for nonfiction. In it, she recounts the story of two fragile souls who cling to one another as they wonder who they will become, encouraging it to happen, pledging each other support. Who knew Patti Smith as poet with a narrative mastery of grace and power, sweetness and calm?

Patti Smith by Robert Mapplethorpe, 1975

By chance this week, I discovered that Felix Angel, an admired arts administrator and colleague from the Inter-American Development Bank is also one of Columbia's renowned creative exports.

Joanne McNeil's blog post of 12/31/2010 Tomorrow Museum provides a lively history of blogging and predicts that in 2011 posts will be longer than three-ish paragraphs recommended by current Internet gurus, if one has something fresh to say.

This leads me to reflect on the long form of museum exhibitions and recommend one in DC now: Human Origins at the Smithsonian Institutions' National Museum of Natural History. The exhibit attempts to ask the questions: What does it mean to be human? On the rich website, you will see what a big institution like NMNH can do for a wide public. The site provides curriculum for school teacher and home-schoolers and teacher network projects. There is an interactive floor plan, information about related research projects, maps, images of fossil collections and information about them. The curators have held back nothing.

At the museum, look past the bio-mass of living humans milling through the giant hall, and focus on the many aspects of the exhibit. The difficulty of creating worthy exhibition products of this scale cannon be over-estimated, but NMNH has achieved success in every important way: design, content, visitor attention and people flow, novelty, beauty. This is art and science, mystery and light, 21century technology coupled to stories of millennials past.

Time is needed to absorb what the curators, designers, educators, and scientists have provided. Several visits. Time at the site (on-line or in-house), the same kind of time we need to find about about the layers of our icons and our colleagues. Luscious.

John Gurche's reconstructions of early humans on display in the Hall of Human Origins, National Museum of Natural History

Place and Space

2009-12-02T14:17:00.002-05:00

I've been musing about the differences between history and art - two subjects I love dearly. Years ago I wrote an article entitled "History: A Thing to Study, A Place to Go," in which I addressed the differences between history taught in the academy and history presented at a historic site. For me, history as a place has always been paramount. When you learn about history at a particular place, when you are in the place where something happened, the experience is physical and emotional as well as cognitive. It's a richer experience. I have had many times when I actually felt like I could touch the past.

My experiences with art are different. It's not about the place, it's about the space. Recently I was in the new modern wing of the Chicago Art Institute. The gallery spaces, and the vistas across space into other galleries, heightened my senses. Viewing the art, and watching other visitors viewing the art, was a layered physical and emotional experience.

So, I'm wondering about place and space and how they affect me. I'd welcome thoughts on this.

Smiling with Brian Peterson

2009-07-26T16:43:00.003-04:00

Review: The Smile at the Heart of Things...Essays and Live Stories
Brian Peterson

Despondent on a summer afternoon. In a day, I devoured Brian Peterson’s lovely memoir on art and artists, life, love and marriage, work, museums, human strength, habits-of-mind, diminishment and death. Now nothing in the house is worth reading or watching or even doing, so ardent and tender and enduring are his stories.

This is the story of an artist – first a musician and composer, then photographer – taking on the cape of a museum curator and reconciling the positions over decades. If you work in an art museum, you understand very well why art historians, not artists, run them, and you know that Peterson faced a Herculean internal struggle.

Of course he had me at the first chapter Thirty-five Steps. This is the climb to his office in the James A. Michener Museum, www.michenerartmuseum.org, a climb my DNA knows. His office is in the room where I grew up, as oldest daughter of the old jail’s last warden. The Michener Museum, its art and the many people who have made the stunning regional Bucks County museum, began life in a dank 1880s Richardsonian-type jail with 30’ high walls and locked down visitation. In two pages Peterson describes the Sisyphusian work of the curator, virtually guaranteed required reading for all aspirants to this lofty position.

Peterson apportions his thinking in five headings: Nourishment, Honesty, Beauty, Depth, and Hunger.

Under Honesty, Peterson brings us the title story The Smile at the Heart of Things: Emmit Gowin’s Spiritual Journey. It a story full of danger and love. Peterson shows us – really makes us see -- the gift of a photograph of Gowin’s wife and child, or any work of art that moves us. It’s personal. First person. Subjective. He says:

Despite the fragmented nature of our lives; despite the reality of evil, violence, and death; despite the trials and horrors that life can heap upon our plates; despite all these things, Gowin’s photographs tell me that spiritual and emotional health is not only possible, it may be as natural as breathing. [1]

In Depth, he brings us below the surface of the earth, mind and body of boy and man. We come to know his life-long relationship with his geologist father and the tender family moments at the end of life for his father-in-law. His boyhood friends appear and teach and so do his grandchildren. He brings us into his at-first unequal and then not, friendship with George Rochberg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Rochberg .

Hunger, real hunger, is always fruitful.

He helps us understand the virtues of hunger in its many forms. Leaving us with:

Nothing good happens unless you’re hungry[2]

His final reflections are on the museum exhibition, the major production in any museum, which is a ritualized form of nourishment in which an organized group of paintings, sculptures, photographs, etc….a body of work, is offered to the public in the hope that its aroma will be so tempting that it simply museum be tried. A way of feeding our hunger.

One of the museum’s patrons anonymously provided the funds to allow Peterson to write this book. This is the fruit of sophisticated philanthropy. Rare. Graceful. And with a work of lasting effect.

I’ve decided now that I’ve written this. I’m going to start at the beginning and read The Smile at the Heart of Things a second time.
[1] p. 127
[2] pp. 232, 233.

Embarassing Social Messages

2009-05-12T13:17:00.004-04:00

This post reports on unintendedly embarrassing social messages, illuminated by Kay Ryan, Poet Laureate, and Virginia Heffernan, NYTimes, The Medium Commentator.

I realized this week that my social network sent notice of my birthday to distant acquaintances, casual friends, clients, and business colleagues. Mortifying.

A reading by the Poet Laureate Kay Ryan on Tuesday provided solace.

Connections

Connections lie in wait--
something that in
the ordinary line of offenses
makes offense more great.
They entrap, they solicit
under false pretenses,
they premeditate.
They tie one of
your shoelaces
to one of a stranger,
they tie strings to purses
and snatch as
you lean down, eager

for a little something gratis.

And last month, Virginia Heffernan’s piece in the NYTimes took a new, for me, slant on the whole idea of being connected, an excerpt below

Only the poor — defined broadly as those without better options — are obsessed with their connections. Anyone with a strong soul or a fat wallet turns his ringer off for good and cultivates private gardens that keep the hectic Web far away. The man of leisure, Sterling suggested, savors solitude, or intimacy with friends, presumably surrounded by books and film and paintings and wine and vinyl — original things that stay where they are and cannot be copied and corrupted and shot around the globe with a few clicks of a keyboard.

Let Them Eat Tweets: NYTimes Magazine,
Virginia Heffernan, Sunday, 04/19/2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/magazine/19wwln-medium-t.html?_r=1

And I learned that May 22, 2009 – the date in question -- is the release date for the movie Night at the Museum II: Battle at the Smithsonian. The first in this series was so, so bad in every way. However, I was thinking that we could all take ourselves out for some pre-summer-silly/stupid in honor of my birthday and our love of museums. And in praise of museum guards, who never get the props they deserve. http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi2131100441/

Please don't send an cyper-card to celebrate my milestone, but if you want to share ways to disconnect or to control your cyber life (I am not doing email in the morning), feel free to post them here.

WW II Lookout Tower

2009-04-07T20:07:00.009-04:00

Today, with brisk wind and billowing clouds threatening rain, Will Lowe and I join Michael Zuckerman http://www.capemanmac.org/ for a tour of the brilliantly restored and just opened World War II Lookout Tower. This stark and beautiful six story concrete structure – the last of it’s kind in New Jersey, introduced by simple, effective didactics, evokes the fear and courage of the Greatest Generation and tells the story of a now all but forgotten chapter of America’s early involvement in WWII. Towers such as these and massive bunkers hidden throughout the Jersey coastline protected strategic industrial centers – such as the Philadelphia Shipyards -- along the Delaware River and bay.

The project has been supported by a strong partnership:
http://www.capemaymac.org/uploadedFiles/Media_-_News/fire_control_tower_press_release_2007.pdf

Everyone associated with the project should, in my opinion, take enormous pride this accomplishment.

Being strategic in volatile times

2009-03-12T22:30:00.002-04:00

One of the responsibilities of leaders and managers is to pay attention to the strategic challenges and opportunities facing their organizations. This is a difficult enough task in normal times; it becomes particularly challenging in the volatile times in which we find ourselves today. There is so much noise being generated by people trying to make sense of emerging developments that it can become almost impossible to see the forest from the trees.

So how is a manager to attend to this responsibility? One way is to engage in the continual practice of strategic thinking and action. This involves the process of scanning the horizon, identifying and making sense of emerging opportunities and challenges, and considering what appropriate responses the organization might make to what is going.

In working recently with a client on their strategic agenda, I was helped by the way that John Bryson frames Strategic Issues. He defines these as “… a fundamental policy question or challenge affecting an organization’s mandates, mission, and values; product or service level and mix; clients, users, or payers; or costs, financing, structure, or management.” (Bryson Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations p.30)

What is helpful in this definition is that strategic issues are only relevant to the extent that they impact on core aspects of the organization's purpose, life, and work. By using the lens of Strategic Issues, you can focus on what is truly important to the organization. With the attention focused on issues rather than solutions, you can open up your options for what you might do. Of course, there is a tension created when you are facing issues and don't have a clear resolution in sight, but Bryson believes that this tension is actually useful as it prompts organizational members to engage in discussion and debate that can lead to organizational change.

You are freed up from being concerned about situations where there is nothing that you can do, and you can direct your energy to the things that you can influence. Strategic thinking should have an action orientation, and so you help the organization focus on what it can do to address strategic issues it faces.

While there is an obvious strategic issue facing most organizations in the current economic and financial crisis, it is important that we not allow ourselves to be diverted from consideration of other, equally consequential, issues that may affect the mission and operations of our organizations. One tool I have found helpful over the years is the STEEPLE framework – its usefulness lies in its wide vision of analysis, and a reminder to consider each one of its component parts.

Some starting questions to explore:

* Social:
Organizational and social issues, including competition/cooperation, capacity, management commitment, beneficiary engagement, conflicts, etc.
* Technology:
Cost, availability, supply-times, replacement periods, maintenance, electricity, software, infrastructure, training, support, etc.
* Economic:
Economic and Financial status and trends; inflation, cash flow management, financial management systems, procurement, etc.
* Environmental:
Weather patterns and fluctuations, seasonal changes, natural disasters, etc.
* Political:
Elections, parliamentary processes, policy and legislative processes, cabinet changes, etc.
* Legal:
Legislative and Governance environment, development of new laws, enforcement of laws, illegal/corrupt practices, penalties, etc.
* Ethical:
Ethical behavior of stakeholders (including staff, suppliers, beneficiaries); adhering to ethical standards of behavior, etc.

Using this tool to consider and assess the likelihood of a variety of factors, you can then apply the Strategic Issues lens to focus on just those key issues that have the potential to impact on the purpose, products and services, stakeholders, and economic base of the organization.

Our website contains a number of tools and other resources to help you deepen your capacity for strategic thinking and action

Inspired to Make Trouble

2009-02-24T11:24:00.005-05:00

Inspired To Get In Trouble

John Lewis http://johnlewis.house.gov inspired over 300 advocates this morning, prior to visiting their representatives in the U.S. Congress in the first Museum Advocacy Day. Yesterday, we were schooled in the fine art of advocacy by Washington’s best, led by AAM’s own Gail Ravnitzky Silberglied.

The clear message, laid out on AAM’s website http://www.speakupformuseums.org is increased funds for and reauthorization of IMLS, museums as educators and economic engines. Delegates were also encouraged to ask their senators why they voted the way they did on the Coburn amendment to the federal stimulus package.

This amendment, which excluded museums from competing for stimulus funds, passed the senate 72 to 23, stunning the museum community and raising a nationwide response. The amendment changed in conference but aquarium and zoos are still prohibited from competing for these funds.

John Lewis’ penetrating gaze and inspiring words reminded us that 535 people come daily to the U.S. Capitol to create a more perfect union and to strive toward democratic ideals. We in museums, he insisted, have an obligation, a mission and a mandate, to make our work enlightening, to uplift, and to get in the way of injustice for the nation’s citizens and for generations to come.

For my part, I'm hangin' with the Pennsylvania delegation (my home state) and with folks from the District. Today is a banner day for us in DC as the Senate votes on giving the citizens of the District of Columbia an actual vote in the House of Representatives. Washingtion is almost too exciting these days!

AAM deserves a big helping of thanks for their work to make this happen for us today. My dream is that someday we'll need to rent the convention center for our advocacy training. Can you imagine what we could do if we had 4000 adament museum people, many of them board members, on the Hill, speaking on behalf of the cultural infrastructure in this country?

Generation O, 13ers, and the Convergence of Museum Talent

2009-01-04T13:01:00.006-05:00

Who imagined when we launched the Convergence of Museum Talent www.qm2museums.org/convergence in 2006 to illuminate the rising leadership transition that a 13er would become the president elect? Born in 1961, Mr. Obama is known to the demographers as a cusper: an individual who bridges generations. Not only has he shown us a new way to look at race in this county, he has brought us together into a new demographic: Generation O. As Heather Havrilesky said last month on Salon, A leader has emerged allowing Gen Xers to finally understand the Boomers’ earnest, self-important prattle http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/11/07/havrilesky/print.html

Mr. Obama’s election requires us to begin a search for another way of being. As his email to supporters said on the evening of his election victory …this all happened because of you…we made history…stand by… In the ensuing weeks we’ve seen that the Presidential Transition Team has rapidly positioned itself to engage many of us in the process, keeping expectations real. It’s not going to be easy but we will prevail is the message.

The 13ers/Gen Xers are taking over now, as they should. Specifically, in the museum world, the Emerging Museum Professionals group has been institutionalized at AAM, as we hoped http://www.aam-us.org/getinvolved/emp/index.cfm

As for the “official” Convergence 13ers, Paul Orselli has become the program chair of MAAM’s Creating Exhibitions, Kim Fortney is now MAAM’s President, Amy Lewis Hofland produced Texas Collects Asia - a very big deal! Sean Ferns’ exhibitions on drug use in America traveled widely, while Wayne LeBar and his colleagues reopened the Liberty Science Center to international acclaim – these are just a few successes from the Convergence group.

We all need to again thank Dan McCollister and the good folks at the McCollisters Transportation Group. Their financial support allowed us to profile at the AAM meeting in 2006 and support Jessie Newburn to build our website www.qm2museums.org/convergence and provide strategic thinking throughout the project. Greg Stevens provided public relations throughout and George Jacobs gave us space in Museum Design which was a great bonus, too. We had sessions at AAM, MAAM, and VAM, and a plenary at the Pennsylvania Federation so thanks to all those association leaders for seeing the value in the topic.

Just What is a 13er?

“13er” is the term coined by William Strauss and Neil Howe in Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069, to describe the generation of Americans born between 1961 and 1981. This generation is the thirteenth generation since the founding of our country.

Nonprofit Lessons from the Campaigns

2008-10-22T23:43:00.004-04:00

Nonprofits are in a good position to learn from the outreach and fundraising experiments set in motion in this campaign. Regardless of your political leanings, you have to give credit to one particular campaign for developing innovative approaches to raising money and building relationships. In a recent meeting of the Qm2 development directors’ roundtable there was considerable interest in some emerging methods for on-line fundraising and donor engagement.

On-line fundraising may sound one-sided and impersonal, but the Obama campaign has used strategies employed at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) and earlier in Hillary Clinton’s campaign to connect to voters in ways that are personal and that could prove long-lasting. One of the simplest innovations is the use of a comment box for on-line contributions.

Penn has used the effectively in the form of a pop-up box that surfaces as soon as an on-line gift is made. It asks the donor why they made the gift. Higher education is one segment of the social sector that knows the importance of discovering a donor’s intentions and interests. The very act of presenting this option sends the message that there is an interest in what the donor thinks and feels. Nonprofits can then link donor comments their giving history. They can use these insights to focus on shared values and turn that into targeted special interest appeals and messages.

For museums of all sizes, understanding donor motivation and what philanthropists at all levels admire about an institution is invaluable. The information can be turned into donor-focused snapshots or full length articles for publication in newsletters, magazines, as well as background material for future solicitations. The compelling stories of why donors make gifts is also useful in motivating staff and trustees. It helps the orgnaization grasp all of the way your mission driven work is perceived.

Another instrument used by the Obama campaign is the instant matching gift. Make an on-line contribution and you will be notified in short order that your gift has been matched by a named individual—not a nameless company or special interest group, but an individual donor just like you. Donors are then invited to do the same--match someone else’s contribution. When they sign on to become a matching donor, they feel good that their gift has been matched, and then they are offered the opportunity to do the same for another donor. A cycle of giving is initiated that seems to be part of a disciplined approach to fundraising that is groundbreaking. And this all happens within minutes. The technique builds momentum.
The campaign website also offers a variety of opportunities to get involved –some without leaving your home. You can participate in a phone bank from your own home by simply, download a list, using the on-line instructions and wedging in calls when it is convenient for you.

The use of You-Tube by the general public to create independent testimonials for the candidate is another vehicle for communicating all the things that the candidate wants people to know without the expense or hype of campaign advertisements. Testimonials from your board chair and your CEO may not strike someone as objective, but there may be other volunteers and amateur videographers who would consider featuring your museum on You-Tube. This is another way of getting messages across and conveying value.

Along with these high tech approaches are the bloggers that are hard at work for their candidates…and reaching countless citizens of all ages. These are just some of the fundraising gems from this campaign season. They have been effective in expanding visibility and making connections that matter, and they could be useful to museums and other nonprofits. Qm2 would like to hear from you about your innovative approaches to the fundraising process.

What's on your mind these days?

2008-09-19T16:02:00.003-04:00

I’ve been doing a lot of listening lately.

In August I interviewed community bankers in places like Lancaster and Hershey, PA. They spoke with passion about customer service, enduring relationships, and opportunity. Values before profits.

I spent much of last week’s AASLH meeting in Rochester, NY, asking museum colleagues about their challenges and frustrations. And I got an earful. Which is what I had hoped for after agreeing to share a booth with Dale Jones, a Qm2 colleague whose work involves helping museums and sites make connections with their visitors.

Here’s a sampling of what I heard from the directors, educators, board members, interpreters, site managers, and CEOs who stopped by our booth:

My biggest challenge is...

Trying to get a dysfunctional board to develop a plan
A CEO who just doesn’t get it
Engaging the board, especially in fundraising
An inherited staff
Dealing with the “founder’s syndrome”
Getting return visitation from local, non-members
A community that doesn’t know what a treasure they have in their own backyard
Money

I wake up in a cold sweat at night...

Afraid that the project I’ve been trying to get going just won’t happen
Wondering how I can overcome the attitude “We’ve never done it that way.”
Thinking about my dysfunctional board—micromanagers who lack commitment
Worried about our poor/non-existent marketing and promotion
Feeling anguish over the closing of historic sites in the future
Because we’re undercapitalized

So, what’s keeping you up at night these days? And, more importantly, what are doing about it?

Qm2 at AASLH in Rochester

2008-09-09T08:08:00.004-04:00

Qm2 is in Rochester Sept 9 to 12 for the annual meeting of the American Association of State and Local History. This is where people who work in museums, archives, historical societies and historic properties gather to learn and share.

The theme this year is TRANSFORMATION. Our industry has been experiencing a fundamental transformation from internal to external orientation, from being collections driven to audience driven. This transformation has been playing out in every organization - some adapting more quickly than others - and with every individual - some enthusiastic, some resisting.

The historical profession today is far more open and accessible to diverse audiences than it was 20 years ago, when we first started using focus groups. Now, knowing one's audience is recognized as essential to success. Qm2 associate Dale Jones is a leading expert in gathering and using audience feedback to shape museum programs and exhibits.

Beyond asking the audience what they like or need or want, some organizations have begun to invite audiences in to partner in creating exhibits and programs. Deborah Schwartz, Executive Director of the Brooklyn Historical Society, has been a leader in this. BHS has a community gallery and the staff supports community groups who come in to create their own exhibits. The staff provides expertise, the community brings the story. Deb is in the Roundtable for museum directors that we run in Baltimore, and several other members of that roundtable have also created "community galleries."

Greening Your IT?

2008-08-25T14:43:00.007-04:00

How does all the I.T. equipment and services affect the way your organization operates? You probably couldn't do without a lot of the ways of functioning that computer software and tools have made possible. At the same time, the continual requirement to keep software current, free of viruses and other bugs, and ensuring that your staff have the tools they need to do their work, means that you are also probably wondering how to get a better handle on your I.T. budget.

All the talk in the media and elsewhere about climate change, and the rising cost of power, may also be making you think about the ecological footprint of all this IT equipment in your organization. How much power is used to run all the computers? If you have a server room, how much power is needed to keep the servers at an optimal temperature?

Instead of moving money from program funds to cover IT and utility costs, or developing a new grant request to meet operating costs, why not consider ways to reduce both the economic and ecological impact without sacrificing quality and service standards?

We've just published a new article that brings you a report from a recent seminar that identifies three ways in which you can achieve both of these objectives.

Follow this link to learn more

and then tell us what you think in the comments section below...

Civic Leadership: Employee Volunteer Programs

2008-05-16T06:46:00.004-04:00

Civic Leadership involves not only the museum's executive director, but also the staff.

The following string of comments was generated by members of the REX Museums Roundtable in St. Louis. (if you'd like to know more about REX Museums Roundtables, email me: johndurel@qm2.org)

Hi everybody - I was wondering if you knew of any organizations that have an employee volunteer program. Since I think it's important for Villa Finale to be active in the community (following our donor's lead), and so many of my staff are new to San Antonio, I want to encourage them to volunteer at other organizations around the city. I've been thinking about instituting a program where employees can volunteer for other nonprofits during work hours periodically without having to take leave. I'd be interested to see how other programs are set up - whether it's actually a requirement, how many days or hours per year, what kind of reporting I'd need back from the employee, etc.

Thanks!
Sandra

Sandra Smith Director, Villa Finale
National Trust for Historic Preservation 401 King William, San Antonio, TX 78204

Sandra, I’m considering something similar but haven’t acted upon it yet. We do support select staff in civic organizations and on other boards, but haven’t started a wider volunteer program. I plan to talk with some of the companies around here that have employee programs and get their guidelines to work from. I’d be interested to hear what you come up with and, of course, I’ll share from this end.

Betty

Betty Brewer, President & CEO, Minnetrista

Hi Sandra,
First, what a great idea. Talk about being a community leader. Many corporations consider this a plus when it comes to evaluations, but I do not know of any that have benchmarks or quotas for board engagement or community volunteering. I know Goldman Sachs (NY) has a very good program and Deb Schwartz at the Brooklyn Historical Society could fill you in on their volunteerism at BHS.

Just a couple other thoughts on your inquiry. Think about leadership roles they can play by serving on other boards. You don’t want to set them up for an obligatory board gift they cannot afford, but you do want to put them in the places that you see may have ties to Villa F. along the way or those that will give them and Villa F. visibility and connect them to other potential supporters and advocates for your work.

Have you considered contacting the director of your local leadership program and talk about opportunities not only for your employees to take on leadership in the community but also you can use the same visit to ask “who should be on our board.” As part of identifying people who might be good prospective board members, the Leadership organization is often a good source of involved/engaged people. You can test them out over drinks or lunch and get to know them before you explore a real relationship. Another good source is the community foundation—they work with so many nonprofit organizations and their grants often support education, etc.,--they know those who need a forward thinking person.

Great to see you at AAM
My best,

Anita

Anita Nowery Durel, CFRE, Durel Consulting Partners, an affiliate of Qm2

The Chickasaw Nation had what they called the Employee Incentive Program. If 100% completed you got an extra pay check (2-weeks) once a year but most people would have done it without the pay. An EIP plan was developed with your supervisor each year. The plan had to have at least 3 activities. It was recommended that one of the activities be civic organization or community based, one be educational, and the others could be anything else. People did things like Relay for Life and volunteering to do story time at schools or day cares, basically any kind of volunteer work. The EIP goals were suppose to be activities above and beyond normal job duties but which contributed to or strengthened your personal development and learning. The activities could be done during normal work hours. Percentages were up to the supervisor but some guidelines were provided. For example, an undergraduate college course was 20%. I used that as a standard to set percentages: 32 hours = 20%, 8 hours = 5%.

Sue Linder Linsley, Director, Trinity River Audubon Center

Hi Sandra:

Our community involvement program is informal but strategic. We encourage staff to get involved with organizations that have complementary purposes to the Children’s Museum, the local chapter of the National Association for the Education of Young Children or the Child Advocacy Center, for example, as a way to extend our reach/credibility. Then there are the various professional associations, American Marketing Association, Association for Fundraising Professionals, etc. Also, I am active in the Downtown Lincoln Association (as we are downtown), and our Director of Development and I frequent the various Chamber of Commerce meetings. Each of these activities requires investment of time, which we track for community responsibility reporting, but not for time off/comp time (even though in Nebraska, technically, there is no such thing as comp time…wink, wink) calculations; it is just a part of people’s jobs. This also only applies to salary; it is not extended to hourly staff.

We have discussed taking a day as a team and serving a meal at the soup kitchen, or pounding nails, or what have you, as a team-building exercise but we haven’t gotten around to that…it’s more of a two to three year goal (I’m still working on filling our bus with the right people…walk before run).

Maybe you already know about this, but there is a national organization that tracks local volunteer coordinators www.1-800-volunteer.org. You can use it to find volunteer opportunities, or to list opportunities at your own organization.

Hope this helps,

Darren Macfee
Lincoln Children's Museum

We do not have a formal employee volunteer program either, but now I think it is something I should implement. Our curator and development director are involved in other non-profits and volunteer on our time. I do not think paying them is appropriate as they do it on museum time and reap the benefits of personal developement and friendships. It is a win-win for all.

Sharon Bradham
Executive Director
Cedarhurst Center for the Arts

Museum Leaders must be Civic Leaders

2008-05-02T22:21:00.000-04:00

posted by John Durel

I've just returned from Denver where I presented two sessions on the museum director's role as a civic leader, one for ACM and one for AAM.

Museum leaders must be active participants in the civic conversation of their communities. What are people concerned about, interested in, aspiring to? How can you, as a museum leader, help your community create a compelling vision for its future?

The question is not how can the community help the museum, but rather how can the museum's resources be used to help the community achieve its vision.

Drawing on the experiences of four museum directors who participated on the session panels - Julia Bland from the Louisiana Children's Museums, Amy Lent from the Maine Maritime Museum, Shari Buckelew from the Children's Discover Museum in Normal, Illinois, and David Donath from the Billings Farm & Museum in Woodstock, Vermont - here are some guiding principles:

Create a culture of civic participation in your museum. You, board members, and staff should participate as citizens in community activities and organizations. Become a community leader, not just the head of an organization that is in the community.

Choose a prominent platform that will position your organization for opportunities that arise. Shari, for example, joined the Chamber of Commerce and eventually became president, which put her museum in a position to be the lead tenant in a downtown revitalization project. David served on the state historic preservation commission, which enabled him to take the lead in a statewide program to promote cultural tourism and sustainability.

Choose civic conversations that align with your museum's mission. Look for a win-win situation, where the museum gains as the community gains. Make sure your mission becomes part of the civic conversation and community vision. Julia's vision for New Orleans, following Katrina, focused on the well being of children, which has led to the Children's Museum taking the lead in the creation of an Early Learning Village that will bring together several other organizations.

Use the media to position yourself and your museum as a leader in the community. Amy took the opportunity of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown to write to Time magazine, pointing out that boat building in Maine was just as old, and that boat building remains a major industry in her state. Within a week one of Maine's senators was quoting her letter.

Be politically savvy. As you participate in civic life, become aware of the sources of power and influence, and build relationships accordingly.

Some questions for you:

What are your experiences as a civic leader?
What challenges have you faced?
How do you balance the need to run the museum with the need to be out in the community?
How do you know when to say no to a request to get involved in a community project?
What success have you had?
How has being involved in your community helped your organization?

Share your story! Comment on this blog.