Wednesday, November 12, 2014

You'll Laugh, You'll Cry: Upcoming at NEMA

I'm excited to be a part of two sessions at the next week's New England Museum Association conference in Cambridge, MA.  Kudos to NEMA for attracting their biggest audience ever--evidently a very full house will be on hand with more than 1000 participants.

Rainey Tisdale and I will be talking Objects and Emotions on Thursday.   What would happen if you collected only happy objects?  Thought about emotion in designing exhibits?  Actually asked visitors how different objects make them feel?  We promise a session with lots of interaction--and even a teddy bear or two.   If you haven't already, I highly recommend taking a look at Rainey's recent Tedx Boston talk, Our Year of Mourning, about the exhibit project commemorating the first anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing.  Whether you're coming to the session or not, it will absolutely deepen your understanding of the power of objects and the meaning of work we can do (and you won't want to miss the Friday session where Rainey and colleagues will go into greater detail on that project and the impact empathetic museums can make.)

On Wednesday, Amanda Gustin, Cynthia Robinson and I will be talking the Graduate School Conundrum?  Worth it?  Needs to be different?  Why bother?  Essential?  More than 300 of our colleagues responded to an informal survey for the session.  We'll be sharing those results and facilitating a lively conversation about the issues and what we, as a field, should, might, and can do.

What else is up at NEMA?  Rainey and I will have Creativity in Museum Practice books on hand for sale and even a few creativity tattoos left.  If you haven't got your copy yet and will be at NEMA, be in touch!

I'm also looking forward to squeezing in some other sessions:  on my list are Worst Job Ever:  How to Create a Positive Work Culture on a Limited Budget and Where Everybody Knows Your Name: Museums as Places of Belonging.  But as always, I love meeting new people and catching up with colleagues so I want to make time for that.  If you want to chat over coffee, be in touch here, on Twitter(@lindabnorris), or semaphore.

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