Are You Ready to Learn? How Can We Help?

We in the museum field always talk about lifelong learners, but I'm increasingly interested in the ways that we, as museum professionals, can cement our own lifelong learning status.  My participation as a lecturer at the Baltic Museology School this month provided me with some lessons about my own learning styles (and limitations) and about constructing a space for all kinds of learners.

The Baltic Museology School is 15 years old this year with "the aim to develop and strengthen museological thought in the Baltic States, by linking theory and practice, in order for Baltic museums to become more professional, contemporary and accessible to society."  It brings together 30 participants from Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia for a week of learning, conversation and yes, a bit of beer-drinking in Kaunas, Lithuania. My co-instructor, Jari Harju of the Helsinki City Museum and I took on the topic of opening up museums to new voices.

Participants' Learning
Jari and I, who had never met each other in person before, were both happy to discover that we shared a certain flexibility in how we approached the week.  I'm a huge believer in the concept of plussing, or "Yes, and,"  the process of building upon each other's ideas.  We adapted and shared ideas all along the way. That flexibility, I think, helped the participants' learning--they could see that we don't have all the answers, but we work towards them.

Our goals seemed almost contradictory:  we wanted participants to feel comfortable learning and we wanted to push them outside of that comfort zone.  We began with childhood stories of museum visits (good and bad, with family and with school, adventuresome and boring) as a way of shifting our perspective from museum worker to audience--and to learn a bit more about each other.  The week was jammed full (with a day of ICOM discussion on Wednesday and a broader conference on Friday) along with museum visits and yes, homework.

Anyone who has presented at workshops before has seen at least one person, sitting in the back, with their arms crossed, reluctant to participate.  One of the great joys of this week was that that person never appeared.  The participants, all working in English, dove in enthusiastically to whatever task we set them to.  Sharing your passion with a perfect stranger you've just met?  Sure! Small group work writing a label to bring out an emotion in objects, including mushrooms?  Sure!  Considering community participation in an exhibition on urban gardening and doing actual exhibit design?  Sure!  Making an audio stop to engender emotion?  Sure!  Designing an Arc of Dialogue around the issue of out-migration in the region?  Sure again!  Each day, it felt like they gained confidence in us as presenters, but more importantly, in their own perspectives, skills, and knowledge.  Another great joy?  So much laughter along the way.

On Thursday, we set them to the biggest challenge of the week:  leaving our supportive, protective museum envelope and going out to interview people on the street about museums.  I believe no one had ever done it, but both Jari and I believe that if you want to learn what people want from museums, you have to talk to them--and not in the museum.  Off they went, in tri-national teams to learn from Kaunas' residents.  They learned a lot--that museums are bullshit, said one interviewee;  that you would only go with family;  that museums are perceived to be only places of information; that museums should be open different hours.  Jari made a great point--that talking to visitors shouldn't be left to interns or front-of-house staff--that anyone involved in the museum should spend some time doing this.

Our favorite report from the on-the-street surveys came from the all-Lithuanian group.  Because there was no language barrier, Jari set them a bigger challenge:  to interview young workers.  The street in front of our hotel was fully under construction, so there were plenty of workers to be found.  But would they talk?  To our participants' surprise--they would!  (see above).

At the end of the week, we asked participants to map their journey, using their own hands as the template. Just a few of the responses are below. To see that journey from confusion, up and down through the week, to new-found confidence, was a wonderful thing.  That confidence-building came in some part from Jari and me, but it also came importantly it came from the School's organizers, and to the sense that building capacity in a region is a long-term responsibility that many people share.  The organizers from the three Ministries of Culture gave us as instructors both freedom and structure, using, I'm sure, all the lessons they have learned over 15 years. I'll use the knowledge I gained to continue to reflect on how that capacity-building and life-long learning can work in many different situations.

But my own learning--what about that?  I'll save it for another post.  In the meantime, my thanks and appreciation to everyone at the Baltic Museology School this year!  (plus, Lithuania is beautiful and fascinating.  Go visit).

Thanks to Julija Tolvaišytė‎, Kristine Milere and Monika Oželytė-Žąsytienė‎ for some of the photographs above.

Celebrate Small Success but Aim Big

I had asked one of my 2014 mentees, Megan Wood, Edsel and Eleanor Ford House (above) Associate Vice President of Education & Visitor Experience, to do a wrap-up about success, failure and learning in a new job--as that was the focus of many of our year-long conversations. Here's her thoughts.

2014 was a really big year for me.

We bought a house, we sold a house.
We moved to a new state.
My husband and I left our jobs and took on new jobs.
Every one of our siblings either moved and/or had children in some combination.

In my new job, I decided to tackle a few big projects while hiring new staff, learning my responsibilities, and continuing to staff and program the site. The first project was comprehensive visitor studies that would provide us with data about our visitors’ pre-conceptions, understanding and takeaways. The second was a brand new interpretive plan to serve as a decision making tool for all programming and on site interpretation.

Being new and taking on big projects has its real benefits and drawbacks.

Benefits:

• Coming in with a fresh set of eyes and not being afraid of the outcome.
• As the “new person” your ideas can sometimes seem fresher, even if someone else has already being trying to accomplish the same task.
• There can potentially be more support of the project because there is an expectation that new people will do new things.

Drawbacks:

• Going down a path that has already been trudged and staff are weary.
• Accidentally stepping on toes or feelings.
• It can be hard to navigate project management while also learning the culture of a different institution.
• Trying to advocate for a project while still building trust can take a lot of time.
• Learning a new job is hard enough sometimes!

How’d I do?

• I would say I had 75% success on one project and about 20% success on the other.
• We’re about to get reporting on a visitor studies project. It is not the full scope of the original project, but rightly so, my boss wanted to see results before agreeing to commit more resources.
• We are still in the middle of interpretive planning. It has been an evolving process and that has both grown and shrunk over time. Do I wish I was further along? Yes. Do I think it’s actually possible to have this project almost done sitting here almost a year later? No.

What did I learn?

• I think it is ok to dream big with projects, but I think I can be more realistic in my dreaming in 2015 now that more experienced in managing projects at my new workplace.
• I will celebrate small success more and not beat myself up for what didn’t get done. Chances are, we’re still doing a lot of good.
• Continue to be ambitious and excited about the good work I want to do and bring my colleagues along with that enthusiasm. Roadblocks are not the end of the world, just the end of one path. Maybe there’s a better path to follow.

In closing, I want to thank Linda for her year of mentorship. Big years are good years to have an outside, somewhat disinterested, party to listen and give advice. It was a great help and kept things in perspective.

Why Even Ask the Question if You're Not Listening?

On crime shows like Law and Order, it’s accepted wisdom that a prosecuting attorney should never ask a question of a witness that she or he doesn’t already know the answer to.  But in planning, it’s exactly the opposite.  A few weeks ago, I was asked to participate in a planning focus group, as somewhat of an outside stakeholder,  for a largish organization.  We received materials in advance including a set of four goals.  “Hmm, I thought, I guess they’re farther along in the process than I thought.  They  already have goals in place.”  I go to the meeting, sit in a room with a group of immensely talented people from various arts and humanities disciplines.  We’re introduced to the process by the organization’s outside facilitator who says, in passing, that the organization hasn’t had a strategic plan in almost ten years; but they’re required to by a source of funding support, so now they’re doing it.   I thought, “Hmmm, a bit of a red flag. As a grant reviewer, a statement like this always caused me to look hard at an application.”  The facilitator and the director talk about these focus groups, about an upcoming survey, about delivering a draft, and so on.

The conversation begins, with a note-taker taking notes projected on the screen.  As we near the end of the meeting, we’re asked to react to the four goals.  There’s a silence, and finally I say (they asked for my opinion, right?) that I thought the four goals were old-fashioned, that they sounded like they could have been written ten years ago.   There’s another silence, when I wonder whether I should have spoken up, but then all of sudden the conversation blooms, with questions and lively talk from everyone around the table:   why are goals are already in place at the start of the process?   Do these goals reflect current realities and thinking?  How can the process should be a more open one? 

Great, right?  We were asked for our opinions and perspectives and we delivered them.  I left the meeting thinking that those opinions and perspectives had been recorded, noted (I could seen them projected on the screen)  and perhaps even appreciated.  After all, it was a great, thoughtful group of people in the room.

But, a week or so later, the notes of the meeting were distributed. I’m astonished to see that the entire discussion about the goals has been deleted.  Because we were critical and questioning about the process, it feels like it was taken as a direct challenge to the organization.  Rather than think about the questions we raised, it was easier to just erase them and pretend they didn’t exist.

Every museum evaluator I’ve ever worked with has always reminded me at the beginning of the process of the essential need to embrace the data, to be ready to really listen and be prepared to make change.  That doesn’t mean making every change a focus group suggests;  but to be serious about the process and the learning that occurs.  This organization demonstrated, from start to finish in this part of the process, that these focus groups were just a dog and pony show;  that decisions had already been made.  

Think about your own work.  Are you prepared to listen to the answers, or, like those Law and Order folks, only asking the questions you know the answers to? We’re not district attorneys,  we are, at our best, explorers of arts, of life, of new ideas.  So be prepared to listen.  Otherwise, why even bother to ask the question?

What I Learned on My Trip--and What Community Museums Might Learn Too

It's hard to believe, but since February 25 I've visited 13 European cities, with one more to go this week. I've drunk cappuccino,  espresso, herbal tea, raki,  prosecco,  spritzers, French wine, Italian wine, Spanish wine, Turkish wine, German beer, Czech beer;  I've traveled by plane, train, boat, car, tram, metro, horse and buggy, foot and funicular;  but most of all I've had an amazing time working with Context Travel staff and docents around Europe (and even touched in Asia yesterday afternoon along the Bosphorus).

I definitely didn't write as many blog posts along the way as I had hoped, but I did visit some museums, so some posts to come, but overall the experience has been a way for me to think about what community-based museums do and how we might do it better.   Here's some things I think community museums--from big cities to villages--could do more of.

Get Walking  Context Travel is all about scholar-led walks in great cities.  But their commitment to sustainability and deep knowledge in the service of getting people out into the community is something every museum could embrace.   Why can't museums in small cities and towns offer tours that people sign up for on a regular basis?  Why do we always expect that people are going to come to our museum, rather than getting out in to the community to understand it in a physical way, rather than just visiting our museum? 

Facilitate More Conversations  On this trip I've had the chance to sit with people who grew up in West Berlin and East Berlin to talk about their childhood experiences;  to talk with ex-pats about what made them fall in love with a city and make the leap to live there;  to hear from a young woman running a spice store in Istanbul's spice market about her work (and her graduate training in upstate New York);  to get a tour of the Forum from a Roman whose family arrived there more than 500 years ago;  and to chat with lively Saudi women during a ferry crossing.  All too often in our lives, we stick to the people we know, and museums could--and should--take a leading role in bringing communities together in conversation.  Could you install conversation starters on public transportation or hung from signposts?  Like the Big Read projects, could you design a local history project designed to encourage sharing and conversation?

Go Outside Your Comfort Zone--and Help Others to Do the Same In the same way we tend to stick to the people we know,  we tend to stick the places we know.  If a place we're familiar with changes, we tend to stay away; and say, "oh,  it's just not the same when I was young."  We're nervous, even when there's no need to be.  This was particularly brought home to me this past week when Context's city manager, Ceylan Zere, walked four of us through a conservative Istanbul neighborhood.  It's definitely not on the beaten tourist path but was absolutely worth doing--a brief look at a much different world.  As community museum people, we too often live in the past, rather in the ever-changing present.   Take a walk to a neighborhood you don't normally go to;  visit a mosque or temple;  shop in a neighborhood store--and then see what ideas that brings you for your museum's exhibits or programs.

Be Nice  I learned this over and over again this trip.  Context puts a high priority on customer service and so I watched staff members bend over backwards to create amazing experiences for me and their clients. Honestly, I've never worked with a museum that cared as much about their visitors.  But that niceness extends the other way.  I had a number of dinners in Rome with Context staffer Liz Roller, who grew up in the restaurant business in Philadelphia and loves food.  Her passionate enthusiasm (way beyond just nice!) led to charming explanations from waiters and a chef or two appearing at our table to explain the dish.   Liz's passion led those waiters and chefs to be friendly and passionate as well.   Those waiters' listened to her passionate interest and responded in kind--does your museum do the same?  Do you even listen for it?

Keep Learning  I came to work with Context because they were committed to lifelong learning for not just their clients, but also for their staff and docents (for Context, docents are the scholars who lead tours).  In 40 or so workshops,  I was continually reminded of the importance of our own lifelong learning.  I gained new perspectives,  worked to sharpen my own approach as a trainer,  and all along the way, tried to keep learning.  Museums need to invest in ways for all their staff to learn more--and staff need to be more focused on their own learning.  This was top-of-mind for me as Rainey Tisdale and I have just finished a draft of our book on museums and creative practice--and that desire for learning is one key component of great creative people, creative teams, and creative museums.

Where will I go next?   Who knows--but I plan to continue learning no matter where it is.