Audience Engagement Conversation at Western Museums Association

The Western Museum Association was kind enough to invite me to speak on a panel about engagement at their annual meeting in Boise. I was joined by

• Scott Stulen, Director & President, Philbrook Museum of Art 
• Maren Dougherty, EVP, Communications and Visitor Experience, The Autry Museum of the American West
• Adam Rozan, Director of Programs & Audience Development, The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
• Phillip Thompson, Executive Director/Board President, Idaho Black History Museum

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The panel included people from different types of museums (history and art), scales of organization, and people with different specialties. Despite these divergences, we found great convergence around the big issues in the field.

Phillip’s early remark about museums was an invocation for everyone. He noted that coming from technology and medicine, he wasn’t hampered by the norms of the field. As an outsider, he immediately saw that museums were operating “under a business model that doesn’t work.” He then went on to note that we run museums with the hopes of being supported by philanthropy, when in fact we could have a product that people want. However, in order to accomplish the former, museums would have to transform to be more consumer-driven.

I was struck also by Scott and Adam’s repeated notes about interrogating the sources of knowledge. Scott told a story about the edict to not step on the grass in his lovely Italianate gardens. When he investigated the source, he found the tradition was from a long-retired gardener. Rationally looking at the system caused him to make a different choice. He allowed people to walk on the grass and added tables to make the space inviting. While some long-time members of the community were unhappy with the change, scores of new people came in.

In many ways, the subtext of our whole panel was that change will mean your audience will be different, but that’s not bad. As I said last week, there are people out there who could like you. They don’t know what they’re missing. But you can feel their absence in your empty galleries. Often the loss of visitors is completely due to your structures. Adam told a touching story about his late father, who suffered from Alzheimer's. His mother, the caregiver, called potential outings to see if they had family restrooms. If they didn’t, she couldn’t visit. We are turning people away without even noticing.

Adam spoke about this issue of restrooms in part as a sign about bigger issues. Organizations are neither just leaders or staff, but an ecosystem of people working together. He related the theory of the Commander’s Intent, in which the end state needs to be in line with all operations, and everyone needs to be on board. Everyone needs to understand their part so they can make decisions from their roles. But, the organization also needs to put its money and effort behind this. The ship only works if supported and organized so that everyone can support each other.

We also have a culture of not treating the people who are coming right. Maren talked about the importance of including people at public events, even if they don’t go to the galleries. Bringing people in means often changing your idea of what an ideal visit looks like. She also noted it might mean finding ways to meet real needs. At her organization, she noted serving seniors was important, as this is rare in Los Angeles, but also serving families in an unstructured way. Rather than forcing people into the programs they wanted, they looked for what people wanted and solved for that. This often requires real problem-solving. Maren also got the largest “wow’s” from the audience when she talked about the issue of alcohol and museum programming. People are used to carrying around beverages; museums need to keep works safe and facilities clean. Their institution has started experimenting with giving out beverages at parties in branded adult sippy cups that visitors can take into the museum’s theater.

Another big topic was the issue of demonstrating your desire to change. Phillip and Scott spoke about the transformations of procedures to enable change. Phillip, for example, wanted more college students as he is on a college campus, so he put a college student on the board. Adam also talked about leading change in his teams often by rethinking work with them.

Making change is not without stress. And, in many of our prep conversations, we talked about the real challenge of changing human systems. But at the same time, almost every museum professional I’ve spoken to speaks of how visitors don’t feel welcome. It feels like the data is pretty damning. We need to change.

What are your thoughts on audience engagement and change? Is there a line in the sand for the field in terms of how visitor-centered we should be? Is there a bad side to being visitor-centered? What's the hard part of being visitor-centered?

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