Museum Audience Insight

Cultural Resource Center . . . Ticket Tuesday . . . and Don't You Think Macie Is the Cutest?

A quick roundup of some interesting things coming across our screens lately:

The Connecticut Humanities Council has pulled together a ton of resources in their online Heritage Resource Center.  From resources and links on audiences to leadership to finance, they have done a terrific job pulling together a lot of information, in one spot, and with annotations so you can better find what you are looking for.  I have already found it extremely helpful more than once. 

The Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance just released a study called Research Into Action.  One of their key findings was that African Americans and Hispanics in Philadelphia were more culturally active than Caucasians.  Since many museums struggle to effectively reach minority audiences, and since the minority population is increasing dramatically in the US (see the "Museums and Society 2034" white paper we wrote for AAM's Center for the Future of Museums for more information on that), this finding is intriguing.  I am still reading the report thoroughly myself, so stay tuned as I dig through it.

Finally, I love the recent activity on COSI's Facebook page.  Yesterday, for Ticket Tuesday, they awarded a pair of tickets to the first person to answer a trivia question correctly.  And last week they invited fans to post photos of their cute pets on COSI's wall.  Cutest one gets a gift card to a pet supply store and free tickets.  On Facebook go to COSI Columbus' Dynamic Hands-On Science Center and check out the activity . . . and the pics.  (Macie Marie Wilkening is the black-and-white dog with the rawhide.  Obviously she is cutest!)

We'd love to hear if you have seen anything interesting coming across your screens, from resources to fun social networking activity.  Simply click on "comments" below (and if you are reading this from your e-mail subscription, go to our blog to comment).

- Susie

Curiosity and Learning Motivations

A few weeks ago, I wrote about curiosity, wondering if we were putting the cart before the horse in our quest to spark creativity without nurturing curiosity first.  Jay Rounds, a professor at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, guided me to his 2004 article in Curator on curiosity, and it, of course, got me thinking.  (Now Jay, I am paraphrasing you some here, so if I goof, don’t hesitate to set me straight!)  This is one of my more mind-bending posts, so bear with me.

 

Jay states that a “curiosity-driven visitor” is not a personality type, but a behavior based on the goal of the museum visit.  We would argue that the “curiosity-driven visitor” is more of a personality type than not (though there is undoubtedly a sliding scale).  That is, those individuals who define themselves as “curious” in our studies exhibit very different behaviors than those that do not.  They visit a wider variety of museums more often, have higher satisfaction levels at the museum, are more philanthropic, and have more omnivorous leisure-time habits.  In short, they are much more likely to be what we call “Museum Advocates.”  So I definitely read his article through that lens.

 

But where I really became intrigued is when he differentiates between extrinsically motivated museum visitation, which he says can be “thought of as a process of acquiring knowledge for which we have a known use” and intrinsically motivated museum visitation, which produces “knowledge for which we have no known use.”  Extrinsic knowledge tends to be “narrow but deep,” while intrinsic knowledge tends to be “wide but shallow.”  We all possess some mix of the two.

 

When we overlay what we know about Museum Advocates and Core Visitors (explored in more detail in our recent book) then we can better see how curiosity can be a personality type.  Because those visitors who meet Jay’s description of “curiosity-driven” visitors who are intrinsically motivated generally fall into our Museum Advocate category, while those who are more extrinsically motivated generally fall into our Core Visitor category. 

 

Why does extrinsic motivation correlate with Core Visitor behaviors?  Because it focuses on “knowledge we need,” according to Jay, and Core Visitors are often moms who bring their children to museums to learn knowledge she thinks they need, or are individuals who are specifically interested in an exhibit or program a museum is offering (such as a guy who is really interested in trains, and goes to every train museum out there, but skips other types of museums). 

 

Both forms of learning are important.  In our professional lives, extrinsic learning is hugely important (we want our doctors to have the deep knowledge they need to help keep us well).  Yet intrinsic knowledge is curiosity-driven, and itself drives creativity.  It sparks cross-pollination that allows us to make leaps between two seemingly disparate subjects and find important connections.  Museums, with their wide variety of collections, are in a position to tap into curiosity-driven, intrinsically-motivated, free-choice learning in ways that schools and other more formal learning environments cannot.  No wonder they are beloved by curious Museum Advocates!

 

But we come back to our data yet again here.  Most of our regular visitors are not intrinsically motivated Museum Advocates.  Some of our visitors are extrinsically motivated in the subject matter of our museum, and that is great.  And moms bringing their children to museums because they think it is good for them to gain knowledge is hardly a bad thing either.  What I wonder about is how excited those moms are themselves – especially when those moms do not identify themselves as curious.  We’ve discussed this dilemma in previous posts, and hope to learn much more on the subject in future research. 

 

Interestingly, Jay posits that curiosity-driven visitors are seeking novel and interesting experiences he calls “wide-but-shallow.”  Yet our research indicates that visitors want deeper experiences.  On the surface, this appears to be contradictory, but I don’t think it is.  Instead, I think curiosity-drive visitors are looking for a wide variety of interesting experiences, but when something does pique their interest, they want to be able to dig deep.  Having that option to investigate further is important, as is the option to skip over things that simply don’t capture their interest.  This behavior would not be contradictory to Jay’s model or the behaviors we see in our research.  And indeed, as Jay explains further, this behavior would be, indeed, typical of curiosity-driven visitors.

 

We’ll be digging further into this issue of curiosity, and what it means for young visitors, moms, and both Museum Advocates and Core Visitors.  As we plan our research, we would love to hear your thoughts.  Click on “comments” below to share.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to our blog's website to add a comment.)  Please include the name of your museum as well!

 

Want to read Jay’s excellent article?  It can be found in the October 2004 issue of Curator, volume 47, number 4.

- Susie 

Creativity – The Cart Before the Horse?

A couple of weeks ago a new publication coming out of the UK crossed my desk.  Overall, Learning to Live, which focuses on young people and museum education, is excellent.

 

But I couldn’t help being annoyed by one thing.  It keeps talking about creativity, and how important creativity is.

 

Don’t get me wrong.  I think creativity is incredibly important and should absolutely be nurtured in children, both in and out of museums. 

 

But I couldn’t help thinking that a critical step was missing. 

 

And that is the nurturing of curiosity.  If you are not curious about something, you are not going to bother to expend an ounce of creativity on it.  Right?

 

Granted, I have been curious about curiosity for a while.  And I must confess I have my colleagues curious about it too, now.

 

Why?  One of the things we have noticed is that museum visitors who are personally motivated to visit museums are much more likely to identify themselves as being curious.  And visitors who do not identify themselves as curious tend to be less engaged in the museum and its offerings (and tend to visit for reasons other than personal ones). 

 

We have been tracking curiosity as a motivation for museum-going in a few of our studies, and have found that visitors who identify themselves as “curious” are significantly more positive about the museum, more likely to believe the staff cares about them, and more likely to support the museum for philanthropic reasons versus just the family budget.  That is, curious adults are more likely to be what we call “Museum Advocates.”  

 

And we believe that curious adults are much more likely to raise curious children, for whom creativity is a natural outgrowth. 

 

We’ll keep studying this in our research, and would love to hear your thoughts about curiosity and creativity as we plan out future lines of inquiry.  To comment, please feel free to click on “Comments” below (or if you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to this blog, please go to our website to add a comment.

-Susie

Best Reads of 2008

We all read a lot.  Books, newspapers, magazines, websites, even the radio.  And while we consume a lot of materials, we each had favorites that stuck with us (sorry for the pun – see below!).  So to wrap up the 2008 blog postings, we share with you some of our favorite reads.  Not all of them are strictly work-related, not all of them came out in 2008, but all are recommended!

 

From James Chung:

 

Charlene Li’s Groundswell:  Just named one of Business Week’s top books of 2008, Charlene’s book is a good primer for those of us too old to really understand what most of the rest of the younger world inherently knows.  When Charlene first encouraged us to launch a blog, I had thought it was a ‘nice to do,’ but have since found out that our Museum Audience Insight blog is incredibly powerful way to exchange information with the field.  When I finally broke down and activated my dormant Facebook account, I realized that it’s truly a game-changer, something that Charlene has been tracking longer and deeper than anyone out there.

 

Scott Kirsner’s Inventing the Movies:  Scott is one of the nation’s top journalists covering ‘innovation,’ and his latest book is tracking how innovation has continually revitalized the movie industry, a book that he wrote at the urging of George Lucas.  It’s a fun way to think out of the box about crazy ideas, how they tend to get trampled, and how they sometimes end up as the catalyst that awakes a field and makes it even more vibrant than ever.  If there’s enough interest in the field about innovation as a topic for one of our future Museum Conversation calls, I’d love to get Scott to join as a guest.  Let me know!

 

 

From Erica Donnis:

 

This summer, National Public Radio broadcasted a series of news articles about America's National Parks (“Summer Getaways—National Park Service") which really hit home with me.  The stories weren’t fluffy—they dealt with some real challenges like global warming and the ongoing theft of national treasures.  But they were somehow incredibly reaffirming about the importance of natural areas, historic sites, and museums in our lives, the dedicated people who staff them, and the visitors who love them.  One anecdote in particular stood out:  in a story about mule trips into the Grand Canyon, a patron talked about setting a goal for himself of losing 25 pounds so he would meet the weight limit to participate.  That sparked my recognition of the phenomenon of the once-in-a-lifetime museum experience, for which many visitors will scrimp, save, reserve spots more than a year in advance, and yes, even go on a diet if they have to. 

 

 

From Sally Johnstone:

 

I picked up Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die on a whim one day while browsing the business section of the bookstore.  The duct tape on the cover attracted me – I’m a former Vermonter, rabid skier and snowboarder, and hew to the idea that duct tape is one of the five essentials of life, regrettably missing from the Maslow hierarchy.  Lucky me, brothers Chip and Dan Heath had successfully signaled the fix that I needed.  Anyone engaged in the art of communicating – and that’s all of us, excepting perhaps a hermit monk on a decades long silent retreat – can benefit from reading this book.  A simple formula for sticky packaging of your ideas, so that your audience remembers and embraces them, is presented in an entertaining and easy to read format.  The brothers’ suggestions, though simple, are backed by massive social science research and insightful analysis.  The ideas presented are astonishingly sticky, and it’s a neat feeling to hear your ideas repeated by others.  The authors write a column for Fast Company magazine, and have a blog.

 

 

The Little Fisherman by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Dahlov Ipcar.  This children’s classic, reissued by Islandport Press this past May, was the first collaboration of two of my personal favorite Maine artists/writers.  The Little Fisherman is a fun story contrasting the fishing trips of a big fisherman and a little fisherman…my son loves this book.  Margaret Wise Brown, best known for Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny, wrote some of the most unusual and interesting children’s literature I’ve read to my son.  Anytime someone who knows me sees a book by Brown, they send it along.  Dahlov Ipcar is simply a wonderful artist.  Her pieces hang in major museums, and her fresh take on scenes from the Maine coast in this book is both perfectly appropriate for a children’s book and incredibly sophisticated.  Ipcar wrote and illustrated a number of children’s books as well.  (The dad in Lobsterman is very handsome.)

 

From Tara May:

 

Malcolm Gladwell's latest offering, Outliers, begins with the "genius theory" -- that certain people are just smarter and more successful based on intrinsic characteristics.  Gladwell argues that, instead of success being individually-driven, a unique set of circumstances allows certain individuals to excel.  In other words, successful people don't do it alone, they are products of particular places and environments.  His book looks at that "ecology" of success, which includes the social and cultural context of individuals that may explain their success. 

 

Stumbling on Happiness was written by Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, who attempts to explain why a huge portion of a very wealthy, very powerful country (ours) wanders astray when it tries to find contentment.  Gilbert argues that the problem is that the human mind is hardwired to falsely remember how we felt in the past and to guess wrong about how we will feel in the future.  We make wildly inaccurate predictions and assumptions which, in the end, cause us to feel dissatisfied with a result we once thought would make us happy.  Gilbert's thesis makes a strong case for needing to stay very, very close to customers -- to see if you can help them set the right assumptions and be there when they are indeed happy with the outcomes. 

 

From Susie Wilkening:

 

Convergence Culture, by Henry Jenkins, was probably the one book that totally changed my thinking about so many things.  Dr. Jenkins begins by explaining how our society is shifting to a collective intelligence with different types of media converging to create cultural meaning.  By page five I have the first of dozens of stickie notes popping out of this book, and already I am wondering how museums can, and should, change to fit in and be relevant in a new cultural mindset.  Ranging from The Sims to fan fiction to fan reality fiction (who knew??), access is paramount, the world is changing, and, I believe, museums have important roles to play in providing the inspiration and information to thrive as our world changes.  

 

Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud.  Nina Simon, the brilliant mind behind Museum 2.0, recommended this one to me.  Comics, and graphic novels, have not been my preferred narrative experience, but this book clearly laid out for me why people do find them so compelling.  And as we look at how narrative is changing dramatically, particularly for young people who are much more likely to want to play a role in the narrative, this book helped me understand how comics laid the groundwork for a more interactive, some would say personal, form of narrative.  How?  Because comic books make the reader work harder by utilizing the “gutter” (the space between panels) to force the reader to connect the panels with their own content, making comics a highly participatory form of narrative since the reader has to make some decisions within the overall story.  I never thought of it that way.  Nina – I eagerly await your next recommendation!

 

Happy New Year!  And happy reading!

What a Shame

We have all seen the ads.  They take place in a deli, or a toy store, or some other retail establishment, and the carefully choreographed customers and employees are in perfect synchronization, swiping their credit cards and speedily moving on.  Until that one customer blows the whole thing by paying with, gasp, cash. 

In the Heath brothers’ latest column for Fast Company, they talk about how this advertising campaign uses shame and embarrassment to (ideally) convince people to use their credit card.  And they are right to say we should not put up with it.  Shame and embarrassment are not the most compelling marketing strategies. 

This credit card company capitalizes on a deep-seated fear that many people have of being that person who just doesn’t get it.  They fear holding up the line and having everyone look at them, horrified. 

But the thing is, there are a lot of people who are afraid that if they enter a museum, they will become that horror-inducing person who holds up the line.  So they don’t go.  They are afraid they won’t know the protocol for a visit.  They are afraid they will be not be welcomed.  They are afraid that the museum will make them feel dumb.  Or worse, they are afraid that the museum will make them look dumb to their kids.  Simply put, they are afraid of museums. 

So, to avoid shame and embarrassment (or at least the perceived threat of shame and embarrassment), they simply don’t go. 

And museums slip completely from their radar screens (if they were even there in the first place). 

Last year, when I was crunching data for our national study of children’s museum visitors, I came across a written-in response from someone who worked for Well House, an emergency women’s shelter in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  The comment intrigued me, so I gave them a call to find out more information.  This shelter, which serves women and children at definitely not the best of times, loves to send these families to the Grand Rapids Children’s Museum.  So I asked how the moms felt about visiting the museum, and was told that they were usually nervous.  They did not know if they would be welcomed, or if their children would have a good time.  And when they return from their visit?  They are exhausted, because they, and their kids, have had such a great time.  But then the woman I spoke with said that she had been to the museum on dollar night . . . and seen former residents there with their kids.  Wow.  For these women, that extra push was necessary to demolish the perceived barrier of entry at this children’s museum, but once they visited, they realized it was a place that would welcome them and be a fun place to take the kids.

Like it or not, museums do have perceived barriers of entry, but these women realized they were not going to hold up the line, or be embarrassed, or made to feel dumb. 

We all know that museums welcome visitors of all types, but how can ensure everyone knows that?  How can we convey that those perceived barriers to entry are just that, perceived?  How can we then demolish those perceived barriers?  And how can we show that our careful choreography welcomes both experts and beginners? 

We would love to hear how your museum has broken down those perceived barriers and welcomed new audiences.  Please share by clicking on “comments” below.

Buried in Magazines

One day, feeling overwhelmed by my massive stack of unread magazines, I started a list of magazines and journals come into my home and office.  When I mentioned this to my friend Alison Buchbinder, a second-year fellow in the Winterthur program, she said I should "definitely post this to the blog" because the variety, and rationale for subscribing, were so interesting.

So here it is - almost thirty different subscriptions.  Why so many?  Some are, obviously, relevant to the museum field, others reflect personal interests, and a few are to give me a better understanding about a particular audience that may, or may not, come to museums.  One is a mystery, another is a mistake.  The three tween magazines come to my incomparable dog so I can track who they sell his name to (no credit card offers have come to Shadow K. Wilkening . . . yet).   

Now I think nearly 30 is pretty excessive, but James has told me that he gets far more than that.  My colleague Sally is also inundated in the name of research.  And this does not even include online subscriptions and e-newsletters. Is it any wonder there is a backlog??

Susie's Subscriptions:

Newspapers

• Boston Globe
• Quincy Sun (my local weekly)
• Wall Street Journal

Journals

• The Journal of Heritage Stewardship (National Park Service)
• Museums and Social Issues

Magazines

• Adorn (Gen Y research - I think it is fascinating that Gen Ys are so concerned about "embellishing life," in this case through crafts)
• Better Homes and Gardens (it was free, Baby Boomer research mostly, but I do like the recipes)
• Bon Appetit (actually, my husband gets this)
• Common Ground (National Park Service)
• Cottage Living (a mistake - it was free but I checked the wrong box and got this instead of Old House Journal.  Oops.)
• Country Living (UK, not US - I just love it)
• Discovery Girls (tween research)
• English Heritage
• Family Fun (another free one, Gen X parent research)
• Fast Company (fabulous business magazine)
• Girls Life (tween research)
• Gourmet (actually, my husband again . . . )
• Historic New England Magazine
• History News
• Martha Stewart Living (a gift from a friend, comes in handy for Boomer women research)
• Media (not sure why this comes to me)
• Museum
• National Geographic Traveler (one of those free ones, again)
• National Trust Magazine (UK)
• Newsweek
• Preservation (National Trust, US)
• Seventeen (tween research)
• Smithsonian
• Vogue (Gen Y research, though I am a fan of their food writer)

Want to help me make it to 30?  Let me know if I am missing a key subscription by submitting a comment below!

Rethinking the Historic House Museum

New Solutions for House Museums: Ensuring the Long-Term Preservation of America’s Historic Houses
Donna Ann Harris

A few weeks ago, a colleague in the field shared with me the story of a house that had been donated to a women’s organization. This group or women are absolutely determined to turn that house into a museum, despite receiving advice that the site would draw few visitors and not be economically sustainable. It is a story I have heard often, and it is a story that always breaks my heart as I look at the deteriorating condition, and low visitation, at so many house museums across the country.

As I wrote about in my November posting on Relevance and Historic House Museums, there is a growing movement in the field to rethink the uses of many historic houses that have been used as museums. Donna Ann Harris has added considerably to this movement through her book New Solutions for House Museums, as she advises readers on how to go about planning for a new use for a historic house. She also shares fourteen excellent case studies of organizations that have been through this process and developed new solutions, ranging from downshifting into a study house to selling a house, with easements, on the open market.  

In my mind, Ms. Harris’s book builds naturally on a similar book that was published in the UK.  I read The Fate of the English Country House, by David Littlejohn, several years ago, but I pulled it from my shelf this morning to compare. Mr. Littlejohn’s book focuses on the large number of English country houses that are too expensive for private owners to maintain properly, and examines various potential reuses, including their pros and cons, that a private owner might consider. Opening to the public is one of many options Mr. Littlejohn explores, as well as adding golf courses, special function rentals, children’s attractions (think the Longleat lions), turning it into a hotel or condos, or selling to a school, nursing home, or corporation.  

Both books are fascinating reads, particularly if you work in the historic house museum field. The challenge is, however, getting these books, and their ideas, into the hands and minds of trustees of struggling sites. 

- Susie

OK, So I Am a Material Culture Geek

The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, edited by Arjun Appadurai

I have always been curious about how people interact with, well, stuff. I think about it a lot, from how people used their belongings to show growing refinement 200 years ago in America, to how Americans today use brands and labels to define who they are as individuals (or how they consciously avoid brands, again to define themselves). And, of course, museums tend to be filled with objects that visitors have to relate to in order to understand and learn. So I end up reading a fair amount about people and stuff.

Rosemary Krill, one of my mentors from my Winterthur days, now teaches a museum studies graduate course at the University of Delaware.  Well over a year ago she shared her syllabus with me, and this volume was on it (yes, my to-read list is very long). The articles in this book are very academic and dense, so unless you are a Material Culture Geek, it might not be on the top of your reading pile.

But one article really stood out for me. Brian Spooner, a professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote “Weavers and Dealers: The Authenticity of an Oriental Carpet.” I loved this article. Not only was it well-written, but he had a number of very thought-provoking tidbits that I found fascinating. Primarily, as Westerners we seek authenticity in the goods that we buy (primarily due to the “plethora of objects and categories of objects that [industrial society] generates for our consumption” – ok, I buy that), but if a Turkish carpet is made for the Western market, is it authentic? Or has it lost its authenticity because it was made with a foreign consumer in mind, and therefore of different design and pattern than the weaver would make under normal circumstances?

Similarly, if a high-fashion handbag with an Italian name on it is made in Asia, in  the exact style and manner as an Italian craftsman would make it, is it authentic? Or if a Mexican dish is made here in Boston with peppers that are not native to Mexico, is that authentic?

And does it matter to our museum audiences? I have to think that ultimately, it does. James said to me once that all those images out there of Munch’s The Scream has only increased his desire to go see one of the originals Munch painted. As storehouses of the unique and, I will say it, the authentic, museums have tremendous opportunities to show off the authentic to audiences that are searching harder and harder for authenticity instead of pastiche.  The big question then becomes – how do we do it . . . . authentically??

- Susie

What We Are Reading

Recently, I was asked by a colleague in the field “what do you read?” She knew that we did a lot of internal research, but she wanted to know how we supplement that research. And she also wanted tips for her “to-read” list because she was overwhelmed by the huge number of books and magazines out there.

This colleague is not the first to ask. During our November Museum Conversation on Curated Brand Experiences, some of our listeners expressed interest in us sharing some of our favorite books on branding.

So we are starting a new “What We Are Reading” section on the blog so that we can share what we find interesting and relevant to museums. It is not, by any means, a comprehensive list of what we read (you are unlikely to be interested in Susie’s affinity for Maggie O’Farrell novels, for instance), and it is not meant to be a critical review either. It is simply a way to say “hey, I just read this and thought it was relevant to museums in this way . . .” Think of it as us helping you curate your to-read lists!

We would also love to hear from you! Have you read something recently that made you think about museums a new way? Something you think your peers in the field should be reading? E-mail Susie a quick write-up (susie at reachadvisors dot com), telling us why you think it is relevant to museums, and we will consider it as a “guest blog post!”