Museums & Science Fairs: follow up

On Friday, Justine posted about the President's plan to have a national science fair, and that museums should be at the table. She cited some great models of how this is already happening in Ireland, as a point of inspiration for the US. She just posted this follow-up:

"ASTC Informs just came into my mail box with this exciting note: 'The Inaugural USA Science & Engineering Festival is looking for participants in its October 23rd & 24th Washington, DC Expo and for additions to its list of satellite festivals being held across the country. The event is the country’s first national science festival, and the Expo on the National Mall will feature more than 500 U.S. science and engineering organizations, each with a different hands-on science activity. To register for the Expo, or to learn how you can organize a satellite festival at your own organization, visit www.usasciencefestival.org.'" 

While this may not be formally integrated into the President's program, this is an amazing undertaking, and ASTC is listed as a partner. 

I was curious as to who was behind it. According to their site, the fair was founded by Larry Bock, who is listed as "Festival Inspiration and Executive Director". He sounds like quite the science fair winner himself:

"Larry is a successful serial entrepreneur... He was the inspiration and executive director of the Inaugural San Diego Science Festival which was the world’s largest science festival of its kind... He and his wife have contributed $250,000 of their own money toward the effort. In addition, Mr. Bock is working fulltime on the Festival and is not drawing any compensation."

Wow.

Again, Museums don't appear to be a player in the President's STEM program of "Educate to Innovate". It looks as if it's primarily supported by public/private partnerships which leverage the core competency of the private partners (which is great). 

So I'm still left wondering how museums might participate in the national effort. There's a perfect match in terms of mission alignment, it's the cash that is the catch from what I can tell.

Next: Museums & Science Fairs: one city's case study

MuseTrek: a Culture Platform in the Works

By Maria Mortati, Sr. Exhibit Developer

Recently we posted about a gallery experiment out of Paris called Le Laboratoire. Turns out the force behind it (David Edwards) has been busy.  Enter MuseTrek, a web 2.0-plus-iPhone system that seeks to allow people to create their own narratives and tours of museums, public spaces, objects, and ideas:

"MuseTrek is an exciting new company that aims to transform how we explore cultural resources and museums around the world. The company was created by Harvard University students at the Idea Translation Lab at Harvard, and is being developed by TechPoint Ventures, a Boston based business incubator and development firm. MuseTrek has formed a special partnership with Le Laboratoire, an innovative experimental art center in Paris..." -MuseTrek press release

So far, it appears that the project is in the early stages with students and local area folks in Boston and Paris making "tours" and adding content. In other words, there's not a lot there yet. 

However, it's an exciting umbrella to develop. Whether the public is able to make this happen with existing tools, or MuseTrek can expand to become a culture-sharing platform remains to be seen. Yet the drive to share and make sense of what people see in museums remains quite powerful.

For more:
http://www.musetrek.com/
http://www.artscience100k.org/prize/pilot_years.html
http://tedxboston.org/videos/79-musetrek

Update: the San Francisco Chronicle just posted an article about Scenic Route: "...a site that builds custom, on-demand walking routes anywhere in San Francsico". In the UK there is a similar project to MuseTrek and Scenic Route called I Like Museums.

Tools we use: social networking for museum projects

[By Justine Roberts]

There are lots of networking sites out there that allow groups to come together and share information. Over the past 3 years we have been trying out various on-line tools with our clients. Two in particular have been successful in different contexts: Ning, and Wiggio. Here's why they are useful.

Facilitating deeper engagement from multiple stakeholders

There are many benefits of using a website to share information with a project team and stakeholders. As with an FTP site, we are able to post meeting notes and progress documents in a place that people can access them as needed. In addition, these sites allow us to post a link to an article or a potential partner organization, upload design references and personal photos of visits to other museums, and share personal profiles and background information on the interests and passions of team members. All of this allows fuller information sharing, helps the project team to build shared vocabulary, and keeps everyone informed of the progress and trajectory of the project.

But the biggest difference these sites make, and the place where we at Gyroscope are most excited about their potential, is in how they are able to shift communication from a structured event of passing information back and forth to an evolving and complex dialogue that is accessible to multiple stakeholders.

Elicit informed debate

By posting a link to an article on the future of artifact-based museums in an increasingly digital age we can elicit debate within a project team about the implications for their own institution. Different points of view emerge naturally in this setting, and the team is able to raise important questions on its own. With Gyroscope facilitating, rather than leading, these conversations the team develops better internal communication strategies and a fuller understanding of the issues and opportunities.

Keeping the conversation going on long-term projects

At the same time, the use of the on-line site has encouraged an on-going conversation that keeps participants actively engaged in the issues between major project milestones, and encourages individuals to come to the next meeting with ideas and questions.

We use many tools to develop partnerships with our clients. These on-line networking sites seem to enable projects to take root in a deeper way, where ownership of the ideas and strategies underlying the museum clearly lives in the community. And this is a key to sustainability and long-term success.

21RST Century Learners!

[By Maeryta Medrano, AIA, LEED® AP, President]

This morning at my son's high school orientation, the dean shared some really inspiring thoughts about education and what the next year will be like for our students. He said the strategic vision for this year is to explore what it means to be a 21RST Century Learner. It struck me because we talk about that all the time at Gyroscope and we try to put strategies in place for our clients that will position all visitors to be 21RST Century Learners. That means technology has a role as does research into brain development, how the physical environment can contribute to positive learning behaviors and of course the social aspects of learning.

The dean went on to say, "Are we preparing our students for THEIR futures or OUR past?" It occurred to me that we in the museum field and especially in the history museums, historical societies and cultural organizations, need to ask ourselves that same question. Discussions with older stakeholders, board members and staff often emphasize how important it is to learn from the past but are we losing relevance for the next generation?

The young people I interact with at my son's school impress me with their real desire to make a difference in the world and to MAKE THEIR OWN HISTORY-NOW! We need to give them the tools and opportunities in school and in our museums to do just that.

Key Questions

I came across an article in the Jamiacan Gleaner called "Changing People's Lives" about the new head of Anthropology at the Horniman Museum & Gardens in London. His name is Wayne Modest, and he's from Jamaica, and yes, he has dreadlocks. Interesting, eh?

For me the intriguing point was the moment in his [impressive] career where the quote comes from.

Wayne was studying conservation methods abroad. He noticed they were not suitable for the Caribbean environment. At the same time, a mentor asked him the above question– the real news are the conservation standards he helped put in place in his home country.

It got me to thinking about what are other key insights that are supported by mentors, family, or simple incidents that help breakthroughs happen?

Do you have such a moment or a person in your past or present? Have you been a mentor?? Museums are about shared knowledge, so I imagine there may be interesting stories out there. I'd love to hear yours.

Cooperative Authority ...in the News?

In the wake of some terrific and interesting press on museums and social participation, I thought it was time to stop being so busy at work and wade in.

Yes, everyone wants to coin their own phrase. Well, so do I. I've been hearing a lot about this idea of the "visitor as publisher" (or user) and the "we" vs. the "you" movement away from the museum as the authority and the visitor the uninformed.

Museums ARE authorities in many topics, so naturally the public looks to them for leadership in that regard. They want us to help curate the information, and interpret the data-- to some extent. The key is leaving room for their voice to expand the experience.

The ultimate challenge is how to make the result meaningful.

This is a collaborative model, and the authority lies in the building of knowledge between two entities- resulting in something more powerful than either could do on their own. Hence my phrase, cooperative authority. Because I can't see how you can say you're an institution of X or Y without being somewhat of an authority.

For a decade or more we've been working on a number of projects that support this aim- with various iterations. In the coming days I'll profile a bit about what we've done, and what's in the hopper.

Stay tuned, and please let me know what you think. I'm trying this phrase out.

Design for... Longevity

[Scott Moulton posting- a follow up to the Design for Change series]

Designing for change should have the end result of making exhibits that last longer so I thought I would give a couple strategies on designing for longevity.

Use simple solid materials that will take wear and can be resurfaced. Solid wood, plyboo, concrete, recycled glass countertops, all are highly durable and wear in ways that enhance the appearance of the material.

Use materials that are easy to replace, retouch or modify. "Patch and paint" can go a long way to refresh an exhibit. Damaged glass can easily be replaced with a call a local glass shop. Similarly there are sheet metal shops in every town with the ability to make some pretty complex parts.

Designing around the in-house capabilities of the museum is another key way to make an exhibit last. Is the shop more geared towards wood or metal work? How much experience is there with media or electromechanical interactives?

Design for Change: disposal strategies

[Scott Moulton posting... part 3 of a 3 part series]

Finally, once exhibits are no longer useful they need to be easily disassembled and recycling or repurposing. Complex assemblies with multiple materials glued together become trash where as a solid wood tabletop can easily be refinished and used for something else.

Designing for change will create adaptable exhibitions that better serve your visitors, give your exhibits a longer life span, and reduce waste.

Design for Change: what does this mean?

[Scott Moulton posting... part 2 of a 3 part series] This approach does not mean that everything should be built from 80/20 aluminum and live on casters. In fact, unlimited change ends up being terribly inefficient and often goes unutilized. The most important part of this design is deciding what sort of change should be embraced and which should be limited. Is it hourly change that floor staff will be making or seasonal change that the exhibits maintenance will be making? Kitchen type infrastructure can be reprogrammed to be an art studio or kitchen chemistry lab as long as the infrastructure is robust and kept neutral. A simple and well-built table is a background for the wide range of activities that can take place on top of it.

Tomorrow: Disposal Strategies

Design for Change: an introduction

[Scott Moulton posting... part 1 of a 3 part series]

Change is critical to making a museum a vibrant and relevant place. Hourly change, seasonal change and long-term change all can work to meet the shifting needs and interests of the visitor. Exhibits need to support the change required for visitor contribution, hourly programs, special events, the re-theming of exhibits, and a major reworking of an exhibit gallery.

One solid strategy for designing exhibits that minimize the use of natural materials and waste is to design for change. This strategy can be played out from the scale of the building to a tabletop exhibit...

Tomorrow: what does this mean?

Missing You, WPA

This photo is from the steps of the Fort Collins Museum, formerly the Carnegie Library in that town. Just wondering what the results of a "new" WPA might look like...

Advocate! Let Artists Get Tax Deductions for Donations to Museums

This is weird, because I already thought this was possible, as it just seems fair, and similar to other areas of tax practice. Anyway, the gist of it is that the AAM worked with Senators to draft a bill that would enable artists to get a tax deduction when they donate their work to a museum. This has been before the legislature 5 times! Let's get it passed now. Here's the skinny from the AAM:

"Artist Museum Partnership Act Introduced The Artist-Museum Partnership Act of 2009 - S. 405, sponsored by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Robert Bennett (R-UT) and H.R. 1126, sponsored by Representatives John Lewis (D-GA) and Todd Platts (R-PA) - would allow a fair market value tax deduction for charitable contributions of literary, musical, artistic, or scholarly compositions to collecting institutions such as museums, libraries, and archives. In the 110th Congress, the House version of the bill had 111 cosponsors; a similar Senate bill has passed the Senate five times in previous Congresses. Now that a new Congress is under way, cosponsors are needed to help advance this legislation. AAM worked with the Association of Art Museum Directors to provide this draft letter that you can use to encourage your legislators to co-sponsor the bill. With just a few clicks here, you can help move this legislation forward."

Maker Faire San Mateo Coming Soon

For those of you in the Bay Area, mark your calendars for the last weekend in May! Maker Faire 09 will be at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. Go here for more info:

http://makerfaire.com/

For museums, it's a wonderful resource for inspiration and more.

PS: if you're planning on coming to the fair, let me know! I can't be there for the whole event, but I will be there for some. Plus, it's not far from where I live.

Green Fridays: Building Supplies

Maeryta Medrano just sent me this link to Green Depot. Think the 'Home Depot' of green building:

"Green Depot is a leading supplier of environmentally friendly and sustainable building products, services and home solutions. Our primary goal is to facilitate green living and building in communities so that it is easy, affordable and gratifying."

They offer solutions that could be applied to any built environment- commercial or residential. I really like their "primary" goal. Sounds museum-y.

History of Gaming Meet the Future of Gaming?

The picture on the left made me laugh a bit because it's three white men in a pile of games. Not that I have anything against either of them. It's from the Strong Museum's National Center for the History of Electronic Games™ . The Game Museum:

"...collects, studies, and interprets electronic games and related material and the ways in which electronic games are changing how people play, learn, and connect with each other."

This photo DOES feel a bit historic to me, since my current (albeit limited) experience with games has been spearheaded, influenced, or introduced to me by women. The likes of Jane McGonigal (above center) and Nina Simon (above right) to be precise. At first blush, the change in women's approach to games seems to be about using games for a purpose, or harnessing social power. Such as Superstruct (figure out how to save the world from demise in 2019), World Without Oil (the name says it), and now game-meets-web2.0-thinktank: Signific.

Wonder what a history of gaming will look like in 20 or 30 years time?

An Exciting Merger Happening in Colorado

A local history museum and local science center in Fort Collins, Colorado announced today that they have merged. What's Unique About It? The Fort Collins Museum is a publicly-owned, city entity. The Discovery Science Center is a private, non-profit. This partnership means that they will be a public/private museum. A powerful force in this economy. They also will be merging the staff of the two institutions, which means that they'll be meshing programming and exhibits- in essence, converging. For more info, go to: http://fcmdsc.org

Advocacy Art

While there has been a trend in museums to move from neutral observer to advocate, it's tough to keep up with current events when exhibits are produced by large teams, or funded by grants years in the making. Advocacy art, and installation artists in particular have been able to make great strides in raising the level of awareness about various topics. Their nimbleness and low(er) budgets are often points of inspiration for museum exhibit developer such as myself. From time to time I'll post about who's doing what in this vein. When possible, I'm going to feature local folks. I'll start extremely locally– with an artist who sits next to me. April Banks is an installation artist who also freelances here at Gyroscope. In her work, she's been exploring the (sorry for the pun) dark side of corporate cocoa production and distribution. I talked with her today about her installation that opened last week. That's her above, at 1am hanging dozens vials of M&M's in the gallery. The vials are adjacent to photos of people puking up M&M's. Here's what April said about her approach:

"Personally, my approach is not hit you over the head-- (the installations) allow people to come in (to the issue). I present the information and my perspective on it, and find most people are curious enough about the issues so that they ask questions. Think I've found or made a few converts. "

For more: http://aprilbanks.com/

Hooray for Play!

Our very own Justine Roberts brought this to my attention: Monday's New York Times published an article about the positive impact play time has on kids and the study that supports it. Read it, it's good, short, and informative. Basically, a collaborative group of researchers took 11,000 children between ages 8 and 9, and gave some recess, and others none. They found that the kids who had recess had better classroom performance than the kids without. Straight from the study's mouth:

"CONCLUSIONS. These results indicated that, among 8- to 9-year-old children, having > 1 daily recess period of >15 minutes in length was associated with better teacher's rating of class behavior scores. This study suggests that schoolchildren in this age group should be provided with daily recess." Source: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/123/2/431

This is supportive data for our informal learning institutions, and builds on something that we've been preaching and practicing here at Gyroscope. One of the people noted in the article, Dr. Stuart Brown,is the founder of the National Institute of Play. They are gathering research from a diverse band of play scientists and:

" ... initiating projects to expand the clinical scientific knowledge of human play and translating this emerging body of knowledge into programs and resources which deliver the transformative power of play to all segments of society." Source: http://www.nifplay.org/

Their board includes the likes of Jane Goodall, folks from IDEO, the Jonas Salk Foundation, and so on. No museum folks... Anyway, according to Ms. Parker Pope, Brown considers play:

“a fundamental biological process.” “From my viewpoint, it’s a major public health issue,” he said. “Teachers feel like they’re under huge pressures to get academic excellence to the exclusion of having much fun in the classroom. But playful learning leads to better academic success than the skills-and-drills approach.”

That fits nicely with my personal experience: I remember things best when I'm having fun. Thanks, Justine!

It's Museum Advocacy Day!

I've posted quite a bit on this topic already. I'll just point you to a place where you can do some e-advocacy, and say yippee for my favorite institution: museums!

Quick Post: Real-Time Animal Tracking Site

I may be late to this game, but I just came across this site that might be of interest to science centers, anthropology museums, zoos, and aquaria. It's called TOPP (Tagging of Pacific Predators), and it offers a free live animal tracking widget which might be a nice add-on for your web site. There's a write up about it on the Stanford News site. Check it out. Oh, and if you've wondered what some of those tags might look like, check out this picture from the good folks at KQED's Quest TV show. They did a story on TOPP last year. What can I say, but better late than...