I've recently discovered Malcolm Gladwell. I did my time working at a bookstore while I was an undergrad and I vaguely remember seeing his first book pass by me at some point. But let's be honest: what 21 year-old gives a sh*t about business/self-help/leadership books. I was probably more concerned about finding a way to convice my Renaissance poetry professor that I could bullsh*t my way through an English assignment. (Thank you OED!)
Anyway, I was on my way camping and at Walmart to pick up a trashy vacation book when I was captured by Outliers: The story of Success. I couldn't put it down! It was about how seemingly random things can align to put people on the path to success. That is, that people aren't successful without a series of coincidences and opportunities that allow them to become successful. I loved it. Lots of logic and stats to explain something sociological.
Last week, I picked up one of his other books, The Tipping Point. Reading it this weekend, I was struck at how much of it was useful to me.
One of my favourites was the "Broken Window" theory that Gladwell explains in a chapter on how New York subway crime was significantly reduced by doing a few simple things. Little things.
The "Broken Window" theory states that if people see a broken window, they actually see so much more. They see a place/building that no one cares about, an unsupervised or policed area, they think, "Hey, someone else got away with something, what would it hurt if I did it as well?".
It's a lot about group mentality and how we perceive things.
I think that everyone in the heritage sector understands that we're all struggling financially. There's just not as much money as there used to be and things fall to the wayside. I think we've all got little things (and sometimes big things) that have broken and we just haven't had the time nor money to fix. But we need to think about how these things affect the general visitor experience.
I recently visited a national museum with my brother and his girlfriend (not museum people, for a start) and was shocked at the number of interactives that were not working or broken. I don't know what was worse: trying to get it to work and feeling stupid when it didn't, or all the "Sorry, out of order" signs.
I kept thinking, "Wow, don't they realize how bad this looks? Don't they care?" My brother and his girlfriend, on the other hand, just kept walking past, trying the defective interactives and shouting "Hey! This one works!" when one was successful. Overall, they had a poor experience and I was even embarassed for taking them there in the first place.
Now, I'm sure they care. I know that I for one would cringe in shame if "find the working interactive" was a popular at my museum. But we've all got those kinds of things, scratched signs, out of date websites and brochures, that door that you keep latched with a string... Historic sites are the worst for that, probably because of all the approvals that it takes to get anything done, but still we need to pay more attention to these things.
I often overhear visitors at my museum saying things like, "It's too bad they don't have any money." or "Wow, they've really let this place go." Not to mention that the general attitude of some visitors is reflective of the state of the site in general. What does it matter if I litter if the site is in such disrepair anyway? I'll just let my toddler run around and scream bloody murder; guessing from all the broken toys and games, that's what I'm supposed to do. The overall message is: you don't care, why should I?
I'm not saying that we should all hold hands and pray for money to fix all our problems, but that we need to be more aware that perhaps visitor perceptions of our sites and museums, and their resulting attitudes, are a direct reflection of the state of the museums themselves.
In the meantime, I'm going to grab a screwdriver and fix that sign that's been hanging off its hinges for the past few weeks.
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