The Dilemma of Fun-Yet-Irrelevant Museum Programs, or, A skeptic at the seance

Last Friday I attended my first seance. It was at work; one of my programs, which would be somewhat surprising if you were at all aware of my programming style. See, I'm not really a museum programmer; that's just what I'm doing right now. My first love was collections, but then I quickly realized that I love talking too much to spend my life in storage. So I grew into museum supervisory roles at the junior management level, which inevitably seem to always involve a lot of programming and event planning.

Sure, they're having fun. But let's be honest:
Do they fit at my pioneer homestead museum?

My interests, however, focus more on general interpretation, the visitor experience and visitor engagement. One of the things I have the most difficulty with is developing programs that match the museum's interpretive themes and mandate. Well, it's not that I have issues with it, it's more that I see it as very important (re: essential) that your programs have a strong link to the museum itself. To the layman, that means that I can't just do a program because it sounds like fun; it needs to fit with the museum. So... for example: kids love dinosaurs, but I can't really do a dinosaur program at my historic house museum. Or a renaissance fair. Or have highland dancers. Or a "Pride and Prejudice" day.

Anyway, when I started my job I inevitably inherited some programs. From a an annoyingly popular "let's talk about colours" preschool program (the bane of my existance) to our halloween programs.

We have a seance (which I managed to sell as a "popular victorian passtime") to ghost hunting (I'm still struggling with this one). I mean, I'm so dedicated to authentic museum experiences that I can't help but sigh when visitors ask with a grin, "So, is this place haunted?" It's usually one of the first things people ask, if they're going to at all. It happens so much that I now have a stock answer. My concern is that I can't help but feel that if the word "got out" that we were haunted and that were why people visited us, it would inevitably take away from the respect and historical significance of the site. I just feel that my job as a "custodian of history and culture", as it were, means that I can't a) lie, or b) use sensationalization  to make our museum matter. It should matter as it is. If it doesn't that's an interpretive planning/visitor experience issue that no amount of programming can fix.

See!! Seances are historical! <Phew>

So, fast forward to last Friday. I mean, don't get me wrong; I was pretty excited/curious about how a seance would go. Since I do spend so much time by myself in the 200-year-old house that is my museum, I can't deny that I think about it being haunted, but I've never had anything unexplained happen. I've had my fair share of Ouija board sessions in my late teens and early twenties, but I've always been the resident skeptic.

I wanted to sit in on the seance out of curiosity, so I set up a chair on the side of the room, but the medium (a very nice no-nonsense lady) insisted that I sit at the table so that I would be in the protection circle. She walked around us with salt and made some chants, then asked us to do our own little circle around ourselves with the salt while we thought positive thoughts and asked for the people we wanted to talk to.

I don't have any deceased loved ones. So I couldn't help but wonder about if there were any spirits of the family or in the house. I didn't expect, however, to get any answers, or to even participate, really.

Yeah, it's Florence Nightingale.
Just go with it.

I was impressed, I must say. The psychic was pretty good and there were a few hits and misses, but the hits were spooky in their accuracy. People were enjoying themselves. Throughout, however, a few odd things happened while she was talking to other people. They usually felt like misses.

"Did anyone's house burn down? No? Hmm... I keep getting someone's house burned down."
"Sorry, there's just this powerful pioneer woman with a bonnet in the corner." The psychic laughs, "She keeps distracting me because she keeps talking about torn dresses. I can't figure out why."
Psychic laugs and interrupts again, "Sorry, she just keeps going on and on about torn dresses." The psychic gestures to the back of her shoulder.

Then, "Who's Helen?"
One of the women said, "My name's Helen."
"No, it's not you. It's the woman in the dress! That's her name!"
My heart sank. "Oh my God," I said, "I know who it is!"

There was a woman who lived in another pioneer house down the road whose name was Helen. She was a strong woman whose house burned down in a huge fire in the mid-1850s. Now for the strange part. The psychic agreed, "Yes, she's agreeing, but she's talking about the dresses again. She's mad about the torn dresses."

It was the fact that the psychic was gesturing to her shoulder that clued me in. All summer, the girls kept tearing their costumes in the shoulder because they weren't used to the tight victorian dresses. I sometimes put off sewing them up. Apparently "Helen" was angry with me for letting them walk around like that. "Oh... she's mad at you," the psychic said with a smile and a laugh. "She's also talking about how she gets mad when you get things wrong."

So... apparently Helen lives at my museum because hers burnt down. Her grave is actually pretty close and I visited it the other day, strange as that may seem. To be honest I'm still not sure if I believe, even though some stuff came out that the psychic couldn't possibly know. I like the idea that Helen's there, or not.

If I have to share my museum with a spirit, it might as well be one with the same visitor experience standards as me.

Audience Development for beginners, or, A museum is only as boring as I make it

The off-season is a strange time, to be sure. I can't decide if I'm busy, or have too much time to kill. I'm sure that the fact that I'm not running around town buying program supplies or driving to the other museum for admin has added minutes (if not hours) to each day, but there's still stuff to do. It's just different stuff.

Sure, I've got some programs to plan and deliver. (Which reminds me that I need to call the psychic again for the seance. You'd think she'd know I was trying to reach her...) Anyway, now is the wonderful time for thinking. Yes; thinking. It's difficult to sit down and ponder the day away in a world where people seem to think that if you're not perpetually stressed out, you're not working hard enough, but we've got to do it.

In my field that means research. Yes, the boring, pouring over old ledgers and diaries kind, but also the new, and often daunting, idea of planning. Planning for the new year, planning for your winter intern (done! yay!), planning for... well, everything. The most important of which is how the #$^&@ to get more people to visit our museums. It also happens to be the most difficult.

I don't think people realize how much of a museum professional's time is spent trying to get them to our stupid little museums in the first place. By the time you're at my door I'm so happy that you made it that we'll foist a tour on you ("Please take the tour, sir. We've been waiting for you all day!") or I'll talk to you for 20 minutes about the garden that I'm failing miserably at maintaining. I suppose that's why I'm so welcoming to visitors; I'm really and truly glad they made it, and, goddammit, we worked hard to get them here.

I'm on a committee of the local museums group that's trying to develop a membership program for all of us (9 in total!). The main goal is to get the word out about the different museums since we're all pretty small and have a tough time competing with the nationals. It's hard to get us to agree on some things, but we all agree that we need more visitors and that our target audiences are young families. Easy. Right?

We have more kids programs, special events, family campfires, crafts... all things for the families. The catch is; we all do it. All nine of us. It works. Families like what we do. It's a great idea.

Last week (what a coincidence), I was asked to answer some questions about my museum by our Audience Development Officer, who's working on our new Audience Development Plan for the three sister museums. Things like, "Describe the ideal visitor experience", "What brings visitors to your museum for the first time?" and "What drives a visitor to return to your museum?" are really quite hard-hitting. I mean, I should know the answer to all these questions, shouldn't I?

It took a while, and a lot of rambling, to get something out of me, but in the end it all ended up with an answer that can be summed up as, "For those that are aware that the museum exists, the experience is boring to most people, but they like our programs, although most don't like the fact that we're so far out of town, and we're focusing our efforts on families because we can cater to them the easiest."

Actually, I didn't realize that's what I was saying between the lines until just now and I feel a bit ill. But it's true.

We cater to families because that's the easiest. Well, and we feel that there's still room to grow in those markets.

I mean, there's nothing wrong with catering to families with our programming. Nothing at all. We have lots of visitor-families and they love us; that's great. But if we (myself and my sister museums) are catering to families, and the other six small similar museums in the city are catering to families... doesn't that mean that we're stealing each other's business?

More importantly, doesn't that make us boring?

I read something the other night in Seth Godin's Free Prize Inside that struck me. Godin also wrote The Purple Cow, and both are business marketing books that are fun to read and talk about how to make your business grow by not playing it safe and by finding a way for your product or business to "be remarkable" compared to the competition. Free Prize Inside talks specifically about the "soft innovation", the little extra that makes people buy your product or experience above everyone else's. Hence, "free prize inside".

The passage I read is the following one:
"Go find some people who hate what you've got and who hate what your competitors have but still have a problem they want solved. These are the folks who want the free prize."

In museums, we never even think of trying for the people who "hate what [we've] got". Which, let's be honest, is a lot of people. (My uncle was lecturing me on the sanitization of history by museums and historic sites at Thanksgiving, which led to a spirited debate with yours truly.) Perhaps our audience development should target these groups, or at least offer something that they're looking for. But then, that's the problem, isn't it? What are they looking for?

In the meantime, I'm going to keep on plugging away at my programming for families. But I'm not going to stop thinking about the free prize.

Do you think milk and cookies would entice more visitors?

You know, I'm actually serious.

How I Spent My Post-Summer Vacation, or, Visitor Experience Advice from ChickLit

So I finally got my vacation! Yay! Essentially, due to lack of funds, the plan was to do nothing. Nada. Just chill out and not work. Maybe go to the cottage. Said vacation was postponed, however, by poor time management on the part of yours truly (1 day to write my end-of-season report? Sure...) as well as the untimely disappearance of one of my cats the day before I planned to leave for the cottage (Curse you, Jamie!).

Anyway, I finally made it up to the cottage for some R & R. The plan being to read and pretty much just chill away from the temptations of cable TV and the internet. I could just soak up that sunset for hours; if only it lasted that long...

Lately I've been reading those self-help/business books like Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, but a friend had sent me a special book for our 10-year friendiversary (ha!). She had apparently been browsing a local bookstore when the cover caught her eye.

When she read the back of Harriet Evans' A Hopeless Romantic, it was a no-brainer: "...With her life in tatters around her, Laura agrees to go on vacation with her parents. After a few days of visiting craft shops and touring the stately homes of England, Laura is ready to tear her hair out. And then, while visiting grand Chartley Hall, she crosses paths with Nick, the sexy, rugged estate manager..."

Rugged, sexy estate managers?! I'm in! I'd be lying if I claimed that I'd never had my share of the heritage professional's version of the Mr. Darcy fantasy. You know, where the young, handsome proprietor of the house you work at falls madly in love with you and your endless dedication to his family's history and you end up owning said house so you don't have to pretend to own it anymore because you would?

No? No one else? Alrighty then... moving on.

Anyway, I'm not usually a big fan of chicklit heroines. I find them whiny and selfish and always end up wanting to punch them in the face. This "Laura" wasn't too bad. But in classic chicklit fashion, she didn't think she was worthy of Nick, said sexy estate manager. <sigh> I'd like to inform her that rugged, sexy estate managers are rare and, frankly, if I knew of any, I'd be keeping him to myself, thankyouverymuch.

When I finally got over my hangups with the heroine (my friend had told me that it was worth it), I was pretty excited to read about Laura's experience at the historic homes she was visiting. As a heritage professional, I can't help but be a bit defensive at her apprehension to even visiting them, but I understand. Audience development certainly doesn't even bother to include chicklit heroines or their ilk (say, 20-somethings?). I was however, interested in a few snippets of her experience at said estate manager's fictional historic house. I even dog-eared the pages so I could share them with you.

The first is when Laura and her parents tour said house, a guided tour. I've taken a few painful guided tours in my life and now train people on how not to give them. The fictional (yet realistic) tour guide in the book is an older lady with "tight curls of an iron and tin hue" who says things like, "Do follow me. Thank you. No flash photography. Thank you." In the picture gallery, Laura asks;

"But- well, what's the point of keeping [some of the paintings] in storage? [...]"

"It's not as simple as that, dear," [the guide] said firmly. "And it's up to the trustees of the house. It's not really about putting every one out so the general public can enjoy it, is it?"

"Why?" said Laura, [...] suddenly so impatient with this sad middle-England, middle-aged debate, setting, scene - everything. [...] This wasn't a faily tale, it was extortion! "You've charged us fifteen pounds each to get in, yet most of the rooms are roped off, the car park's miles from the house, everyone here is about eighty [...], no one seems particularly pleased to see us here, we're treated like cattle ... I just wonder why you bother."

<sigh>  All so true. Heck, sometimes I wonder why I bother. But to be honest, I'm sure that memories of similar, crappy tour guide experiences is why most visitors visibly cringe when you offer them a tour.

Laura even brings up the "broken window" theory. Well, not per say, but she tells Nick,

"Get the sign repainted."

"The what? What sign?"

"When you arrive, on the drive," said Laura. "The sign looks awful. It's the entrance to the house, and it's cracked and peeling, and it just looks like the place is falling apart. [...] Sorry, but I don't think that's what [the owner] would want people's first impression of the house to be. Especially when they're paying fifteen quid for the privilege."

There was a little fist pump on the front porch when I read that. Awesome. And I think that everyone knows it's true that first impressions are everything. Makes me all the happier that I'm getting new signage at my museum next year. :)

Later, Nick (hunky estate manager) brings up the topic of making people feel welcome when he talks about his visitors:

"All of them [come here] wanting a slice of heritage. They come, they have their cream teas, they see the tapestry and the Hogarths and the staircase, and they wander round and hopefully buy a tea towel, and then they go home."

"It's bizarre," said Laura.

"No," said Nick. His voice determined. "It's not. It's great that they want to come, and it's our job to make sure they have a good time. I feel... we need to make it somewhere people feel genuinely welcomed."

This passage struck me in particular because it's something that I feel very strongly about: making visitors feel welcomed and at home. I treat every visitor to the museum like a guest in my own home, and I think that's the way to help them get the most out of their experience. I'm pleased that I'm not the only person who takes this to heart, even if the other is only fictional.

Heck, maybe I'm a real-life sexy, rugged estate manager. <smirk>