Tall, extra-hot, non-fat decaf latte

It took me a while, but I managed to find out how to order exactly what I want. I now get the Kathryn latte - the latte that is perfectly customized to suit me. Naturally, I identified immediately when I read  Envisioning the Customized Museum by Mary Ellen Munley et al. It's true, as they argue, that we have come to expect customization in our products and services, and perhaps increasingly, in our experiences.

A lot of the characteristics of meaningful custom museum experience seem similar to those of museum participation. In both, the museum is a partner or a platform, facilitating the visitor's engagement with the content. I can imagine the tension that working towards this sort of experience would cause in some circles: it might sound too much like relinquishing control or authority. What about trust and legitimacy?

As I care a lot about engaging visitors with content, facilitating the connections they make between their own lives and the stories we hold, I see immense possibility for customization and participation. It hit me again, as I bopped along to the latest tune in my CBC Radio 3 playlist. This Web site has changed the way I experience music - it is amazing.

Let me explain. I am definitely not cool. I am not in a band, nor am I friends with the band. I don't go out. But, here is this site that has about 100,000 songs by independent Canadian artists. It is a vast library of new and emerging talent, that anyone can access, organize into playlists and enjoy. At first, a little daunting - because as I said, I am not really into new music. But once I had an entry point - a band I had heard of and liked - I was able to engage with the content and explore new songs. In a few days, I discovered reams of music by artists I had never heard of - and I feel a little bit connected to Canadian new music. Way cool. And there's more! There are other people out there - artists uploading new music everyday, and other listeners with their own playlists and comments and sharing and there's a blog and all sorts of other neat things.

So why is this such a fantastic example of the power of participation and customization? I think it because the content is good, there is a structure to experience it, the platform is easy to understand and once the door is open a crack, its very easy to waltz (bop?) all the way inside.

Thank you, CBC Radio 3.

Envisioning the Customized Museum: An Agenda to Guide Reflective Practice and Research, by Mary Ellen Munley, Randy C. Roberts, Barbara Soren, and Jeff Hayward pg 77-90 in Practice, In Principle: Museums as Learning Institutions, John H. Falk, Lynn D. Dierking, Susan Foutz, eds. (Lanham, MD: Altamira Press, 2007)

The Peace Sandbox

In an effort to be playful and inclusive in the way we work on this Peace project, I cleared off some space on an adjacent cubicle wall. (yup, it's all cubes over here) I've labelled the space the "Peace Sandbox" and have been posting ideas and images up there. Recently, we posted a big copy of our first draft intro text, and invited folks to mark it up, ask questions, or leave suggestions.

At first, there was nothing. We stood back, and made a few edits ourselves, but it was hardly shaping up to be participatory space I had imagined. And then, it happened. The post-it notes came out and started multiplying. I realized of course that I should be adhering to the same principles of meaningful visitor interaction and participation - thanks, Nina Simon - and went back to the wall and started responding to the comments and questions. I've added a re-draft of part of the text, and that has attracted its own comments.

The next step, I think, is going to be summarize this intro text "game", push it to the corner for now, and introduce a new game. I am considering a quick voting system for some very focused questions we have about our voice. The first one to tackle is the use of contractions. We want them, the director is yet to be convinced. I am toying with presenting short sample texts and asking for a like/don't like vote on them - maybe only revealing what was different between the two version afterwards? Still needs work.

Hardly ground-breaking - it's no wiki, after all, but this is the first time here that we've opened up the development process even a little bit.

All play!

Oh happy day! What I learned from Fish! and Fish Tales! about being playful and lighthearted is dovetailing nicely with some of the (fun!) reading I've been doing about voice, text and learning. It would seem that having fun has a couple of benefits. We learn more! We remember more! We want to repeat fun experiences! A story about this:

I recently visited another museum with my family. Having just read about characteristics of family museum learning, I gave myself permission to let go of the museum professional role (in other words, I opted NOT to constantly critique my experience), and just enjoy. I was there, after all, to spend time with my family, have a positive experience with my family, and possibly learn something. In that order of importance. I laughed my whole way through our couple of hours there. I laughed because we were so absolutely like the family groups I had been reading about, and I laughed because we were playing and being silly together. A couple of lessons:

1. Visiting an exhibition with a 7 year old is like being in a closed room with a super bouncy super ball. Or in a garden with a bumble-bee. "Mommy, what's that?" "Well, dear, that's a..." "OH LOOK AT THAT!!!" And off she runs...
2. Scanning is the only way to read text. Scanning is hard when the text is dense and complicated.
3. Having a good time, and retaining positive feelings about the experience is more important than retaining the exhibition's content. Because now, we want to go back, and I will tell other people we had a good time.

What I think this means for Peace is that I now have some literature and personal experience to back up that point in our work manifesto about wanting to create a positive - and dare I say - even fun experience for our visitors. And that is no laughing matter!

My fun reading list:
Playing with the Past, by Jon-Paul C. Dyson, in Connecting Kids to History with Museum Exhibitions, D. Lynn McRainey and John Russick, Eds, (Left Coast Press, 2010)

A Lighter Approach to Warning Labels: Creating Cooperation through Humor, by Florence Bramley, (1994) originally in Visitor Studies, 6(1), 60-6, available:
http://historicalvoices.org/pbuilder/pbfiles/Project38/Scheme325/VSA-a0a4n7-a_5730.pdf

Laugh a Little, Learn a Lot: Making Your Message Stick, by Florence Bramley (1993) Visitor_Studies, 5(1), 99-104, available:
http://historicalvoices.org/pbuilder/pbfiles/Project38/Scheme325/VSA-a0a4t9-a_5730.pdf

Hilke, D. D. (1989). Strategies For Family Learning In Museums. Visitor_Studies, 1(1), 120-134
http://historicalvoices.org/pbuilder/pbfiles/Project38/Scheme325/VSA-a0a1o2-a_5730.pdf

Not so Radical Voice

I'm progessing on my look at the voice and tone we would like for the exhibition. We want to have a friendly, open conversation with our visitors. We would like for them to understand that we're a bunch of Museum folks who have worked very hard to present an interesting experience, but that we've made choices, and we have our own perspectives, too.
So far, we've defined some objectives for our voice and tone:

• Be respectful of choices, opinions and perspectives. To do so, we must be open about our own choices and use language that shows this.
• To show that outcomes -history as it is traditionally presented and understood - are not inevitable. Dialogue and debate are central to the stories and processes covered in the exhibition. Our text must reflect and continue this dialogue.
• Peel away the history. Encourage visitors to consider their own choices and reactions if they were confronted with the events we present.

We think we know what the characteristics are, too. Active, concise, open, inclusive and conversational. We even want to have peaceful language, that is we want to avoid using violent metaphors. This last bit has been interesting for me, as I've become aware of how prevalent they are in what I usually write or say. ("We need a bullet-proof defence!" "I've been fighting my way through all this reading!")
Now for the challenge. This is a complex exhibition, with some sticky issues and events. The pressure to be absolutely accurate and in line with the museum's mandate is quite strong. You could say some have put their guards up, but that would be a violent metaphor, and I am trying to avoid those! We presented some samples and they were met with cautious, conditional support. The conditions are that we have to prove that people will read and enjoy this text, and that we will not alienate anyone. So I've got a reading list as long as my arm, some ideas for readability tests and a timeline of September. I've found good resources for using questions, good current discussions about multiple voices, but not too much about conversational tones. I will keep looking!
Today, I read:

Write and Design with the Family in Mind, by Judy Rand in Connecting Kids to History with Museum Exhibitions, D. Lynn McRainey and John Russick, Eds., Left Coast Press, 2010