How to Increase Museum Attendance
A few weeks ago I received a phone call from Geraldine Fabrikant a writer at the New York Times.  Geraldine was writing an article about “what are small museums doing to increase attendance” and wanted to know if we could talk.  We spoke several times by phone and email, the results of her research was an article in the New York Times The Particular Puzzles of Being a Small Museum including quotes from me.   Over the course of our conversations we talked about the changes in museums since 2008 and how museums are changing their business practices.

Given the tougher fundraising climate and the difficulty many museums have had driving visitation, they have been forced to rethink marketing and fundraising.  The biggest change I have seen is museums are becoming “communities” instead of places to visit. The change from a location to a community has changed the process of driving attendance to museums:

• Using Social Media to build an online community for the museum
• Using online community to drive visitors to museum
• Having in-person events, lectures, music, drinks, films at museum
• Replicating the in-person experience for online visitors who can’t visit the museum
• Museums can now be thought of as “clubs” instead of places

How to increase museum visitation:

1. Pre – Visit - The museum visit starts before a visitor walks into the museum.  The visitor’s experience starts with a “pre-visit” including social media, online museum information and online communities all building to a paid museum visit.
2. Brand First – I firmly believe in “Built to Last”, that we each choose our brands and those brands need to be built for a specific audience . Museums have been late to building a brand, but creating a museum brand is part of creating community.  Often museums try to include everyone, I believe it is better to build a strong community audience and build from the community base, both online and in-person.
3. Local First – Local community needs to be the first museum priority, then moving onto tourism, then become a destination.  Part of thinking local first is becoming a local community resource.
4. Membership - The thinking behind museum membership has changed from a monthly newsletter to a “museum club membership”.  Museum members now have personalized access to the museum as a community member.  Membership vs. Admission.  Some museums are now pricing membership, equal to less than two family visits, making a membership sale easier.  Some museums have seen an increase in attendance by becoming free and a resulting increase in fundraising.
5.  “museuming” :The experience of visiting a museum or multiple museums.  Museums are social by nature, often visitors go to museums to see and be seen, it is part of the experience.   When people “museum” they expect a certain level of treatment and an elevation of their experience.
6. Satellites - The creation of other museum sites including “pop up museums”, museum programming at for-profits and smaller temporary museums in available locations.
7. Meet the Visitor – Understand what your audience wants and consistently deliver.  Social media is developing into a “community building” tool for museums.  Many museums are using social media to develop their audience both online and in-person. Examples include, being open late, beer and wine events and 3D printing events.  I am seeing a shift from museums being exhibition driven to event drive.  Exhibitions become part of the personalized events and programs that accompany an exhibition.
8. Partnering - Museums are creating strategic partnerships to fund museum programming.  Seek partnerships with for profits and non profits to drive attendance.   Some museums are creating multi-museum passes to drive attendance between museums.  Look for other revenue streams including retail, restaurants and consulting for other organizations.
9. Ladder Up – Give visitors a clear path of interaction with the museum, an example:  social media, reading the museum’s blog, participating in online discussions, an in-person visit, event participation, museum membership, museum donation, volunteering at the museum and becoming a museum committee member.
10. Personalized -  I love the new Rijksmuseum website, visitors can curate their own “collection” choosing from the museum’s collection. Part of personalizing the museum experience is providing enough information about the museum for the the visitor to feel a sense of ownership, an example would be the excellent  Indianapolis Museum of Art’s Dashboard.

Understand your local community and their needs, build a museum brand, create enthusiasts who can spread your message and drive visitors to your door.

Contact me if I can be help with increasing your museum’s attendance, including a review of your facility, social media strategy, strategic planning and exhibition design.

Starting a museum, simple words.  I started this blog as a way to clarify my thinking, as a by product the blog as become the world’s most popular resource for museum planning.  My most popular blog post has been “10 Steps to Starting a Museum“.  Four years after starting the blog, I now have enough content to put together a book, “Starting a Museum” planning to publish by Spring 2013.

The Word “Museum”

Museum: An organization in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which  researches, communicates and exhibits things and ideas, for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment,  my definition from a previous blog post.

I do not believe a museum is a collection.  Many collecting museums have gone through fires or natural disasters, to reopen and rebuild their collection.  Of course a museum losing its collection is a catastrophe, but museums have continued to overcome such disasters.  I don’t believe a museum is the building, many museums have moved to new buildings.  A museum is it’s mission and the intent and communication of that mission.

Expoloratorium’s Mission:
The Exploratorium is a museum of science, art, and human perception founded in 1969. The Exploratorium’s mission is to create a culture of learning through innovative environments, programs, and tools that help people nurture their curiosity about the world around them.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Mission:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded on April 13, 1870, “to be located in the City of New York, for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said city a Museum and library of art, of encouraging and developing the study of the fine arts, and the application of arts to manufacture and practical life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and, to that end, of furnishing popular instruction.” The mission of The Metropolitan Museum of Art is to collect, preserve, study, exhibit, and stimulate appreciation for and advance knowledge of works of art that collectively represent the broadest spectrum of human achievement at the highest level of quality, all in the service of the public and in accordance with the highest professional standards.

American Museum of Natural History Mission:
The American Museum of Natural History, to be located in the City of New York for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said city a Museum and Library of Natural History; of encouraging and developing the study of Natural Science; of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and to that end of furnishing popular instruction.  To discover, interpret, and disseminate — through scientific research and education — knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe.

The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis:
To create extraordinary learning experiences across the arts, sciences, and humanities that have the power to transform the lives of children and families.

As descriptive as each mission is they don’t fully communicate the “how” to accomplish the mission of each museum.  I use the term “museum voice”, as a descriptive  in addition to the mission statement, to more fully describe “how” the museum communicates.   As examples, (I am making these up), The Exploratorium will speak with you as the smart hip neighbor who is a little wacky but such an expert that you respect and admire their opinion, The Met is your very rich great great grand father who you only know from his books, photos and memoir, but he is a legend in the field of Art, The AMNH Is the older aunt who has traveled the world as a research scientist whose opinion and knowledge is beyond reproach, the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is the forty year old young mother who works as a child physiologist and wears Jimmy Choo shoes.   Each would communicate in a different manner.  I believe a museum is a combination of the mission and “museum voice” that describes the museum.

I believe museum exist on spectrums such as;  Collecting / Non-Collecting, Highly Interactive /Low Interactivity,  Academic / Informal, Inward Focused /Outward Focused, Early Childhood / Mature each museum exists on a point on each spectrum creating a matrix.  Today most museum are categorized by type, such as  Children’s Museum, Natural History Museum, Art Museum, Science Center and History Museum as examples.  I believe we are at a juncture in museums.  In the future I believe large “destination”  museums.  (Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, AMNH, Exploratorium, The Met) will continue to follow the typcial designations but smaller museums will become community based mixes of all of the types.   The reality is every community cannot support a museum of each type, so the community based museums will become hybrids.  Recently I consulted on a very large international “Art Museum”.   I put “Art Museum” in quotation marks, although the museum has a very significant Art collection, from top to bottom they do not want to think of themselves as a typical Art museum and all of its associations (old, stuffy, snobby, off putting) but instead as an amalgam of many of the disciplines, Art , Science, Philosophy, Community and Technology.  Slowly more of these types of museums will emerge.

“Starting”

Starting a museum can be the process of founder deciding to create a museum, leading to community involvement, design, building, fabrication and opening.  But, as museums continue to morph, “starting” can also mean an existing museum, with an existing collection, reinventing itself.  I have seen many examples of this recently, Curiodyssey is an existing Natural History Museum in San Mateo.  The Director Rachel, realized that the museum needed a new direction.  The museum changed it’s name, changed it’s logo and most importantly changed its focus.  Before the rebranding the museum was a more typical small natural history museum, displays or local taxidermy, fauna, and local history.  With the new refocus the museum is now more in the model of a smaller Exploratorium, highly interactive exhibits grouped around themes of science and natural history.  The collection is the same, the building is the same, but the museum voice is very different  focusing outward instead of inward.  When I think of a typical natural history museum the museum voice is “here are the objects, and the content please absorb”, an outward museum voice is “here is something to interact with, now what do you think?”  I would include the process of Curiodyysey as Staring a Museum.

When I use the term “Starting a Museum” I am referring to how I see the future of museums, some will be new museums, some will be museums reinventing themselves.  I thought it was important to define how I see the future of museums and how I think of starting a museum.

What will the museum of the future look like?

I am thinking about how to go about answering that question.  As part of the  process I have created museumtrends.org a microblog to use as a scrapbook to collect thinking about the future of museums.  My hope is to create a collaborative forum for discussion on the topic and use museumtrends.org as the record of the conversation.  As a first pass, I have some thoughts about the future of museums to get the conversation going.

I welcome suggestions and comments!

Thanks, Mark

Museum Trends, for the week ending October 14, 2012

Museum Crowdsourcing:

Museum Crowdsourcing Resource Guide, SFMOMA, Art Micro Hubs, Museum volunteer from Anywhere

Future Business Models:

Tesla Museum Fund Raising,

Using the Museum as a Canvas:

Anish Kapor, “Olor a Nuevo” by Fritzia Irizar

Open Source Mobile Museum App:

MuseumMobile Wiki,  Tap Into Museums

Artist based Destinations:

James Turrell’s Skyspace at Rice University

Open Authority:

Museums and Open Authority,

Artists using emerging technologies:

Manta Rhei, Richard Dupont

I have started work on a book tentatively called “Starting a Museum”.   More than “How to Start a Museum”, the book will explore the question “How could a museum be started?”.  I will need lots of help and hope that I can call on the readers of this blog as active participants in the creation of the book.  My big questions for the book, “what will the museum of 2050 be like?”, “What is the business of museums?” and “what are new business models for museums”.  Most people who start a museum have never started a museum before, the book will serve as a resource for the fundamentals of museums as well as future thinking about museums.  I will be looking to add specific editors and contributors in the areas of Fund Raising, Grant Writing, Art Handling, Registration, Board Management, Conservation and Finances and hoping that each book editor can than serve a similar role in an online forum.

My thought is to create an outline on Google Docs from previous blog posts, then work with a content editor (job description link) to refine the objectives of the book.  Once the first draft is in reviewable form invite people to comment on the book.  Then release as an ebook.  Simultaneously I would like to create an online forum for each of the areas of the book.  The forum be a place for discussion and more detailed analysis of the topics covered in the book.  Once the book has been thoroughly commented on and reviewed as an ebook, publish the book as a softcover.

If you are interested in being the content editor or an editor of a specific area (Fund Raising, Grant Writing, Art Handling, Registration, Board Management, Conservation and Finances) please contact me

This posts is one of many for the book, future posts:

Spectrum of Museums

Book Introduction

How to Start a Museum

Starting a Museum

Curation

Web 3.0 / Museum 4.0

What is the future of museum interactivity?

Reaching consensus on the stages of development of museums is difficult, but for the purpose of this conversation, I will use:

Museum 1.0
First Generation Museum, “Cabinet of Curiosity”
Collection cases, static displays, dioramas, object centric
•    Mutter Museum

Museum 2.0
Second Generation Museum / Science Center
Collection cases with push buttons and cranks
•    Museum of Science, Boston

Museum 3.0
Third Generation Museum / Science Center
Open ended, multi-layered and visitor centric and encourages conversations
•    Exploratorium

Museum 4.0
Fourth Generation Museum / Science Center
The Museum / Science Center is without walls, the museum experience starts prior to the visit to the “bricks and mortar” location and continues after the visit to the museum.  Museums of the fourth generation can / will use the techniques of museums 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, plus the museum experience is customized to the visitor (similar to Web 3.0).  The visitor experience “meets” the visitor at their level of engagement, interest and knowledge.  The museum experience is customized to the visitor prior to the museum visit.   I do not know of any museum that I would refer to as Museum 4.0

Nomenclature becomes difficult, because web 1.0, web 2.0 and web 3.0 are often used in combination with Museum 1.0, Museum 2.0, Museum 3.0, Museum 4.0.  For more information about the development of the web Web 3.0 Explained

Many of the phases of the development of museums is based on the work of Piaget and Constructivist Learning Theory.  Piaget “suggested that through processes of accommodation and assimilation, individuals construct new knowledge from their experiences. When individuals assimilate, they incorporate the new experience into an already existing framework without changing that framework”.  In other words; when we don’t know why the sky is blue, we each come up with our own theory of why the sky is blue until other knowledge challenges our theory.  To change our “knowledge” of why the sky is blue, first we need to deconstruct our current theory, then replace the previous knowledge with new knowledge.

The Exploratorium is the forefather of today’s Science Center.  Many of the practices of the Exploratorium have now migrated to Art Museums, History Museums, Aquariums and Children’s Museums.  Science Museums prior to the Exploratorium (I will make a distinction between Science Museum and a Science Center, as Science Center incorporates the Constructivist Learning Theory), showed visitors information, the Exploratorium, encouraged visitors to deconstruct their previous knowledge.  Earlier Science Museums assumed that all visitors learned in the same way, assuming that by exhibiting a geode and a label, all visitors could assimilate the causes that created a geode.  It was the Museum of Science (Boston), that took content beyond the previous museum model of “Cabinet of Curiosities” by adding push buttons to diorama graphic panels, the museum created the first interactive exhibits and made the “knowledge that of the visitor”.

It was the Exploratorium that took museums to the next phase of their development, by having vistors perform science experiments instead of having “science shown”, as such the Exploratorium incorporated the theories of Piaget.  As an adjunct to Art Museums; Children’s Museums, grew from Art museums and the “teaching collection” of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences (now the Brooklyn Museum).  Since Children’s Museums grew from the teaching collection of an Art Museums, Children’s Museums have always had a hands on approach.  During the same time as the opening of the Exploratorium, Kinetic Art was developing and the Exploratorium incorporated artists into the development of exhibits.

Previously, I believed that “theming” was the start of the next phase in the development of museums, but I no longer believe that to be the case.  Theming or ”the use of an overarching theme…to create a holistic and integrated spatial organization of a…venue” provides a context for the content of an exhibition.  Although we require a context for knowledge, I don’t believe the incorporation of theming to be a milestone in the development of museums.  I now see “theming” as a continuation of dioramas, as “walkthrough dioramas”.

Web 3.0 or the “Semantic Web”, is thought to be the next phase of the development of the world wide web.  Similarly, I believe the next phase in the development of museums, Museum 4.0 will closely follow the Web 3.0 or  a web of content “that can be processed directly and indirectly”.  One of the most difficult concepts to communicate is that of interconnections, the goal of Museums 4.0 will be that of interconnections.  As a continuation of my concept of the Hub Museum, the “museum” will no longer be a location but a web of locations and interconnections, starting before the “museum” visit and continuing after the visit to a physical location.

In the next blog post “Future of Interactivity, Part II”, I will explore types of interactivity, philosophies of interactivity and the future technologies of interactivity.

References:

History of Museums “Cabinet of Curiosities”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Curiosities

World’s Oldest Museum? http://uk.io9.com/5805358/the-story-behind-the-worlds-oldest-museum-built-by-a-babylonian-princess-2500-years-ago?skyline=true&s=i

Jean Piaget, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget

Constructivism (learning theory),  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(learning_theory)

First Interactive Museum, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_museum

Museum of Science (Boston), http://www.mos.org/exhibits_shows/current_exhibits&d=1223

Exploratorium History,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploratorium

Learning Styles, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles

Museum of Science (Boston), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Science_(Boston)

History of Children’s Museums, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children’s_museum

Theming, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theming

Kinetic Art, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_art

Web 3.0, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web

Note:

There are limited online resources for the history of museums and science centers, I will continue to update the above resources, mw

Frequently Asked Questions About Museum Master Planning and Exhibition Design:
1. How do you start a museum?
http://museumplanner.org/starting-a-museum/
2. How do you get a museum job?
http://museumplanner.org/getting-a-museum-job/
http://museumplanner.org/getting-started-in-museums/
3. How much do museum exhibitions cost?
http://museumplanner.org/2011-museum-exhibition-costs/
http://museumplanner.org/how-much-do-exhibits-cost/
4. How do you design an exhibition?
http://museumplanner.org/museum-exhibition-design-2/
http://museumplanner.org/museum-exhibition-design-2/
5. What is the future of museums?
http://museumplanner.org/hub-museum-4/
http://museumplanner.org/predictions-for-2010-2011-2012/
6. What is Museum Master Planning?
http://museumplanner.org/museum-master-planning/
7. How do you raise money for a museum?
http://museumplanner.org/museum-fundraising/
8. How do you create a traveling exhibition?
http://museumplanner.org/museum-fundraising/

Do you have a question about Museum Master Planning or Exhibition Design that has not been answered on museumplanner.org?  Enter the question in the comment section below.

Instead of the typical museum approach of hiring a “world class architect, hiring a ”world class
exhibit designer”, the “Hub Museum” approach, is:
• A “Hub of content” for the museum
• Open Source content, the museum’s content and programs are shared and available for teachers and parents
• Collaborative, the exhibits, exhibit content and programs are shared by several institutions
• Exhibit spaces are easily changeable
• Dynamic, the visitor spaces change every three months
• Transparent, the planning of the institution is shared and available to the community
• The California Discovery Museum will be an amalgam of museums a; Children’s Museum, Science Center, Natural History and Art Museum
• Shared Curriculum

http://www.imls.gov/about/21stCSkills.shtm

Institute of Museum and Library Services has published the  Museums, Libraries, and 21st Century Skills report.

“The report outlines a vision for the role of libraries and museums in the national dialogue around learning and 21st century skills and includes case studies of innovative audience engagement and 21st century skills practices from across the country.”

As a follow up to my Predictions for the future of Museums,  I have been thinking about the future of museums.  What if there was a place where parents, teachers, scientists,museum professionals, artists, students and experts could all share ideas both on the internet and in person. The “Hub Museum” is such a place!

Hub Museum is not one museum but a new model of a partnership of connected museums. Instead of a children’s museum, natural history museum, an Art Museum, a Science Center, the Hub Museum is all of them! Museum live through attendance and attendance is driven by new programs and exhibitions, the Hub Museum, changes every three months, into a new place and the exhibitions are rotated through all of the fellow hub museums.

Teachers, parents, scientists,museum professionals, artists, students and experts all gather online at “The Hub” portal. Teachers can share lesson plans and review science standards and curriculum, parents can view lesson plans and curriculum. Scientists can answer questions of students, “citizen scientists” can earn “expert” points by answering questions. Students can ask questions and learn from one another and experts. The online presence is fun and relaxed, although the content is in line with California Science Standards and National Curriculum. Same as the sharing of exhibitions the Hub portal is a shared online community amongst museums, parents, teachers, scientists, experts and most importantly students.

Museums become the hub for in person activities, instead of museums trying to individually create exhibitions, they are created through a network of museums all working to the same educational standards and curriculum. Instead of each museum working to separate standards and curriculum, the curriculum of the schools is shared by the museums and museums work in partnership with one another to design and build exhibitions.

Exhibitions are then shared amongst museums, so museums are always changing. Superintendents of schools, teachers and students are aware of the educational content before they visit the museum.

Still the museum is serving a different role than the school, the museum is an informal place for exploration and discovery of the formal education at school.