More Lessons from the Outside

Why limit the lessons to games and TV? Across the hall from Steven Johnson at the session "Eye on Design: Inspiration from Outside the Museum," speakers also discussed learning from spaces and pastimes beyond museums' walls—from public gardens to baseball games. Emily Sloat Shaw of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden cited her favorite place, Boston's Fenway Victory Gardens. Within the busy city, Bostonians cordon off private sections of the garden to plant flowers, socialize or quietly sit and read. Shaw challenged museums to create such personal spaces within their public institutions.

As the hardcore "Lost" fans have done, "Eye on Design" focused on creating communities. The minor league Albuquerque Isotopes makes Jennifer Atkins of Andrew Merriell and Associates, an interpretive planning and design company, think about museums. Before each game's first pitch, the announcer introduces the team as "YOUR Albuquerque Isotopes." This sense of community ownership is enhanced by a local flair—the stadium serves slices from an area pizza joint, for example—and a laid-back, sociable setting. How, Atkins asked, can we make visitors see our museums as THEIR museums?

And how can we bring in visitors that wouldn't normally enter our doors? Nina Simon, chair of the session and creator of the Museum 2.0 blog, suggested museums can form communities that draw in non-traditional audiences as well. Nike and Apple recently teamed up to produce Nike+, a sensor that slips into your sneaker and connects with your iPod to track how far and fast you've run. Users then upload and share this information with an online community of runners, who challenge each other to run further and faster. The sense of fellowship has inspired even those intimidated by running to hit the track.

"They took an activity that can be unpleasant and isolating and created a product that creates a virtual community," Simon said. "You get motivation from other people without having to watch them run faster than you."

Wising Up with World of Warcraft?

Author Steven Berlin Johnson's seven-year-old nephew, Wyatt, was restless during a rainy family vacation a few years ago. To distract him, Johnson gave Wyatt a rudimentary tour of SimCity, one of the bestselling video games of all time, in which players control every aspect of a virtual city—from zoning to taxation to transportation. Simplifying for his nephew, Johnson stuck to exploring the game's graphical elements, such as icons of children romping in a digital playground.

Then he showed Wyatt a part of town where he was having trouble. The factories he built were boarded up, deemed unusable by his virtual citizens. Wyatt looked at the screen, at his uncle, back at the screen. "I think you need to lower your industrial tax rates," he suggested.

After a double-take (or two), Johnson realized that Wyatt had been processing the brief overview of SimCity on a very high level—and one that's hardly unusual for his generation. As much slack as our reality TV-driven popular culture receives, today's "mindless" activities are actually making us smarter, Johnson argues in his book Everything Bad Is Good For You, also the title of his Thought Leader session this morning. He maintains that an increasingly sophisticated lineup of video games and television shows has made us able to think on a much higher level than we could 30 years ago.

For example, Johnson pointed to Lost, one of today's most-watched series. Yes, people sit down to passively watch the show each week—but there's nothing mindless about it. The characters, plot lines and unsolved mysteries number in the hundreds. Compare this to perhaps the most complex show of the 1980s, Hill Street Blues, which never became a huge hit; NBC eventually put out a press release admitting it made the program "too complicated" for viewers.

Today, we not only understand, we participate, creating communities that dissect and explore our favorite games and programs in-depth. Johnson flashed slide after slide of webpages from Lost fansites, where viewers post theories, ask questions, even create detailed maps of the show's imaginary island. Same goes for digital games, such as the popular and incredibly elaborate Civilization IV. Invested in the characters, the unfolding stories, fans dedicate literally hundreds of hours thinking about pop culture.

Compare this to the typical museum visit: two or three hours, 20 or 30 minutes per exhibit, and that's it for at least a few months. Entertainment today involves challenge and engagement, Johnson explained. If museums can apply the lessons of popular culture, we have a "great opportunity to take the Wyatts of the world, bring them into your spaces and figure out how to challenge and engage them as well."

I Just Got a Massage

Yes, there are sessions on everything from working mothers to green building to public speaking basics. But if you're here in Denver go—now—to the Life Balance Spa (room 604) and get a chair massage.

This is the first year for this feature, and I'm thinking it's a keeper. It was the perfect 15-minute break from carrying a too-heavy bag, running from sessions to meetings to sessions and sitting for a long, long time.

There are also yoga and t'ai chi classes in the mornings and evenings. Fun fact: The yoga instructor also works with Shaquille O'Neal. He brought one of Shaq's shoes to class this morning!

Idea-pooloza

Look for a fresh idea to kick-start a membership campaign. Keep on top of the latest in media and technology gadgets for your museum. Or just sit and brainstorm. AAM's Marketplace of Ideas is chock full of inspiration. I literally have chills walking through here—okay, it's the convention center A/C—but this is one of the most incredible places at the annual meeting. You can practically see the wheels churning in everyone's minds!

The Marketplace of Ideas is hosted by the Standing Professional Committees of AAM, and no matter what your area of interest—curatorial, visitor research, development, marketing, education—there's a solution, idea, new thought or practical advice to glean. My only advice is to prioritize. It's only one day!

Period Rooms Are Timeless

The image of museum professionals is that of a somber lot. That myth was thoroughly debunked by a Monday session at the AAM Annual Meeting, when talk of curatorship, literature and—egad, sex!—had a packed room roaring with laughter.

The session was titled "Exhibitions That Changed My Life," and leading off was noted educator, author and museum historian Marjorie Schwarzer. Her focus was on period rooms, their evolution in the museum toolkit and how over the years they have addressed history, immigrant assimilation, the desire to be rich and, yes, sex.

Schwarzer said that from the time of the first period room in America—George Washington's bedroom at Mt. Vernon, unveiled in the 1860s—period rooms have played a critical role in American institutions. Yet she also said that the perception of museums a century ago was that of "cluttered attics," and she had her audience laughing with her reference to John Updike's novella, "Museums and Women," in which he wrote movingly of his dread at the prospect of a visit to the local museum.

Yet, according to Schwarzer, period rooms also demonstrated our continuing "fascination with the super wealthy." She cited the Peacock Room of James MacNeil Whistler (now on display at Washington's Freer Gallery of Art), a creation that spawned numerous imitations—including one at Elvis's Graceland!—Dewey Blanton

The Lines Were Led

At tonight's emerging museum professional event, "Lead Between the Lines" at the Tattered Cover Book Store, partygoers were charged with sharing thoughts on leadership from a book or song. The responses were as diverse as the crowd, which included those from all walks of the field.

The folks who stepped up to the open mic were inspired to lead by everything from Darwin to Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma to Where the Wild Things Are. AAM's Anne Goska applauded Wild Things hero Max for his fearlessness and urged those in the crowd to stand their ground. "Go out there and have no fear of those people gnashing their teeth at you," she said.

Denise Gray, one of the evening's emcees and an educator at the L.A. Museum of Contemporary Art, went out on perhaps the biggest limb by suggesting that founding-father punk-rockers the Sex Pistols provided an example of how to lead. She quoted: "God save the queen; she ain't no human being. There is no future in England's dreaming. Don't be told what you want. Don't be told what you need. There's no future, no future, no future for you."

"Leadership equals risk-taking," Gray explained. "Challenge management. Be your own leader. If it makes sense, make trouble."

International Attendees: Plus Ça Change...

At today's International Attendees Welcome Reception, I assumed there'd be a babel of languages—maybe someone would even give me a chance to use my French or Spanish. I'd also get to eavesdrop on conversations about what was surely the vastly different world of museum practice in other countries. According to Heather Berry, my colleague in the international programs department, the 150 or so people who showed up represented an impressive range of countries from around the world.


"Fundraising for exhibitions can get difficult," one man told his group.


"We're going to have to work that out with the director and the board," I heard someone in another cluster say.


"Which sessions are you going to?" asked somebody else.


Hmph. I wonder if museums in other countries worry about visitation, too. It really is a global museum village.