Emergent Value in Museums
Museum professionals and external stakeholders alike are hungry for evidence of their museum’s value. To satisfy our uncertainty, we often reach for familiar metrics like attendance numbers or evidence that people are…
Ideas & Events
Topics, contributors & sort
Making room for double-loop learning
We don’t often make time to confront our own uncertainty. With everything a person has to do, or could be doing, there’s little reason or incentive to go looking for the limits of…
Measuring the Value of Museum Experiences
My colleagues and I recently surveyed nearly 7,000 visitors across sixteen U.S. history museums to find out what well-being benefits visitors actually experience — and how long tho…
There is no average driver
There’s a tendency to think of averages as being “fair”. If we describe people in terms of averages, then we are somehow more likely to do t…
From Evaluation to Research
I came across this article, Evaluation, Research, and Communities of Practice: Program Evaluation in Museums, and thought it was really inte…
Don’t bring a data knife to a pet-idea gunfight
If an organization hasn’t determined what value it’s trying to provide to the communities it supports, it’s operating in a vacuum. Organizat…
By topic
Outcomes4
- EVENT
If It Matters, It’s Observable
Every measurement is a reduction — a simplified picture of something more complex. That’s what makes it useful. But having the richness of our work compressed into something…
- EVENT
Measuring Belonging
During The Outcomes Conversation, a few of us started talking about what it would look like to go deeper — to pull in research and literature that connects to the outcomes…
- EVENT
The Outcomes Conversation
“Engagement” is a security blanket. It’s vague enough to mean almost anything — attendance, repeat visits, social media impressions, time on site — and doesn’t have to have any…
The Chia Pet Principle
You’ve been in a meeting where someone says, “We need more data,” and kills all the forward momentum. They don’t (always) intend to be that guy , but they are, and, since they’re…
Strategy4
Four factors for prioritizing outcomes
How does an institution decide on an experiential posture? This question came up this week with two museums we’re working with. Identity questions are the hardest to answer.…
What a Visitor Survey Can’t Decide for Your Museum
Every museum makes choices about how it wants to treat the people who walk through the door. In dozens of small moments, it leans one way or another: toward provoking a visitor…
Museums as Societal Elder
Shared Experience, Human Well-Being, and the Future of Museums I have spent a lot of time lately thinking about the future of museums. In addition to my own writing and talks,…
Give your colleagues a chance to surprise you
Some of you are struggling with how to get your colleagues to shift their thinking about incorporating research into their decisions. This is a pattern I’ve noticed in recent…
Other1
By contributor
Kyle Bowen4
Four factors for prioritizing outcomes
How does an institution decide on an experiential posture? This question came up this week with two museums we’re working with. Identity questions are the hardest to answer.…
What a Visitor Survey Can’t Decide for Your Museum
Every museum makes choices about how it wants to treat the people who walk through the door. In dozens of small moments, it leans one way or another: toward provoking a visitor…
Give your colleagues a chance to surprise you
Some of you are struggling with how to get your colleagues to shift their thinking about incorporating research into their decisions. This is a pattern I’ve noticed in recent…
The Chia Pet Principle
You’ve been in a meeting where someone says, “We need more data,” and kills all the forward momentum. They don’t (always) intend to be that guy , but they are, and, since they’re…