Think of your institution as a scientific instrument. Like any instrument, it has built-in, repeating patterns of bias — what Douglas Hubbard calls systemic error — that consistently skew results. It’s tempting to assume we should try to eradicate systemic error, but that’s not really feasible. It would be like trying to make a bias-free human being or eliminating all the bacteria in your body. Biases, like bacteria, serve a purpose and are not inherently good or bad. So, the goal isn’t to eliminate systemic error but to simply calibrate the instrument to account for its predictable quirks.
Can an entire sector share the same systemic error? If humans share cognitive biases (thank you, Kahneman and Tversky), why not organizations? If anything, wouldn’t it be reasonable to think that groups of humans working in concert are more prone to compounding miscalibration? Museums copy each other all the time, for better and for worse — and it turns out there’s a name for that kind of behavior: institutional isomorphism. Professional norms congeal. Forms converge. Small departures from core principles (see below) are tolerated, repeated, and then mistaken for best practice. Error, done everywhere, starts to look like orthodoxy.
The Museum Sector’s Peculiar Miscalibration
An example of systemic error in the cultural sector would be our habit of defining people in one-dimensional terms (age, gender, race, etc.) even while genuinely wanting to respect people as complex individuals. These two impulses — the admirable principle and our self-defeating segmentation model — mix like oil and water. Yet you can’t make it through a meeting without hearing both discussed as if they were entirely compatible, the chocolate and peanut butter of audience learning.
We (I?) have to accept that museums will always be drawn to asking, “Who do we serve?” and they will always do so by first thinking in terms of demographics. Rather than wage war against this entrenched mental model, we can calibrate for it. We can offer alternatives that align with institutional thinking while producing better outcomes.
Approach 1: Defamiliarizing Through Play
Sometimes, to see potential, we need to make the familiar strange. Before science took hold, humans sometimes explained behavior through mysteries — spirits moving through people, inhabiting them temporarily before moving on. A spirit could inhabit anyone, regardless of age, gender, or residential zip code. You can try adopting this perspective in thinking about your institution’s audiences.
This perspective, though playful, isn’t so different from the typologies we use to define museumgoers today. Falk’s identity model arguably describes different spirits at work — one day someone is animated by the spirit of Facilitation, another day that same person may be led by a spirit best described as an Explorer or Professional. We can call them motivations, but to the extent that a bit of play helps you loosen the guardrails and reimagine your purpose, I encourage you to do so. In the end, whether we’re talking in paranormal or psychological terms, these models succeed to the extent that they shift focus from demographic categories to states of being.
Try speaking these aloud (with or without burning incense and candles):
Does this experience satisfy entities seeking calm?
How would a spirit interested in novel experiences respond to this membership renewal?
Can a lonely spirit connect with others beyond their group in this space?
The absurdity is the point. Once we see how absurd it is that museums design exhibits and programs around fixed identities, questions like these become more acceptable. Can’t a parent visiting with children feel lonely and seek connection outside their group, or a neurotypical person want a quiet moment with friends — even if “quiet hours are for neurodivergent visitors”?
Once you realize the default perspective is upside-down, you’re more inclined to tolerate abnormal ways of looking. If the emperor has no clothes, you may as well try dressing down a bit.
Approach 2: From “Who” to “When”
If spirits feel too playful for your institution, try this: Stop asking who you serve. Ask when you serve.
The “who” question is important, but it’s also fraught in that it always recalls those same old demographic definitions. It’s a frontal assault in an important battle that’s doomed to fail because the situation calls for a flanking maneuver. Ask museum professionals “who” and you’ll get the usual suspects: seniors, students, Latinx, and lower-income. Scaffolding that becomes a compass.
But when forces a reframe. Try it:
When are we for?
When is this space for?
When is this mailing for?
Take quiet accommodations. Museums market calm spaces to neurodivergent visitors (good), but those spaces actually serve anyone in a calm-seeking state: the overstimulated parent, the anxious teen, the nurse on a 30-minute break. The space serves a when, not a who.
Our Value Realization Collaborative program participants are currently testing this. Participating institutions selected individuals who’ve recently moved (newcomers) and are seeking a sense of connection or belonging within their new group. Not a census slice — an episode. They’re designing for a when and a why, not a cardboard who.
The Substitution Principle
Humans are better at saying goodbye when it’s framed as hello. Substitution beats suppression.
You’ve probably noticed this with children. If they’re fidgeting in the back seat — banging together a pair of drumsticks or kicking the back of your seat — telling them to “stop” is less effective than offering an alternative (“Hey, check out this silly putty …”). Data supports what experience tells us. And adults aren’t all that different from children in this way. Those recovering from addiction may do better when, rather than reaching for a cigarette, they grab the pack of gum in their pocket. Someone who has spent years living a regimented life in a cult will fare better if new routines and social structures can supplant the old ones. (I’ll admit my primary source for this last idea is The Leftovers, and let you decide the truthiness of the claim.)
Museums face the same dynamic. We can’t erase the sector’s pull toward “who” — nor should we. Keep demographics for accountability. But design and decide with outcomes and episodes.
Name your institution’s spirits. Map your whens. Then observe whether people actually get what they came for. That's when systemic error becomes systematic insight.