Living in Kidcity

Lessons from Interactivity

2011-05-22T14:47:00.009-04:00

One last post from my visit to ACM's Interactivity,

the national children's museum conference in Houston.

Here are some notes from the Interactivity conference sessions that I enjoyed:

Would you like fries with that?

Maybe it’s not the most glamorous part of our business, but children’s museums need good computer systems for making sales (cash register), booking parties and events (calendar), running our shops (inventory), and keeping track of members and supporters (database & online communication). I was complaining about the lack of good options at last year’s Interactivity, and was delighted to find a session this year that went right at the question, led by Denver’s Mike Yankovich and Please Touch’s Concetta Bencivenga.

While a few representatives from common ticketing systems watched, about 20 of us from children’s museums of all sizes and shapes made lists of what we want these systems to do, and how they fall short. Hopefully the vendors who were there appreciated their front row seat to an unvarnished customer opinion. As for the museums, we plan to compile our needs into a proposal, and if need be, work with the vendors to help them do a better job of serving our market, at a price we can afford.

One big happy family….almost

Most children’s museums participate in the national reciprocal program, selling a membership card that provides free admission to all the other museums in the program. In the past few years, it’s become clear that this system has some problems, and on Thursday, about 50 of us hashed it out over lunch. The problems fall into three main categories: pricing, geography, and abuse.

Price: the rules dictate that museums charge at least $100 for the ACM card, but some charge much more and they can find their customers scooped (sometimes by online savvy customers) by museums at the lower rate. On this issue, there seems to be some consensus among those in the room that $125 or even $150 was a more practical price, given that it hasn’t gone up since the mid-1990’s, and the use of the card is so much more extensive (and therefore has a bigger impact on museums) than it did back then.

Distance: Some museums feel that the card shouldn’t work on museums in close proximity to each other, instead having an exclusion clause for other museums within 90 miles. This is the system used by the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) for their reciprocal card. An on-going survey of reciprocal museums, though, showed that about ¾ would rather NOT have an exclusion (get those surveys in, folks!) In the past year or so, ACM has experimented with letting individual museums create mutual restrictions, which makes it a pain in the neck for card-holders, who have to wade through a lot of fine print just to be sure they can use the card. That hardly seems an improvement.

Abuse: Some people have figured out how to game the system, and sometimes it creates more lost income than a museum can bear. Sigh...

My own perspective as Kidcity's director is that I hope we Don't Throw the Baby out with the Bathwater. Even though visits on the ACM card are a full 15% of our overall attendance - that means we don't get any income from that attendance - I still feel that the program benefits both Kidcity and the overall field. I am in support of a price increase though - because I think that the value would still be there for families at $125 or $130, especially in our region, where they can visit about a dozen museums within an hour or two's drive.

The ACM Board will be considering changes to the program at their meeting this summer, and then they'll give museums a year to decide whether they like the changes or want to opt out of the program.

Oooh....Eye Candy!

Maybe it's just me, but I think the most fun part of the conference is seeing images from other children's museums, especially the good ones! The new children's museum in Madison, Wisconsin looks amazing, with chickens wandering around on the green roof, a steampunk big-kid space, and a wiggly suspension bridge crossing the airspace of their early childhood room. After just a few minutes, I was pretty sure I wanted to move there. Then I saw the photos of an amazing tree-walk designed by Aaron Goldblatt for the arboretum in Philadelphia. Imagine a beautifully crafted boardwalk through the tree canopy, punctuated with occasional giant hammocks, all 50-feet up in the air.

I won't bore you with the details....

....but I'm incredibly excited about the new ACM benchmark calculator which debuts this summer. You can compare your museum with others of the same budget, or attendance, or staff size, or regional population.... ok, nap time's over.

A Really Interesting Idea

ACM again turned out an amazing keynote speaker with Steven Johnson, who wrote Where Good Ideas Come From. Johnson challenges the notion that breakthrough ideas come from some lone genius, instead pointing out the importance of connections between people as the root of innovation. That's good news for our current generation of social networkers - according to Johnson, they are uniquely poised to take advantage of each other's expertise and resources when it's their turn to create the future. I'm part-way through his book, and my new favorite concept is the idea of the Adjacent Possible, which means that innovation can only grow from what already exists, but it also means that innovation is always possible from what's in front of you right now (I find this especially interesting from an urban planning perspective: what do I want my community to be come, and what's the next step to get there. I wonder what can grow out of the elements which are already here?)

I appreciated Johnson's optimism. Personally, I'm getting tired of all the doom and gloom about how we all need to focus on the economy and job training - I think it leads to a narrow focus in the education system and in business. I'd love to see more worrying about the quality of our ideas and less about our financing - that's true for the children's museum field and the whole country!

That's my wrap-up from Interactivity 2011. It was well worth the trip - next year, it's off to Portland, Oregon!

P.S. I don't want to leave the impression that we worked ALL the time in Houston. To satisfy Kidcity Manger Caitlin Pierce's obsession, we tracked down a hipster food truck on the corner of Montrose and Willard, where I had the best burger of my life (along homemade ketchup, tipsy onions & sweet potato fries) Just something we'd love to see more of in Little ol' Middletown, CT.

Adult Swim

2011-05-21T15:39:00.011-04:00

The last session of the 2011 ACM conference was about as raw and honest as any discussion I've ever heard among children's museums over the years.

Kathy Gustafson-Hilton of Hands-On Inc. brought us together for a new-to-ACM format call The Fishbowl. She set the ground rules: People in the front row of a circle of chairs would offer a tale of risk from their museum - they would give up their seat when they were ready, and someone from the back rows could go for it.

It was a little scary in the Fishbowl. Interestingly, the group seemed to be mostly executive directors and others in leadership in the field. People told stories of faith, trust, betrayal, deceit, glory....if you had to sum it up in a single word, I'd have to say "Passion". The details of each story weren't important, but the sentiment was: we love what we do. But for a moment - and this is hardly typical of the conference - the vibe was less of the self-congratulatory and more of the confessional.

The topics ranged as widely as the museums themselves. Some museums are making hard exhibit choices - especially the question of whether traveling exhibits (a sacred cow in the industry) were really worth the money and loss of creative control for the hosting museum (um...can you tell where I stand on that issue?) Others were diving into challenging social issues where they felt driven to make a difference, but full of worry about the impact on their operations.

A few were excited about new opportunities and expansion plans, and others talked about the role that their boards play. For non-profits, it's the board that sets the policy and strategic direction, and the executive director who follows that plan. I hope I don't shock anyone when I say that this is a complicated dance in the best of organizations, and has wrecked havoc in more than a few.

This was a great format for an ACM session - I loved the chance to hear directors talk so openly about the issues they face. Since we're in true confession mode, I'll say this: I often leave the conference wishing I'd spoken less and listened more. This format let me hear from many people I've met or known for years, but I'd just never heard them speak so clearly, and from the heart.

Maybe it's because I came to be a children's museum director as a Mom fresh from the supportive atmosphere of the Playgroup circuit, but I really value hearing about how people feel about the work they do. In some ways it's less "professional" - but it also re-energizes us for the work ahead.

Pecha Kucha 2011

2011-05-19T15:32:00.011-04:00

Dear Reader,
It's true I haven't been in touch lately on this blog - we've been busy on a top-secret project at Kidcity and I knew I'd spill the beans if I even opened my mouth. But we're almost ready to reveal what we've been up to - hopefully next week!

In the meantime, I'm at the national meeting of the Association of Children's Museums in Houston, TX and I'll be blogging about the conference for a few days. Be back at Kidcity soon!

I'm seriously considering taking up the ukelele. You would be too, if you'd been at the Pecha Kucha session last night at Houston's Heritage Society.

For the newbies, Pecha Kucha gives you 6 minutes and 40 seconds to show 20 slides and talk about what inspires you - it started in Japan and has spread all over the world, including the ACM conferences in 2009 and 2010. This year, the ACM Pecha Kucha showcased 10 people from the children's museum field. As instigator Paul Orselli pointed out, it alternates between the sublime and the ridiculous: where on earth did Erich Rose find that photo - let's just call it Manequin Parts with Hose and Duct Tape. It was more of a "Don't" than a "Do".

For me, the evening was a bit of a blur because I was so nervous about making my first ACM presentation - it was thrilling, even if I did accidentally press pause on the laptop part-way through my presentation.

Oh, I wish I had pictures...but here's a smattering of what I remember:

•Becky Lindsay captured the exhibit designer's quandry of the tension between the macro exhibit (how it looks from the outside), and the micro exhibit (the loose parts and tasks that actually engage your child visitors). Creating that outside WOW is important, but it's the micro level that leads to the sustained, imaginative play that makes a magical children's museum experience.

•Clifford Wagner demonstrated the power of the Path of Least Resistance, and encouraged us to use it both in exhibit design and in opening potato chip bags.

•Paul Orselli waved the banner - bless him - of why children's museums should develop their internal capacity to create their own exhibits. It's at least as important as having a snazzy cafe (where you just might find your visitors taking a nap.)

•Aaron Goldblatt treated us to sort of mental yoga class. Suggesting that ugly things become beautiful if you look at them long enough, he showed us his photos of found and forgettable corners of urban life. We mulled them over in silence, a la John Cage.

•Sari Bowen bravely and beautifully told us about her unexpected love affair with the ukelele - and how she dreamed of creating just such a "ukelele experience" for visitors in children's museums. When was the last time you fell in love with an idea and then let it move in? What makes that perfect combination of openess (you) and inspiration (it) that knocks you off your feet? After asking this question, she led us all in a sing-along of Ringo Starr's "You're Sixteen". We didn't sound too shabby!

The room was packed, the bar was busy, and two lucky winners went home with door prizes! I'd like to suggest that ACM issue a special community service award to Paul Orselli (and his usual co-host Peter Exeley) for this new tradition. Pecha Kucha is a great way to start the conference!

Books, books & more books!

2010-09-24T12:37:00.000-04:00

If you've been to Kidcity in the past few months, this is old news...

...the new bookstore is open!

There is a lot more room for reading, a corner bench and fun library stools to slide around on. And, of course, lots of new titles. (A book called Chester is the new staff pick, but we're also partial to Binky, the Space Cat.)

We've separated the books into categories like "Small World", "Cool Science", "Things that Go" and "Busy Books".

My personal favorite is the "Vintage" category. That means we have a special shelf for the books we loved when we were little -- they're now back in print for our own kids. So you can get Harold and the Purple Crayon and A is for Annabelle right here.

Matt built this nifty cabinet to hold 8 new styles of t-shirts - but we're still working on the designs.

What do you think of this one...maybe on a bright purple tee?

P.S. I'm crazy about the photo-fun carpet tiles in the new bookstore - they're from Flor!

The Merry Month of May

2010-05-26T12:58:00.010-04:00

The month of May typically means beautiful weather in Connecticut. Unfortunately, this year is no exception.

In other words, it's pretty quiet these days at Kidcity, since everyone seems to be playing outside instead.

Here's a photo of folks on the Kidcity staff trying to stay busy by trying on dress up costumes. Lookin' good, guys!

If you happen to be one of those families that hates a crowd, then please....come play!

Meanwhile, we are making progress on our new museum shop.

Here's a shot of Matt and Scott as we debate building another cabinet (see the cardboard prototype).

Instead, Matt built these steel "ladders" that fit between the joists, and then we lined the back wall with black beadboard.

In other news, we picked out ceiling tile, got the carpet in, decided to wallpaper, decided not to wallpaper after seeing the samples, and Scott is now testing a linen faux-paint technique on the walls.

Best of all, we got some new titles in, even though the new shop isn't ready for them. My kid loves this one:

Enjoy the nice weather and come back and play soon!

Mental Floss

2010-05-07T11:56:00.026-04:00

To Kidcity's Visitors: I'm in St. Paul, Minnesota for the annual children's museum conference. I'll be back to blogging about regular Kidcity news soon!

The annual ACM conference has never failed to serve up at least one Really Big Idea that sustains me long after I've returned home. One year, they engaged Jim Collins to talk about how his "Good to Great" philosophy could help children's museums develop their focus on their core mission, and I'm still carrying around the card with my hedgehog concept that I jotted down as he spoke. Another year, Greg Mortensen made us all examine whether we have really stretched ourselves to equal the importance of our purpose when he described his journey of building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan with "Three Cups of Tea". And I will forever be grateful that I was in the room back in New York City in 1999 when Neil Postman blew the lid off any ideas I'd ever had about education when he listed the "Five Things we Need to Teach our Young" (which is inexplicably not available online, but was published in Hand in Hand, Vol. 13, #2.)

Here's one more for the list: after this morning's presentation by Dan Pallotta, author of "Uncharitable", I will never see my work and the tools I can use in the same light. He argues that we've set our whole non-profit sector up for failure, even though-- paradoxically -- we already know how to make it thrive.

The methods that make companies like Apple, Coke or Disney so huge, are the very methods that we won't allow our "helping" organizations to use. And isn't it more important to be successful in saving the world than in entertaining it?

He notes our obsession with evaluating non-profits by the size of their overhead. Although that produces pithy ratings about "how much of your donation actually goes to the cause", it doesn't measure whether the organization is doing a good job or having an impact. He asked us to imagine walking into a shoe store and saying: show me the shoes with the lowest overhead! Yet that's often how we make our choices for much more important issues.

Specifically, he pointed out five strategies of the for-profit world that we deny non-profits:

•can’t use money to attract leadership talent
•can’t advertise on the same scale
•can’t take risks trying new sources of revenue
•can’t take the long term view by spending cash now for a return years down the road
•can't raise money through the stock market

This guy was just genius. You have to read his book, or at least look at his website, because these ideas are inevitably going places.

Actually, I've encountered genius twice today, and it's not even noon.

I spent breakfast wandering around the convention hall where the various exhibit designers peddle their wares...which I usually find to be an underwhelming experience. Fortunately there is the occasional exception: I was rendered absolutely speechless (well, at least incoherent) by the images of the Noah's Ark exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center of Los Angeles, particularly of the animals that were fabricated from found materials by Lexington, a fabrication and design firm.

The craft, the whimsy, the bold re-imagination of form, and the flat-out invitation to play - this is just the kind of unique, artist-driven work that would be the best business choice a children's museum could make. In these days of multiple museums (at Kidcity, we've got 5 other children's museums within 30-minutes drive, plus a new state-sponsored science museum), how can the same old laminate and label philosophy of exhibit design cut through the clutter. The answer is art. That's not just about aesthetics and core values -- those are just bonus -- it's also the business insurance you take out against the very real possibility of a cookie-cutter neighbor scooping up your visitors. Walking away from their display, all I could think was "When are people going to realize that you always go to the Dunkin Donuts which is closest to the exit?"

I wish I had a more eloquent way to express this, but here's the thing: I just get so excited about encountering excellence in any field. Dan's book, a twisted giraffe sculpture, or the perfect hotel we have in St. Paul - somehow we don't have a word for this sort of stellar entrepreneurial spirit. I actually feel a sense of grace in it's presence - and it's worth the trip.

(here's the pig sculpture that drew me to the Lexington booth in the first place - how cool is this!)

Who's bored now?

2010-05-06T13:32:00.007-04:00

To Kidcity's visitors: I'm blogging from the national children's museum conference in St. Paul, Minnesota...I promise that I'll get back to regular Kidcity news soon!

I just came from a session here at the ACM conference that was so boisterous that it was almost impossible to get a word in edgewise -- which is kind of funny since it's a topic that most people would consider a bit dry.

It was about how to create financial reports for children's museums.

That's probably why Mike Yankovich from the CM of Denver showed this slide of someone snoring...that was right before his presentation was pretty much hi-jacked by people in the room who kept jumping in with their two-cents.

I know some people find this stuff dull, but for this crowd, it was like being in a room full of Star Trek geeks and then Leonard Nimoy shows up to chat.

So what should be measured at children's museums? Is it just about ticket sales and gift shop income? Or how the fundraising does? Or whether there's enough in the bank to make payroll? (ok, that last one IS pretty important.)

And who wants to know this stuff?

My friends in the children's museum field know that I am a fiend for data - where are visitors from? How did this weekend compare to the same weekend last year, and what was the weather? Are we using more paper towels and less Purell? I really love this stuff. Basically, I think you can't have too much information when you are trying to understand why people might choose to come play at your museum.

The folks in this session were my soulmates: at least 5 people weighed in on the question of whether to track the depreciation rate of exhibits. In other words, should you measure how quickly your exhibits are "used up" - and is that a question of whether something needs to be replaced because it's broken, or is it just that your adult visitors might wait to bring their kid to the museum until you are advertising something "new". A few people proposed that it's an opportunity to educate visitors about how repeat visits to the same exhibit are the best thing developmentally for kids. As Concetta from Please Touch Museum in Philly said: "I gotta ask, how many times did you read Good Night Moon to your kid?" (Our exhibits at Kidcity are permanent for just that reason.)

Personally, I've grown to love measuring depreciation - no matter why you need to change an exhibit, you should understand how much of your physical plant you are "spending" every day - and if you let your rate of investment dip below that level, well then you are running a deficit no matter what your bank account tells you.

The springboard for all this conversation was the system that the museum in Denver is using to track their "Key Performance Indicators". They set a goal - like understanding their audience. Then they measure the diversity of their audience in both socioeconomic and ethnic terms - and not just by tracking zip codes. Their method of spending the occasional week asking every visitor to take a survey drew a lot of pointed questions - exactly how do they get a response rate of 70% - that's pretty high. Mike's advice was "keep it short." Their fire truck exhibit is visible from the door, and he said it's like it's a magnet and the kids are made of steel - there's no way that a grown-up is going to be able to answer more than a few quick questions. Also, he found that just explaining that the survey would help the museum do a better job serving its visitors was a motivator. After they've got the data, they compare it to their targets. For example, under the goal of Financial Sustainability, they had goals like "having 90 days of cash on hand", and having a ratio of earned to contributed income of at least 50:50.

By the way, in Denver, with a staff of 42 FTE's, and 269,000 visitors in 10,000 sq. ft. of exhibits, they are claiming the mantle of "most crowded children's museum in the country." Sounds plausible.

As we were wrapping up, Janet Rice Elman, the association's exec director, weighed in with her advice on how to make sure that all the people that need to know the numbers can get them - ACM uses Base Camp, an online system for sharing documents, which lets the association board members easily view all the financial reports, and also tracks who is actually logging on. That helps keep everyone in the same information loop. That's something I'll be looking into for Kidcity.

It seems that a number of us are in pursuit of the Holy Grail - a simple but accurate set of indicators that would give you a real snapshot of the current and future health of your museum. A dashboard that would tell you at a glance - is this bus taking us where we want to go?

On the other hand, though simple is good, I can think of lots of things we don't track very well at Kidcity - how many costumes do we go through in our dress-up room, how many people choose to buy a membership after spending a few hours with us, what kinds of things get in the way of families deciding to come play (I'm not even sure how we'd measure that, but I'd sure like to know!)

In my opinion, the mother of all data points is the number of people who choose of their own free will to come visit your museum, followed closely by how far they are willing to travel. You can have really terrific bookkeeping systems, and impressive grant reports, but if you have to advertise like crazy just to get people in the door, then I'd suggest that it's more important to have a fun and worthwhile museum than great reporting systems. The truth is, it's not an either or choice - if you make the numbers your friend, they help you make your museum thrive by any measure.

P.S. Here's a tip for anyone in the business of making software for children's museums - like Vista, Blackbaud, Explora, and our own PayGo, a Filemaker program. Someone could make a lot of children's museums very happy if they would create a system that actually works well for running the cash register, connecting with the bookkeeping programs, tracking the donors, members and school groups, managing the gift shop inventory, keeping the calendar for parties and events and sending the occasional email blast. Is that really too much to ask? So far, the answer would seem to be yes!

Putting the Muse in Museum

2010-05-06T00:36:00.009-04:00

We're interrupting the construction of Kidcity's new bookstore for a visit to the national conference of the Association of Children's Museums! Over the next few days, I'll be writing about the conference, so my apologies to my regular Kidcity visitors - hopefully you'll find something interesting in these writings, but if not, don't worry. It will be over soon!

A great children's museum is like an advent calendar - that, and the title of this post, were just two of the nuggets of gold that I extracted from Daniel Spock's 400-second Pecha Kucha rant this evening.

Ok, I'll try to start at the beginning. (But don't you just love the idea of visitors leaning in and opening little advent doors full of surprises? I'd like to play there!)

Right....the beginning.

So, I'm in Minnesota at the annual ACM conference - with lots of people from children's museums around the world, including two others from Kidcity (that's Cait, our manager, and Matt, our exhibit builder).

We're here for three days of informative sessions on the nuts and bolts of the children's museum industry - there are workshops on how to hire the right staff, how to do promotions, and how to evaluate exhibits.

But before all that starts (Thursday morning), several dozen of us gathered for a Pecha Kucha session, organized by Paul Orselli and Peter Exley.

Pecha Kucha (say pe-CHA-ku-CHA) is a concept that started in Japan and has spread to cities across the world. Basically, each speaker gets 400 seconds to describe 20 slides, while the host periodically exhorts the participants to make more frequent visits to the bar.

Kind of like going to a poetry slam or church service - you feel like a good stiff breeze just blew through your head.

Here are a few moments:

Reverence:
Peter Exley lovingly pointed out the curved line of a favorite building, and Greg Belew offered up images of perfect steel pistons and crank shafts in the guts of an exhibit.

Risk:
With photos of the exuberantly crafted new climbing sculpture at the Children's Museum of Phoenix, AZ, both Becky Lindsay and Deb Gilpin talked about seeing the benefits of risk in play, not just the dangers. Or maybe Becky was talking about exhibit design when she said: Jump out of the window and make your wings on the way down.

Sass:
Aside from Daniel Spock's invigorating thoughts on liberating the play spirit, we got some of Paul Orselli's usual atypical common sense
on the topic of technology in children's museums. Sure there are exceptions - but mostly video screens just hypnotize and pacify us - which is pretty much the opposite of imaginative play and wonder.

Joy:
Brad Larson has been writing and tweeting his haiku, to capture his experience of nature. But Clifford Wagner thinks we should all take up the violin. Right now. There's a photo of him walking his dogs while fiddling. He says it's all about creating joy.

I think that's a good theme to start this year's ACM!

What's Next?

2010-05-04T08:49:00.004-04:00

Ever notice how construction causes a domino effect?

Last Fall, we decided to create a space where visitors could have snacks...so that meant we had to demolish the Red Party Room. Then we spent the Winter working on a new Red Party Room, with more space and light for better parties. Then we realized we had some extra space left over that could be used to expand the tiny bookstore next to our front desk, and that it would be even better if we redesigned the desk area first....

You get the idea.

So now we've finished the snacks, the parties and the front desk. It's time for the bookstore.

The people who work at Kidcity -- myself included -- are a little bit loopy on the subject of children's books. Next time you're at the front desk, ask Cait about Whangdoodles or Roxaboxen. Matt swears by Seven Silly Eaters. I'm completely unreasonable on the subject of author Lauren Child and her Clarice Bean picture books. In fact, quit reading this blog and go get yourself a copy of Guess Who's Babysitting, Clarice Bean. Happily for you, it comes out in paperback this month.

Now, where was I? Oh yes, our bookstore. Here are some photos of the old bookstore, and the construction in progress:

First we emptied out the old bookstore and tore down the wall.

Then we began experimenting with shelving ideas and carpet samples.

Then we worked out the room layout and prototyped a few different book display ideas.

Last week, Matt started building the shelves! Stay tuned.

And since you asked, here are just a few of the children's books that I think everyone should have "read out loud" to them, repeatedly, between the ages of zero and ten (listed here from youngest to oldest). We do carry these at Kidcity, but you can also find them at your local library!

Charlie Parker Plays Be Bop, by Chris Raschka
The Going to Bed Book, by Sandra Boynton
Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey
A is for Salad, by Mike Lester
When I was Young: A four-year-old's memoir of her youth, by Jamie Lee Curtis (yes, THAT Jamie Lee Curtis)
Bunny Money, by Rosemary Wells
When Dinosaurs Came with Everything, by Elise Broach
Clarice Bean, That's Me, by Lauren Child
Weslandia, by Paul Fleischman
Glinda of Oz, by L. Frank Baum (but only after you read the first 13 Oz books)
Trumpet of the Swan, by EB White

The Red Room is Ready to Party!

2010-05-03T14:22:00.000-04:00

We finished the Red Party Room back in early March, but I never shared my "before and after" photos. Of course, this being Kidcity, we don't actually feel like we are done with this project, and someday we plan to add a few more colorful accents around the room. That's the biggest problem we have...trying to decide when to move on to the next thing!

In my last post (a few months ago -- ahem), we'd just done the layout of the curved wall. The next step was to create windows that would let light in, but give party families some privacy.

Matt and Scott came up with these tiny openings, and then created handmade windows of glass beads floating in casting resin.

When the room was almost finished, we decided it needed more color -- a lot more color! So Scott designed this cool mural of a Frosting Factory run amok, spewing silver frosting all over the room.

It's really funny if you get up close and see the stuff these guys are doing:

Finally, here are a few shots of the room as it looks now:

Come take a peek next time you are at Kidcity!

Kidcity in the Courant

2010-02-28T08:19:00.001-05:00

The Hartford Courant came by a few weeks ago. They took some photos and posted them here. Be sure to click on the photos link on the left side.

I love the face of that kid going down the toddler slide!

Party Time

2010-01-15T16:52:00.000-05:00

If you've ever had a birthday party at Kidcity, then you probably know that we've had one big, bright party room upstairs (called The Green Room), and one tiny, windowless room downstairs (called The Red Room). It seemed like that smaller room was always too crowded for the large, family-style parties (with lots of aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.) that come to Kidcity.

When our recent renovations to the coatroom swallowed up the old Red Room, we decided to create a new party room in the empty space next to the first floor elevator.

Since we had so much fun in the coatroom with swoopy shapes of metal, we decided to do a wainscot of galvanized steel that will hold up to the splashes and knocks that are inevitable. So far, we've moved one of the murals in the Space Age Roadtrip to create a new hallway, and built a curved wall that will give the party room some privacy, but still let light in through some tiny, fun windows. Here are some photos of the work this week: they progress from our first sketches of an outline for the room, to putting tape on the floor to show where tables and walls will go, to this morning's chalking of the design on the new curved wall next to the elevator.

If you have any ideas about how we can make our party rooms better at the children's museum, please chime in!

It's Snack Time!

2009-12-30T16:32:00.000-05:00

After two months of construction. the new section of the coatroom opened during one of our busiest weeks of the year! Here are some photos of families snacking during the holiday vacation.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

2009-12-14T17:39:00.000-05:00

The new section of Kidcity's coatroom should be open by Christmas!

Though it is a non-denominational seating area, it looks like the completion of the construction will coincide with the upcoming holiday. It's a good thing, too, because we continue to get a suggestion every few days that "Kidcity needs an area for having snacks!"

Today, Matt and Scott propped up the new counters and stools so that we could set the exact locations. It was my job to make a fool of myself by squealing "It's so cute!" over and over, and then saying "ok, a little to the left".

Here are some photo's from the day:

Putting the Puzzle Together

2009-11-23T23:05:00.000-05:00

Construction at Kidcity is always a little complicated since our top priority is keeping our visitors safe - that's why we've installed a temporary wall in the coatroom while we create our new snack area.

But Kidcity doesn't open until 11 am on Mondays, so we took advantage of the extra time to pop the fiberboard off the framing and take a look at our progress. The new spines have been professionally lacquered and installed in the room, and the walls got a fresh coat of white paint - but the rest of the project is still in the cardboard&chalk design phase. With the temporary wall down, we were able to make some key decisions about the placement of tables, benches and stools - and as usual, we wound up adding some cool new ideas that will undoubtedly make things take a little longer than planned.

Here are some photos of this morning's session -- that's Scott Kessel drawing on cardboard, and Matt Niland's testing a layout for the countertop.

So when will it be finished? Oh please don't ask me that!

Colors!

2009-11-14T07:39:00.000-05:00

The new spines, all in a pile. Shiny topcoat next!

What's behind the wall?

2009-10-30T10:40:00.001-04:00

We are 18 days into the transformation of our old Red Party Room into a snacking nook off our coatroom. Here are some photos of the work in progress.

First, we worked out the floor plan - we always start with outlining our ideas in chalk or masking tape right on the floor - then we walk around in it and try to imagine how it will flow with our visitors. Next we move to cardboard. In this case, we knew we wanted to keep the crazy colorful forest theme of the coatroom, so it was just a matter of figuring out how to incorporate some seating and coat storage amid the spines.

We know there won't be enough seating for all our visitors at one time, but we are trying to create a variety of options. In the end, there should be some kind of space for every kind of family.

Next we cut the shapes out of birch ply and sand and prep them.

Next step....colors! Coming soon.

Just what you've been asking for!

2009-10-14T12:07:00.000-04:00

The number one suggestion that we get at Kidcity goes something like this:

Please! Make a place where I can sit and give my kids a snack!

I'm happy to announce that we have finally begun construction on a snack area. The coatroom will grow a new wing (the red party room is rapidly being demolished as I write) and we'll have some extra coat storage, along with some seating areas that are perfect for serving snack. Plus a drinking fountain and place to wash up.

Things will be a little crowded (and occasionally noisy) over the next several weeks as we do our construction. Hopefully, by the time the Holidays are here, it should be a little easier to give your kids some crackers and cheese and a juice box before heading back into the museum to play.

Here are some photos of the work in progress...but they look a little like Before and After shots in reverse. We had to take down a really sweet bench to make room for the new space:

Here's what it looked like Wednesday morning:

Here's what it looked like Thursday morning:

By the way, we always welcome any suggestions at Kidcity! In fact, we just built a new suggestion box in the lobby area. Can you guess what the very first suggestion in the new box was?

Gone Fishin'

2009-07-08T12:15:00.001-04:00

Since early May, we've had the Clipper Ship section of the Fishery room closed as we repaired some old murals and added some new fish play. Last week I took a few pictures to show you what's been done, and what we're still working on.

For many years we've been planning to do a tiny mural that could be seen through the telescope on the ship's deck (actually, it's the nozzle from an old firehose, not a telescope at all, but we thought it served our purpose!) Scott Kessel created this mermaid and swordfish dance that is just the right size. At the same time, we repaired the old walls and refinished the floors where our visitors "walk the plank".

One of our goals was to create new ways to move fish around, and the "Crank n Chum" does just that - you can toss back some fish and feed them to the sharks!

This area under the captain's deck used to hold a treasure chest - which looked cool but didn't do much. In the photo below, you can see our exhibit builder Matt Niland thinking through some ideas about how to get the fish down to the "brig" and then back out again. It involves a new treasure chest with a secret compartment.

Speaking of secrets, I'm not giving them all away in this blog post! But here's a hint: when the room opens, you'll have a new way to be seen and not heard, and visa versa.

Not just bowling alone

2009-05-03T08:15:00.000-04:00

At Interactivity, I loved hearing Jane Werner from the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh stand up and say:

“Things have been going pretty well at our museum, so we started thinking how we could leverage our strength to improve our neighborhood.”

For me, that was a big WOW. Maybe I need to get out more, but that’s the first time I’ve heard that kind of talk from any other children’s museum (other than using educational programs as outreach and social service). She mentioned interesting ideas like covering the local highway underpass with art, and stimulating connections between the various parks and cultural attractions in her area through the Charm Bracelet project. Since my motivations for starting Kidcity were more about quality of life in our community than about education, this was right up my alley.

As Kidcity’s director, I spend a significant amount of time working on Middletown. Although I can’t say I planned it this way, I find that my focus on the community helps the museum in two ways: first, there is a direct relationship between Kidcity’s appeal and the quality of our town – as Middletown goes up or down, so goes our draw as a destination. Second, my work builds social capital for Kidcity, and I know that we owe our existence and growth more to social capital than to financial capital. Social capital builds when you contribute to the life of the community (I love Robert Putnam’s book “Bowling Alone” for a very persuasive argument on this topic). Briefly put, having social capital means that when you want to get things done, the credibility and friendships you have developed are just like money in the bank. As an additional bonus, it’s fun.

So what does "Building Social Capital" mean on a daily basis? That would be different for everyone, but here are some of the things that I've been working on in the past year or so in our little town of 42,000 souls (other than my administrative and design work at the museum):
•helping establish "Creative Juice", a council for people in the arts and creative industries at our local chamber of commerce, co-chairing the first year;
•chairing the Downtown Business District (now 8 years old). The DBD is a group of 140 Main Street businesses that agreed to tax ourselves. I helped write our operating plan, which starts with the principle that Middletown has to be "clean, safe, and civil" before businesses can thrive -- we run a variety of maintenance, beautification projects, as well as providing strolling downtown guides.
•writing about city meetings and other stuff for a new hyper-local news blog, www.middletowneyenews.blogspot.com, which began in response to the decline of our local newspapers.
•being active on a 15-month study of the parking in our downtown, and lobbying for a new municipal department to manage it all.
•trying - and mostly failing - to find a resolution to the onslaught of graffiti around town, hopefully including a managable system for reporting and quick clean-up.
•helping various local non-profits with fundraising (sometimes at Kidcity and sometimes independently) and being active in the PTA of the Title 1 school in our neighborhood, where my 1st grader is a student.
•going to stuff! Supporting the dances, performances, meetings, potlucks and instigations of my neighbors.

Over the next few months I expect to be working on the design of a grant-funded wayfinding system (our downtown signage is truly awful - here's a photo of the excellent wayfinding system I saw in Philadelphia) and starting a dialogue with other arts/entertainment venues to talk about a possible joint branding and promotion campaign. I'd love to hear more people in the children's museum field talk about ways that they are connecting to others throughout the community, not just in direct partnerships, but in ways that "leverage the strength" of the children's museum to help the community in diverse ways.

What's your brand?

2009-04-30T22:10:00.000-04:00

I love it when Interactivity brings people from outside the children's museum field to give us a fresh perspective on our business practices. Wednesday's session with a company called “Brand Champs” was a great learning opportunity for any children’s museum that wants to have more clarity about who they are and how they communicate that to the world.

Fran and Bill Lytle, the married couple that is Brand Champs, started with the message that your children’s museum has an identity and you can analyze first what that identity is, and then understand whether you are sending the right message about it to the public.

What follows is the first part of their step-by-step process, which they peppered with examples both from the children’s museum field and national brands that we all know. If you work at a children's museum (or you are trying to start one), you should get a pen and paper and treat this like a quiz.

1. Determine your brand personality. Fran and Bill believe that all brands fall into one of these five categories. (The words in italics are just examples of that main quality – it’s not a complete definition, but it can help you figure out where you fit.)

a. Sincerity (down to earth, honest, wholesome, cheerful)
b. Excitement (daring, spirited, imaginative, up-to-date)
c. Competence (reliable, intelligent, successful)
d. Sophistication (upper class, cosmopolitan)
e. Ruggedness (outdoorsy, rough)

Of course, if you’re like me, you’ll be saying that you can’t fit in just one box – I’d say that Kidcity has a little bit A, B, and D, and none of C or E. But when really pressed, I come down to words like “authentic” and “quirky” which (I think) fall into the Sincerity category. I think of us as something like the World’s Largest Ball of Twine – you’d have to be crazy to collect that much string, but hey, you gotta hand it to them for commitment.

2. Next, identify what kind of Brand/Visitor relationship you have. Again, you can only pick one.

a. Passion (expectation, powerful, full of anticipation and satisfaction)
b. Intimacy (when a company says: We know something about you – if it is a good thing, you will be more of it if you use us, if it is a bad thing, we can help.)
c. Nostalgia (based on a longing for something that happened in the past. Mixed feelings of happiness and longing evoked by past experiences)
d. Partnership (if your museum can say to the visitor: I ‘m working with you toward one single goal.)

These were easier to understand when Fran gave us examples: Curves understands that women want to get in shape, but they don’t want to feel self-conscious while they are exercising – that relationship is Intimacy. Dove understands that we want to live in a world where women have a healthy body image, and their campaign about real beauty helps us do that – that’s Partnership. The Holocaust Museum covers a topic that people feel passionate about and you know you will see and feel something intense when you go there – that’s Passion.

In my case, Kidcity’s brand/visitor relationship is definitely Intimacy. I know that my customers -- in other words, parents -- have certain beliefs about parenting and childhood (and I happen to agree with them!) We give them a place where they can be closer to their ideal.

3. Identify your Brand Dimension. For someone who isn’t familiar with your museum, this is the shorthand that tells them what to expect. It manages their expectation. You'll be happy to know that you can pick more than one.

a. Continuity (they can expect to find the same type of thing each time)
b. Distinctive Recipe (really different from all of its peers)
c. Quality (I may not know how to choose gems, but when I see that little blue box, I know all I need to know – it’s from Tiffany’s)
d. Signaling (Bill gave examples of Harley Davidson and Apple, but I’m not sure I get this concept yet. Perhaps it’s when the brand signals a whole lifestyle, that you either belong to or you don’t)
e. Incumbency (when your brand is so dominant that it becomes synonymous with the product – Kleenex, google, xerox.)

Fran suggested that there probably aren’t any museums that could claim Incumbency, but I think the Exploratorium in San Francisco might come close, since they are virtually synonymous with a certain kind of hands-on science experience. As for Kidcity, our Brand Dimension would have to be our Distinctive Recipe of creating our own eccentric exhibits with local artists (which is a good thing, since we have five other children’s/science museums within 30 minutes drive.)

4. Define your True Product Explain the core of what your customers get from you in 20 words or less. They gave the pithy example of Ellis Island, which defines its true product as being “the symbol of American immigration and the immigrant experience.” I’d say they got that right.

So far, here’s what I’ve come up with for my museum: At Kidcity, families exercise their imagination, playing pretend together in inventive and whimsical theme rooms created by local artists. That’s only 19 words! It's not perfect, but I don’t think I could have gotten so much of our character into one sentence if I hadn’t done the other three steps first!

----

After taking us through these four steps, Fran and Bill finished the session by sharing a few ways that you can evaluate your logo and your website to see if they truly express your identity – but since I can’t do it justice, I’ll just direct you to their website: Brand Champs.

Hope you learned something new & useful!

Earned Income (or "How to make a buck")

2009-04-29T23:07:00.000-04:00

As everyone at the ACM conference bemoaned the decline in fundraising income, they also traded ideas on how to improve earned income at their children’s museums. There were plenty of good ideas that came up during the session on “Improving Performance in a Challenging Economic Environment” at Wednesday’s Interactivity. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Please Touch did a “Free Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream for Taxi Drivers” day as a way to be sure that the drivers knew where to find the museum.
2. During the holiday season, the Portland Children’s Museum offers members who renew a chance to buy a special 3-month membership for just $20 that people can give as gifts. Sarah Orleans, the director, told us that about 50% are upgraded to full memberships after the gift expires.
3. Host a “museum playdate” for followers of any popular local mommy blogs.
4. Sort your mailing list and invite target groups for special bagel/coffee mornings just for those families. Target families from a certain town, or families with twins, or any group that would see exclusive social time as a real draw. Moms want to make friends with other moms! (We did this at Kidcity by sending a postcard, but it could also be done by email if your data is good)
5. Identify nearby towns with a favorable demographic and offer their library a free kids ticket for any child who completes their summer reading program. The point was made that the reading program kids are exactly our market. It sounded like this idea could also work with the local Suzuki violin school or the local scout troups. A free kids pass would require an adult’s paid admission.
6. “Love your concierge” was an idea that focused on the hospitality staff at area hotels by throwing a special night event at your museum for all their workers. My little town in Connecticut doesn’t have a lot of hotels, but it is a restaurant town, and I sometimes distribute passes to the waitstaff at the local eateries. In other words, figure out who interacts with your potential visitors, and make sure they are familiar with your museum.
7. If you offer favor bags for sale for your birthday parties, give families the option to buy $5 worth of Birthday Bucks for each guest instead – it’s a gift certificate to your museum store.
8. Put a popcorn machine at your exit. One museum (I didn’t catch which one) mentioned that they had $10,000 worth of sales in 6 months at $2 a bag. I did hear some grumbling in the room, though, about finding popcorn scattered all over the place.
9. The Children’s Discovery Museum in Normal, Illinois loves the Fetch programming from PBS as a way to drive repeat visits. People keep coming back for each new activity related to the show.

This session was moderated by the always entertaining and slightly outrageous Lesly Attarian from Please Touch. She liked some of the suggestions, but her ultimate advice was this: Don’t Do Free. Charge a dollar if you can’t bring yourself to do regular rates, but don’t do free. And she also said don’t hesitate to Just Say No to the person who calls and offers your museum an opportunity to provide the entertainment at their event without compensation – on the other hand, maybe you can find a creative trade so that it benefits your museum as well.

The session wrapped up with a topic that I would have liked to see us explore a little more: there has to be a fit between any new income ideas and your brand and your mission. Anyone who knows me understands that I am All About Earned Income, but I hate to see museums do things which cheapen their integrity, just to make a buck. Paul Orselli discusses just that on his recent blog entry about having to run the gauntlet of the Blue Slushee while exiting a museum recently. So let's try to keep it clean folks!

Get on the bus

2009-04-29T10:32:00.000-04:00

I had a blast at the Interactivity session entitled “How to get the right people on the bus”. Ingrid Anderson and Peter Buonincontro from the Portland Children’s Museum had us all climbing across our chairs, drawing on the walls and generally having a great time. There was a power point, but I promise you that no one looked at it.

The core of the message was that you need to understand that it takes all kinds of people to run an organization – some who are visionary, some who are task oriented, some who are social, and so on. The problem is that most people hire people who are like them instead of people who fill the gaps in their museum staff.

Ingrid taught us a few games that can help – I’ll share the one that we had the most fun with.

The point of this game is to figure out who you already have on your team, and then to help everyone see the positives and negatives about the various personalities you work with.

Here’s what you do:
•tape 5 giant sheets to the wall, each one labeled with an animal (ants, turtles, lions, puppies, owls).
•ask each person to go to the animal they feel they are most like, writing any words that describe that animal.
•then go to the other animals and write words that describe those animals.

That’s it.

(Now I feel kind of bad giving away all the details, since you really should try this for yourselves, so feel free to skip the next few paragraphs.)

I was in agony trying to decide which animal to choose (ok, so I knew I wasn’t an ant or a puppy) when Joanne Morell from Topeka (already in the lion group) said “Oh Jen, you’re an owl.” So off I went.

Here’s what we came up with:

Ants
The ants wrote that they were hardworking, diligent, goal-oriented, instinctive workers, and organized socially and they can always find a picnic. After the ants moved onto the second part of the task (in a line, I might add, and after clarifying whether they should go as a group to each one of the other animals or individually on their own) the rest of us came along and wrote this: narrow-minded, followers, lack of creativity, can’t see the big picture, hard to change, NO big picture. Peter circled the words “hard to change” and noted you have to consider that before you hire an ant. He said ants always say yes, but the question is whether they are saying yes to the right thing.

Puppies
The puppies wrote that they are approachable, playful, friendly, full of surprise, out of control, eager to learn, loyal, curious, talkative, wanderers. And the rest of us wrote that they are unfocused, inexperienced and if you ask them to do something they don’t know how to do, they get all anxious and then they pee on the carpet.

Owls
Owls think of themselves as wise, patient, nocturnal, focused, territorial, vicious, independent, stealthy, and stubborn. In their wisdom, the other owls rejected my suggestion of “loner”, deciding that it was adequately covered by “independent”, which is not at all the same thing, but then I knew that I had the power of the blog, so I just didn’t argue with them. The others in the room came along and wrote that owls are know-it-alls, hard to read and that they are not morning people.

Turtles
Across the top of the page, the turtles had written “Slow and Steady Wins the Race”. They also wrote predictable, long-lived, dependable, and the world rests on their backs. Others saw turtles as slow, they hide from problems and they don’t go outside the box

Lions
The lions: direct, take-charge, respected, solitary, roar, big bite, protective, providers. But others see them as judgemental, loud, they scare people, have big sharp teeth, are not respectful of others opinions and think too much about their hair.

Ingrid (a lion) and Peter (a puppy) talked us through some of the pros and cons of each personality type.
•Puppies are fabulous for helping new people feel welcome (front desk!) but don’t put them on budget analysis.
•Ants are great workers, staying till the job is done, but beware of burnout.
•Owls are great observers, and are insightful, but they need a little support in getting engaged.
•Ingrid noted that you shouldn’t pair a puppy and an owl – but an owl and ant will get along, because they can see the big and small picture simultaneously. She also noted that if you put a puppy with the ants, they will scatter.
•Turtles are completely dependable, but really stubborn. If you try to rush them, you can knock for days, but they will never come out of their shell. Get them on projects where they can work at their own pace.
•Lions are either already in a leadership role or trying to take one, which can be intimidating to turtles and puppies and even ants, although they usually just go around them.

Finally, Ingrid suggested taking this game home and using it as a party trick with your spouse! That got a big laugh.

So that was the message, folks. Figure out who is on your staff already and then fill the gaps (and don't hesitate to get the wrong people off the bus before they ruin the whole ride.)

P.S. I can’t resist a nod to the person who chose the title for this session: last year, Interactivity’s keynote speaker was Jim Collins, whose terrific book “Good to Great” has been a real inspiration for me. One of his principles on how to run a business is that you shouldn’t hire people you have to supervise – and the key is in the hiring (or the transferring) until you have all the right people on the bus and in the right seats. Then, and only then, should you decide where the bus is going. At the risk of making my co-workers blush, I’ll say that part of the reason that working at Kidcity is so much fun is because (at least from my viewpoint) all the right people are in the right seats, and we all have a similar tolerance for joy riding.

P.P.S: One of the keys to having a successful time at Interactivity is knowing when YOU are on the wrong bus. I actually went to a different session at the start of the afternoon – the title sounded good but it was clear from the introductions that the presenters were going to be talking about something else entirely. In my early ACM years I would have sat there and fumed – but this time I just quietly gathered my stuff and slipped out before it really got going.

P.P.P.S: Here's a photo from another game we played called "Draw the Perfect Employee". I'll note that the earmuffs were not so they wouldn't listen to their boss but so that they wouldn't be bothered by the sounds of children having fun!

Going Virtual

2009-04-28T12:36:00.000-04:00

I spent the morning session of Interactivity at a session called "Virtual Marketing: Real Dollars." What with our recent launch of our new (and still-in-progress) website for Kidcity and my on-again-off-again relationship with this blog*, it was at the top of my list of Interactivity Must-Sees.

The presenters, Alex Hillman & Annie Heckenberger, both of Philly, actively denied that they were experts in social media -- in fact, they said that no one is an expert in this field, since everyone is learning as it is being created. Ok, so maybe they aren't experts, but I think we can at least say they are VERY ADVANCED.

And then there are the rest of us.

Should I back up? Does everyone reading know what social media is? (hint: this is) Alex and Annie covered the basics of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter (boy, do they love Twitter), but the real value was in listening to their banter and absorbing just how big this new way of interacting and living online really is -- as Annie said, without a trace of irony that I could detect, "I like to call it "a new universe"."

So bypassing the issue that some of what they said was just slightly above my head, I did pick up some solid themes that all of us old-school face-to-facers need to learn.

First off, if you are trained in conventional PR techniques, or you think this is just a new way to promote your children's museum, then you should think again. Alex and Annie stuck to their message that your first step in the online world should be to listen -- not to shout. Alex likened it to a cocktail party - siddle up to some people, say something nice and supportive, get to know them -- don't just barge in saying "Our museum is having Clifford the Dog in our lobby this friday - you should come". Just like in real life, manners and generosity count.

On the other hand, they dangled the plum of free marketing -- Annie likened social media to "word-of-mouth on steroids". That's hard for us to resist!

Alex shared these beginner tips for when you are ready to dip your toe online :

1. Reverse the bullhorn. In other words, listen more than you talk. Don't oversell!

2. Be part of the community you serve. That means dialoguing, cheering for others, as well as asking people to help you.

3. Create an amazing experience (just my personal comment here that I think this should be #1 in everything - if you have to choose between upping your maintenance budget so that nothing is ever broken, or adding a PR staff person to manage your online image, there's no question you should do the maintenance first, since the first thing you're going to hear from your visitors online is: everything is broken - what's with that? But that's just my two cents - the new media makes it impossible to whitewash over your faults -- but more about that in #4)

4. Embrace the Chaos. When you enter the online conversation about your museum (which, like it or not, is already taking place on the mommy blogs of your region), you can expect a certain level of frankness, and sometimes negativity, about your museum. That can be scary from a PR perspective. Instead of deleting or blocking it, the new "virtual marketing" way to handle this negative feedback is to breathe, listen, apologize and find a way to turn Mad into Glad. Wait a second -- isn't that Customer Service 101?!

Finally, Alex and Annie stressed that we shouldn't worry about making a big splash online; instead we should go for the slow build. A little is better than nothing. Spending a short time on lots of different sites is better than putting all your eggs in the Facebook basket. The worst thing you can do is to start something too big and then burnout.

In an effort to extend my social network, I gave my card to both Alex and Annie. Maybe they'll read about themselves on my blog! If so -- thanks guys - it was a really valuable experience for us to hear your perspective: you set a good example and I learned lots.

*Just to assuage my own guilt at neglecting this blog, I'll mention that I do blog, early and often, at www.middletowneyenews.blogspot.com, which is a hyper-local news blog that I write with a few friends. While I've been here at Interactivity scarfing up Philly cheesesteaks (gluten-free, natch), the Middletown Eye has been roiling with a town-gown spat about vegan meals for the homeless and a recent invasion of carpenter bees at the corner of William & Main.

Breakfast in Philadelphia

2009-04-28T08:57:00.000-04:00

The first official day of Interactivity began with roundtable breakfasts organized by museum field -- exhibits, finance, visitor services, etc. I took the elevator to the top floor for the leadership breakfast, and enjoyed the view of the Philadelphia skyline and the new Please Touch museum in the distance.

First, Neil Gordon, the current ACM board president and the ED at the Children's Museum of Boston, MA, took care of some business, welcoming new board members and thanking others who were completing their terms of service. There was a nice moment when Richard Battle of the Strong Museum, Rochester NY (who is retiring not just from the ACM board but from his museum as well) promised to have us all over on his boat in Florida. Also, I'm happy to say that ACM must have read my evaluations from previous years (thanks guys) and they kept the program short so we could network among ourselves.

Conversation at my table was vigorous as most people reported the following trend: attendance up, fundraising down. To my left, the director of the San Jose Children's Museum and a founding member of the recently opened museum in Fond du Lac, WI encouraged a woman named Tamar who has come all the way from Israel to learn about how to get a museum going in her town. To my right, the directors of Imagine It, Atlanta GA, Port Discovery, Baltimore, MD, and AHA, Lancaster, OH chatted about their museums. Imagine It has had great success with their "Target" free days at their museum in Atlanta, which open for free on the second Tuesday from 1 to 7 pm (sponsored by the department store). In addition to the the financial support, the director gushed about what terrific partners the people at Target were in volunteering and doing promotions to make the monthly event a huge success. Several of us were scribbling notes at that point. Part of our conversation revolved around one of my favorite questions - who really comes to children's museums, as Port Discovery has made the journey from their initial focus on an older, school-age visitors, to retrofitting their museum experience to the more frequent toddler and preschool visitor. I'll note that our host, Please Touch, was a pioneer in staking out the "early years" territory, since they have always been targeted from birth to age 7.

I was surprised at one question that came up in this group of museum veterans -- they were speculating about whether offering membership is a plus or minus for the bottom line of their museums. We agreed that becoming members at a children's museum isn't quite like when someone becomes a "member" of the ballet or the symphony (which they presumably do for the cachet and as a step to becoming donors), since children's museum members are likely motivated more by the discounted admission than the perception of supporting the institution. But there just wasn't time to explore why Membership as a concept would even be considered for the chopping block as a way to reduce costs -- I'd love to know what data each museum is compiling on that equation. This is one of those issues that is highly affected by hyper local market conditions -- in a previous year, I remember the director of a fellow New England children's museum saying "our members are killing us", meaning that they come all the time, but they only pay once a year. I felt like offering her a tissue!

I would have liked to hear more about how different museums make membership work -- at Kidcity we've seen some changes in use over the years, going from member visits in the 20% range of our overall attendance to close to 40% now -- but the balance is overwhelmingly in our favor in many ways, as members who visit freqeuently help define the play culture at "Kidcity". It's nice to have a balance between families who know the ropes and people who are just discovering our museum for the first time. I think everyone understand that there is an intangible benefit to offering membership -- but I'd love to hear other perspectives. Hopefully there will be more time to chat with other directors on this and other topics as the conference rolls on.

Pecha Kucha at Interactivity

2009-04-27T22:11:00.000-04:00

I'm reviving this long-slumbering blog to report on Interactivity 2009 in Philadelphia. Interactivity is the annual conference of the Association of Children's Museums and if Monday night was any example, the whole field is letting its hair down a little bit.

Or that could just the impression anyone would get after spending two hours with Paul Orselli of POW and Peter Exley of Architectureisfun. The actual conference doesn't begin until Tuesday morning, but Peter and Paul got right to playtime by hosting a Pecha Kucha session -- and you don't have to google that one, because I'm going to explain.

Pecha Kucha is sort of part bar scene, part salon -- mix in some karaoke and social networking -- yes, I know that doesn't make much sense, but keep it all in mind as you read this: watch somebody present 20 slides and talk for 20 seconds during each one. That's 400 seconds, and the words don't have to match the slides, but done nicely it wraps up into a tidy epiphany. Sort of philosophy's answer to the haiku, but with a bar break halfway through.

Our hosts brought up some of their favorite people in the children's museum field to share their 20/20, in between exhorting people to have another drink. (I'm just going to use first names - unforgivable really, but maybe someone will clear that up in the comments) Here were some of my favorite moments:

-Aaron and Dana remembered playing, started keeping track of how they play now, took pictures of it, and asked us pay attention to how long we've been playing before we notice we are playing.
-Peter Exley offered up the exquisite mental image of an inflatable felt whale and showed photos of public art that he loves.
-I didn't catch his name but a fascinating guy from New Jersey talked about "Maker Culture" and how we've evolved from the days of making stuff because we needed it to making stuff as a hobby and ultimately into this hacker society of playing with things as we make them and getting them to do what we want them to do - not just in children's museums but everywhere -- so this is really kind of our moment, isn't it?
-Mary Maher (Hand to Hand) made me miss my own kids when she showed an adorable slide of hers in homemade Halloween costumes - and then revealed one of those interesting paradoxes of motherhood, as she told us that for 18 years she has started the day with a few hours of rowing crew (presumably without the children in tow). Ok, so that's my connection, not hers, but that's the point of Pecha Kucha isn't it?
-Mindy Shrago from Young at Art took us through 20 years of slides as her museum and her children got bigger.
-Paul Orselli has been thinking a lot about chairs, and he got hoots and hollers from the crowd when he asked us to give up "the notion that you can foster parent-child interaction by not giving the parent anywhere to sit down." On the other hand, Paul actually showed a photo of a dad asleep in a museum chair. He showed some other seating options too, some of which were interesting enough to keep anyone awake
-Jane Werner (Pittsburgh CM) talked about mentoring artists to make tough art -- tough enough, that is, to withstand life in one of our children's museums (loved the roller coaster for plants). She demonstrated this by wearing her own piece of tough art, a DIY orange fringe straight skirt.
-Brad brought up a long stick, not to hit us, but to tell us how his martial arts practice is like designing exhibits - how you have to stay empty and open, you can't be afraid of having an effect on the world or being affected by it, you can work with a partner to reach beyond yourself (that one got me a little misty thinking of our Kidcity team). Finally he closed with an idea that was just out of my reach, which is that the future is behind us, and it's our job to anticipate the moment it will catch up with us. I'll have to keep thinking about that one - or perhaps not thinking is more to the point.

Overall, Pecha Kucha was a great way to warm up for the conference and get people thinking about ideas, not just budgets, feasibility studies and exhibit assessment! Peter encouraged us to find a Pecha Kucha in our own town -- or failing that, to start one. You can learn more about that at www.pecha-kucha.org.

For next year, I just have one suggestion: they could add a drinking game to improve the take at the bar, and use it as a fundraiser for ACM:

-every time a speaker mentions "the children", take a drink.
-everytime someone shows a slide of a child playing with mud, take a drink
-every time a museum actually lets a child play with mud (just think of the laundry and customer service issues!) that museum gets free drinks on the house
-every time someone mispronounces Pecha Kucha, take a drink (here's a tip: say pe-Chak-a-Cha)
-every time a speaker says the word "play" take two drinks (remember the point here is to make money for ACM!)

It's a good thing that I wasn't in charge of organizing this, or I'd be in no shape for blogging. If my computer holds up, I'll write about the workshop's I go to tomorrow - sorry you can't all be here!

Fish Stew

2008-07-31T14:39:00.000-04:00

We're making new fish out of the same stuff that Nerf Footballs are made from -- squishy, but hopefully durable!

Lizards in Kidcity? Yech!

2008-06-29T17:28:00.000-04:00

Okay, they aren't real lizards. Ted Esselstyn is repainting the creatures that serve as the saddles on our Rainstick See-Saw. He notes that when the Musical Planet was built, we had help from Jeff Aten, who built the saddle to the North (pictured here) and he built the southern one.

To my eye, they're both wild! As soon as the paint's dry, we'll open the room back up and see how they ride.

Kidcity Report Card

2008-06-25T13:52:00.000-04:00

Here's a copy of our "Kidcity Report Card" that we occasionally ask visitors to fill out. I'm posting it for other children's museums who are looking for "feedback" tools (we print it on oaktag-style paper, so it looks like an old-time report card). We hand it out with a golf pencil when families enter the museum, and they usually drop it off before they leave.

By the way, if there are any Kidcity visitors who would like to print it out and send it to us (or just answer the questions in an email to us) that would be great!

Before & After Musical Planet

2008-06-24T12:49:00.000-04:00

Here's a BEFORE shot:

Musical Planet with carpeting

And here's an AFTER shot:

That's a patch of sunlight on the new (old) floor.

Kids at Work

2008-06-23T17:24:00.001-04:00

The new fish conveyor is up and running! And Kidcity has a new camera, so I took this shot, but somehow I'm stuck on some kind of adjusted color -- yes the Fishery room is rather gray, but not this gray! I'll have to get my kids to show me how to work the camera...

We think this section of the room is going to get lots more play, just with the simple addition of a bucket at the end of the "toddler conveyors". Without that bucket, they just didn't have a destination for the fish, and kids would lose interest. Now, it's an assembly line! That kid in the middle is working so fast, it's just a blur.

(Thanks to the moms who let me snap their kids in this shot! Love those matching outfits!)

Ode to an Auger

2008-06-17T10:28:00.000-04:00

We've known this day was coming, but it is still kind of sad.

When we opened the Fishery last September, one of our favorite parts was the giant steel screw conveyor* that cranked the fish up to the ceiling, only to drop them down various chutes back to ground level -- we called this "The Auger". After a few months, it began to stick, and the fish would jam, and the auger would lock up until Matt came along to un-stick it. And more recently, it's been stuck more often than not, and (in spite of a few rounds of re-design) we've been forced to accept the fact that unless we want our visitors to be frustrated by a piece of broken equipment (we don't!), we have to come up with another solution.

So we're replacing the auger with a new slot conveyor, but we're keeping the horizontal crank, in case someone in a wheelchair comes along (from a chair, this is an easier motion than the vertical crank-wheels on the other conveyors...on the other hand, the horizontal one is pretty tough for toddlers, so we've got both kinds.)

We think this replacement is for the best, but we will really miss the Auger. So I'd like to request a moment of silence for the Fishery Auger, born in the dog days of July 2007, which served faithfully through 9 months of hauling fish -- red, yellow and blue -- to their destination.

* footnote:

As a children's museum director, I would be remiss if I did not inform you that the Auger was actually an archimedes screw and you can learn more about it all over the web.

Kidcity on TV!

2008-06-16T13:35:00.000-04:00

Mike Hydeck from the morning news at WFSB came to Kidcity with his wife and toddler. It was part of his series on "Family Fun for under $100". Here's the link:

http://www.wfsb.com/video/16263842/index.html

Musical Planet Redux

2008-06-06T09:45:00.000-04:00

I love the Musical Planet room, but can't help the feeling that it has gotten a little tired, and so we've targeted it for a little spruce-up.

Matt ripped out the carpet this week, and we're experimenting with staining the mismatched flooring we found underneath (3 kinds of wood! Maple, Fir and Pine!). It's really weird how the carpet made the room look bigger -- it now has a more intimate feel. And the bare floor gives us a place to do a little fun faux-painting if we get around to it. Also, a mundane little detail is that problems with our HVAC system seem to have made this room sort of musty -- we're hoping that getting rid of the carpet will help with that.

Regular visitors know that we rebuilt the whole slide mountain in 2007. We wanted a lower slide that wasn't quite so steep, since most of our visitors are tiny. It took two tries, but I think the current design works great. Someday, we'd like to get around to replacing the pump pipe organ that used to be under the mountain. And then we should invent something for the area behind the ropebridge that would fit with the room's theme, which -- if you didn't know -- is "World Music Instruments Re-interpreted as Playground Equipment".

The urge to spruce up this room came when I stumbled across this photo on the internet, by a Kidcity visitor who also happens to be a great Flickr photographer: Lizzart? When I saw this close-up of the saddle on the see-saw, I thought: geez, we need to get in there and do some touch-up painting! So I called Ted Esselstyn, the amazing artist who worked with me on our early exhibits, and he's going to stop in some time this summer to brighten these creatures up a bit! By the way, you can see more about Ted's career in making lots of Connecticut places more funky at his website.

Tiny New Exhibit in Development

2008-05-19T14:12:00.000-04:00

For a couple of months, we've been thinking about what to do with the empty space near the first floor elevator (behind the green wall). These ideas always change a lot on the way to becoming a play area, but right now, we are thinking about a Toolshed theme, where kids could pretend that they were building stuff. Today we chalked out a possible room layout (it's only about 175 sq. ft.) with different counters for kids to work on.

What goes on in a pretend toolshed? We're not quite sure! Our rough idea right now is lots of small but uniform chunks of rubber that the kids could do stuff with -- and stations with various machines or activities. Scott is thinking foot-powered polishing wheel, and Matt is leaning towards simple machines (like levers) and the kinds of things he has in his real workshop. I'm thinking about how kids like to have an impact on the things they are working on (maybe that means that the blocks have holes and can be attached somehow) mixed in with real stuff like scales and measuring tapes. I'm also thinking about lots of seating for grownups, right in the middle of the action, which is something I think we missed with the Fishery (we see a lot of grownups in there standing up for a long time, shifting around uncomfortably...ouch!).

It's a pretty small area but we'll try to create something fun there! Just thought you'd like to know that we've started on something...

Spring Cleaning at Kidcity!

2008-05-13T13:31:00.000-04:00

We've had fun in the last few weeks sprucing up around here. Favorite bits: the bicycle planted in the garden and the new floor in the elevator! BTW, creating our own elevator floor was really fun! Matt bought a piece of sheet lineoleum at a certain un-named Big Box store and flipped it over to work on the rough side. Then he cut it to shape and painted right on the lineoleum and installed.

He says his feet are still purple a week later!

Grant from Aetna!

2008-05-03T13:24:00.000-04:00

How can we make hand-washing fun, and in fact, irresistable?! We all know that 20 seconds of sudsing up is the best protection from germs in public places, but how often do we (or our kids) do it? We are designing a hand-washing station that will hopefully be SO MUCH FUN that kids and grownups will want to stop and scrub before they play at Kidcity. This may take a while, but we wrote a grant in January and just received word that Aetna is giving us $15,000 to get us started on this project. Our current plan is to create a hand-washing station in the lobby area, by shrinking the staff closet (near the pink flying saucer.) What will it look like? Well, that's a secret, but the current theme is "Coney Island meets Rube Goldberg."