How do you make an institution that's both a museum and a memorial — at the same time? How are exhibitions like theater? Is a museum a group experience, or a personal one — or is that a trick question? When is it time to trust your gut? Why is collaboration so important? When is a single milk can the most important object in a museum? How can one single, simple philosophy inform everyone’s work, from the curators to the team making mounts for the artifacts? How are the principles of making a...

Is there an organization for the exhibition field? A new initiative is picking up steam.   The exhibition community in the US, some say, has recently gone from having “nearly one” professional organization — to none at all. That’s because of the unexpected 2023 dissolution of NAME, the National Association for Museum Exhibition, a group within the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). But now a new effort is rising at SEGD, an international organization headquartered in the US. It takes the...

“The client’s role is not to solve the problem — it’s to state the problem.” What’s the client’s perspective in major cultural projects? What are “client user groups?” What’s the difference between advocating for the client, and advocating for the project? How do you “inhabit your project?” How might a single gender-inclusive restroom project change an entire institution? Should every project have a “super contingency” in the budget? Amy Weisser (Deputy Director for Strategic Planning and...

Can you get big press with a small budget? (Hint: Yes.)   For museums, small firms, and independent consultants, this episode is packed with literally dozens of ideas from a master of scrappy PR.   What is the #1 tip about PR, if you forgot all the others? How do you get a journalist’s attention? How do you get in the news without something new? Who should be your spokesperson? Is press actually about the topic — or is it about just being in the news? Once you get an article, what do you do...

Have we lost a sense of playfulness in our work … and could we get it back? In museums for children, why does “analog usually beat digital?” What’s a “climbing structure”? What are design metaphors, and why should planners beware of them? How can exhibition teams better empathize with one another’s fears and concerns? Why should a museum professional or designer “hyper-specialize”? Jonathan Goldstein and Kyle Talbott (Principals, Skyhouse Studio) join host Jonathan Alger (Managing Partner,...

How do new museums make money — really? In this episode, we lift the veil on new museum projects and money. What is “the peril of the bicycle wheel”? Is it bad to rely on “anchor funding”? How many kinds of revenue should a new museum project have? What happens if you have the wrong number? (Hint: eh, not so good.) How much money do endowments make? And what’s so magical about thirds? Amy Kaufman (Principal, Amy Kaufman Cultural Planning) joins host Jonathan Alger (Managing Partner, C&G...

What’s the role of wonder in experience design?   What can the circus teach us to make our exhibitions better? (Spoiler alert: a lot.) Could being “with it and for it” be the secret to success for museum projects? How much technology is too much? Can we really design for all five senses? Can an exhibition be a high-wire act — literally?   Jennifer Lemmer Posey (Tibbals Curator of Circus at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art) joins host Jonathan Alger (Managing Partner, C&G...

Do museum stores actually make any money? What are they really for? Can a store act like an exhibition? What does “cap rate” mean? How big should a museum store be? What percentage of visitors go into one, and how many of them buy something? Why should you get an expert to design your store, and what happens when you don’t? David Franke (museum store architect) joins host Jonathan Alger (Managing Partner, C&G Partners) to discover what’s “Beyond ‘Exit Through the Gift Shop’”. Along the...

Why is economic planning so vital to any new museum project? What happens if you don’t do it? What is “dark tourism”? Why do economists think about audiences? Can a museum have “ROI”? Which is more important, a profitable museum event, or one that advances a museum’s mission? What can economics teach us about how to make our projects better? James Stevens, AICP (Vice President, ConsultEcon, Inc.) joins host Jonathan Alger (Managing Partner, C&G Partners) to discuss “An Economic Planner’s...

What is the “humanities gap” — and why is it a huge opportunity for museums? Why can’t everybody be a philanthropist for the day? What does “cultural literacy” mean, and how can it unlock new approaches to the collections we put on display? Why could a shortfall in humanities funding suggest new ways for museums to be relevant? Why shouldn’t a museum buy products and services from its own community? Michele Y. Smith (CEO, Museum of Popular Culture) joins host Jonathan Alger (Managing Partner,...

We might think a design concept is the first step — but it’s not. What do you need to ask yourself, before you even start? What does your community want from your new museum, and how can you find out? What happens when you have funding for 10 staff, but you design a museum that will take 25 staff to operate? What’s more important, the cost of creating the museum, or the later costs of operating it? What’s “noblesse oblige”? What’s a “civic entrepreneur”? Carolynne Harris (Museum Planner,...

Why is “70/50” the gold standard? Should it be? Who decided? Does every gallery really need to be 70 degrees, plus/minus two? Does every storage space really need to be 50% humidity, plus/minus five? Is that a reasonable goal for most museums? At what cost? What’s the difference between “AA” climate control, and just “A”? How much energy could we all save, just by switching down one grade? Are artifact loan agreement climate requirements consistent, or is there room for improvement? Roger...

What if chaos in cultural projects is something to embrace, not fear?   Can chaos theory give us new insights about how to manage complex work? Are we advocates for the owner of a project, or for the project itself? What are the three things upon which the success or failure of a project depends? Sometimes, is it better to let a few things change, rather than fight those changes for even longer? Museum staff are rarely experts in managing building projects or large exhibition productions. Why...

What’s the secret to success, when a project lasts years longer than planned?   What keeps us going when our work takes more time? How does the subject matter of a project relate to the form of a project? Why should we be thinking equally about the budget for what happens after a project opens? What is the “architecture of delight”? Why do “reverberations matter”? Which is more important: patience, or pushing? (Hint: it’s a trick question.) And most importantly, why should everybody visit the...

What is a “growth mindset” — and why is it more important than ever for our industry? What happens when we combine museology with the fast-growing field of positive psychology? How do exhibition teams get through projects with tough subject matter? Why should we always “put our own oxygen mask on first”? What’s the opposite of love (hint: not hate)? What’s contemplative science? How can we learn from the latest news about the Rubin Museum? Do we sometimes all take ourselves … too...

Can an eye-catching museum revitalize a city? The answer might surprise you.   Getting the right designer is vital. If you don’t like a painting you can put it away, but if you don’t like a building, you can’t take it down. Why is it important to have the goals of a complex museum project fit in a mantra of a few words? What comes first in museum architecture, practicality or creative genius? Should you choose your designers by design competition? If not, what’s the alternative? What are the...

How can we raise the voices of people of color in museums and exhibitions — and what stands in the way? What is Museum Hue? What constitutes a sustainable museum job, a sustainable career? What percentage of staff at museums are folks of color, and what roles do they have? What do we see happening in the exhibitions that museums create?  Many cultural organizations began their DEI initiatives after the tragic events of 2020; how are those programs doing now? Could exhibitions be one of the...

What do technologies like the Apple Vision Pro mean for exhibitions and experiences?   For people who create cultural destinations, the pace of technology has now become so fast it’s hard to keep up. AR, VR, AI. What’s happening in the “near future” of the technologies that will define our field for years to come? What is spatial computing? Are projection mapping and Pepper’s Ghosts early forms of augmented reality? Is the extreme personalization of all digital content causing problems we...

Great projects happen because of great teams. But how do you build that team in the first place? Who should a museum hire first, to start a major project? How do you decide whether internal staff should run a big project, or if you need help from outside? Should you hire an architect before you hire an exhibition designer, or vice versa? Who else do you need, and when? Where can a museum find firms they might like to work with? What’s an “owner’s rep” anyway? Beth Van Why (Senior Project...

How can we make digital experiences work for all visitors — whether kids or grandparents?   Hint: it has to do with recognizing “diverse digital literacies.” When should you bring in a creative technologist? Why should you aim for the strong verbs? What is “sneaky attract mode”? How do you do paper prototyping? Are a lot of digital experiences in museums essentially “sexy browsing”? Are touch tables a trend that will never die? Patrick Snee (Creative Technologist) joins Jonathan Alger...

What’s the very first question we should ask — before we start our projects?   Should we start designing … by designing? How do we make sure we understand our audience, before we start making experiences for them? Why is prototyping so important? How many of our ideas should we expect to survive the creative process? And what does microbiology art have to do with your sense of balance? (Hint: they’re both topics at a certain well-known venue.)   Liza Rawson (Head of Exhibitions, Liberty...

Cultural projects should be data-driven — but which *kind* of data? What’s the difference between the “big data” we all know — and “thick data”? Which is more important? (Hint: trick question.) What does cell phone data have to do with sculpture gardens? What’s a “two-hour ring”? What if we just recorded visitors narrating their entire experience — out loud? Elena Kazlas (Founder, Elevativ) and Adaheid Mestad (Design Anthropologist, HGA) join Jonathan Alger (Managing Partner, C&G...

What if there were just five important things to remember when you build a museum?   What if the most important one of them all — had nothing to do with architecture? Which costs more in the end: building the museum, or operating the building? (The answer might surprise you.) Is it better to be bold, or to be subtle? What’s the difference between how design teams experience a museum project — and how visitors experience it in the end?   Jonathan Alger (Managing Partner, C&G Partners) is...

What’s the #1 thing to know about experiential technology?   How long do LED walls last? (The answer will surprise you.) Is a project done when it opens, or are growing pains normal? What happens when you use technology just to have technology? What’s an “integrator”? Is sustainability a thing in experiential tech? How? What missteps waste money, ruin the experience, and let content go stale?   Jonathan Alger (Managing Partner, C&G Partners) is joined by Will Bullins (Executive...