Episode #1 - So, about the name...
Exploring how museum careers evolve and the need for continuous learning in a shifting landscape.
So what’s up with the title?
People are actually signing up to read this newsletter, which I find kinda funny given that it’s called “This Isn’t What I Signed Up For, But…” Thanks for the vote of support.
As I said in the blog post announcing the launch of the newsletter, it was born during a coffee chat I had with Seb Chan. We were talking about the twists and turns our career paths have taken. We both started off professionally in museums as creators, making the things that visitors would encounter as part of the visit. We neither of us get to make as much as we’d like any more, and instead make it possible for others to make their ideas. Success looks different now. Not better or worse, just different.
The moment also highlighted the uncomfortable disconnect between how we see ourselves and how the world sees us. My own self-image is as a person whose expertise is in experience design, but to the larger museum world (pre-pandemic) I was the Drinking About Museums guy who blogged. Now I spend a lot of my time and mental energy on helping institutions think differently about strategy, planning, digital transformation, and other big picture issues. Though I enjoy the work immensely, I joked that our current job titles should be “This isn’t what I signed up for, but…”
“So why do it, if it’s not what you signed up for?” one might ask. Because it’s something the sector lacks and the world needs that I can provide, or at least learn how to provide. And in the current historic moment, I think we are all going to need to learn how to do new things we didn’t necessarily sign up for, and do things differently than we did in the Before Times. In the cultural sector, which is so centered around ideas and ideals about expertise, it’s a real anti-pattern. But given how much the ground is shifting under our feet as I write, one that is going to be critical to survival.
It’s not what you know, but what you are willing to learn.
One day in 2013, Judy Rand called me up to pitch an idea. AAM had added a new session type for AAM 2014, a storytelling format. She said, “Ed, what if we proposed doing a Moth Radio Hour style storytelling session and we found some really good speakers to perform?” I have learned that there are certain people one meets professionally who are so important to your growth as a creative and as a human being that when they ask you to do something, you say “Yes,” regardless of the ask. Judy is at the top of that list. Though I did not think of myself as a performer, I agreed. We came up with four speakers and an audience participation activity, and went to Seattle to tell our stories in front of a giant room with 200+ people in it. The theme of the session was “The Thing I Wish They’d Told Me When I Started in Museums.” It was great!
My contribution was called “It’s not what you know, but what you are willing to learn.” Give it a read. I’ve never sweated so much over a piece of writing, especially one never meant to be read. It described the long process of me realizing that being committed to ongoing personal professional development has been the defining characteristic of whatever success I’ve had in this nutty field. Not the degrees, not the past accomplishments, nor the high-profile shows I’ve worked on. Figuring out what needs to be done that I can do and figuring out how to do it has pushed me into any number of reimaginings: registrar, exhibit developer, Web (1.0) guy, media producer, author, strategist, etc. Now that I have reached the age where younger people seek me out for “advice” on how to get into museum work, this has become something of a mantra. And if the rest of the 21st century is anything like the first quarter, that need to be constantly learning and adapting is only going to become more pronounced, not just for museums, but for all of us.
What this means for our products
I enjoy Daniel Hettwer’s Substack for the breadth of its coverage of the immersive entertainment industry and trends impacting the emerging experiential sector, of which museums are now a small part. His latest newsletter, Blurring Lines in Entertainment: Museums Are Theme Parks, Streamers Are Hospitality Brands, and Everyone’s Serving Dinner touches on exactly that idea, that the old certainties are failing and current situation is going to require people to cross-train in ways the museum sector is just starting to imagine. He writes, “As the walls between industries continue to crumble - theme parks becoming event platforms, museums acting like entertainment studios, luxury brands opening cafés, and media companies launching hotels - one thing becomes clear: the creative economy is no longer siloed.” At least the successful ones won’t be.
There is ample evidence that our audiences are making different leisure time choices than they did a generation ago. This has been well-documented by folks like LaPlaca Cohen, whose Culture Track reports on Americans’ cultural consumption before and during the pandemic showed how broad the public conception of “culture” was. These reports are still required reading IMHO.
<RANT> As an aside, Culture Track is just one example of the kind of product that the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) helped create which will join the long list of things we can’t have in the U.S. anymore if we don’t reverse some of the damage the current administration is inflicting on its citizens in the name of “efficiency.” </RANT>
Hettwer goes on to list the qualities successful experience builders are going to need in the future:
“You need the narrative mastery of themed entertainment to craft compelling journeys that resonate emotionally.
You need the discipline and detail of the museum world, where interpretation, accessibility, and educational impact are key.
You need the agility of live event producers who can design for impermanence, high emotion, and social virality.
And you need a deep understanding of value-add verticals like F&B [food and beverage], hospitality, and retail - not just as revenue streams, but as brand-building storytelling tools.”
As a museum person, it’s a little humbling (and irritating) to see that neither storytelling nor emotion are listed as things museums do better than anybody else. But hurt feelings aside, I agree with his larger assertion, that “That’s not what we do here!” is no longer a winning outlook for us. His prediction is that every kind of experience builder, not just museums and cultural orgs are going to need to get a lot of new skills and collaborators to make the kinds of experiences audiences are looking for and need. In the cultural sector in 2025, even the most adventurous institutions that try to make different kinds of experiences still do it with organizational structures that are largely early 20th or late 19th century ones at heart. Now that’s a challenge!
To finish the post, Hettwer ends with, “If you're not building across silos, you're building for the past.” That one went into me and stuck. How many of our institutions have their heads in the proverbial sand and continue to make the same kinds of products with the hope that they’ll somehow regain their appeal?
I would love to compile a list of museums that have successfully restructured themselves to adapt to the current moment. I’ll have to add that to my do list. ;-)
So, that’s a taste of what you’re in for. The next installment will look at organizational structures and transformation and how I love the words cynefin and turangawawae.