Author Archives: Max van Balgooy

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About Max van Balgooy

President of Engaging Places LLC, a design and strategy firm that connects people to historic places.

NEA Survey Reveals Patterns in Historic Site Visitation

On Monday, March 11, I’ll be a plenary speaker at the Virginia Association of Museums conference to discuss the trends, challenges, and opportunities facing historic house museums.  It will be followed by a forum with historic site managers, tourism experts, preservationists, and community leaders on the needs and opportunities for historic sites in Virginia, such as a statewide association for historic house museums.  It’s great timing for this topic:  Governor McDonnell declared 2013 as the Year of the Virginia Historic Home in recognition of the bicentennial of the Executive Mansion and Virginia’s more than 100 historic homes, most of which are open to the public as museums and historic sites.

Whenever I’m asked to give a presentation or write an article, it’s an opportunity to do some research and reading to gains some new or deeper perspectives on the issue.  For the VAM presentation, I’ve been looking closely at the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts by the National Endowment of the Arts.  For decades, NEA has interviewed thousands of people across the United States to learn about their involvement in music, art, theater, festivals, reading, and dance.   NEA conducted the last survey in 2008 and published a series of analytical reports in 2009-2011.

Looking back over 30 years, the survey confirms that attendance closely correlates with Continue reading →

Video: Connecting the Threads

https://vimeo.com/57448478

This 38:00 freshly produced documentary follows the transformation of an historic clothing factory in Lebanon, NH into an art center.  Directed by Ken Turino of Historic New England and produced in collaboration with AVA Gallery and Community Access Television of Upper Valley, it features interviews, oral histories, and historic images.

Small Museums Association Conference Impressions

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Last week I was a plenary speaker at the Small Museums Association conference, where I talked about ways to rethink mission, vision, and strategy to have greater impact with the 200 people in attendance.  Although the conference has been held annually in Ocean City, Maryland for nearly 30 years, it was my first experience and I was incredibly impressed.

Created in 1984 by Lesley van der Lee, executive director of the Montgomery County Historical Society, the conference provides a series of workshops and educational sessions over three days all targeted towards small museums, so the content emphasizes practical approaches for organizations with limited resources.  Secondly, the conference is developed, organized, promoted, and managed entirely by volunteers.  SMA doesn’t have a staff and it doesn’t seem to have membership in the usual sense–it’s primarily the annual conference.  To serve on the board, you have to rise up through the ranks by first  working on one of the conference committees (try that with your board!).  Finally, meals and receptions are included in the registration fee and lodging is just $68 a night (February is the low season for hotels at the beach).

If you’re based in the Mid-Atlantic region, consider attending the conference next February.  Because of the nature of small museums today and the low costs, the conference attracts a wide range of ages and the program committee develops a nice mix of sessions, exhibitors, and speakers (Linda Norris was the other plenary speaker) so you receive good value.  For museum studies students, it’s a welcoming introduction to the issues, people, and organizations that represent the majority of museums in the United States.

On an aside, I heard from Heritage Preservation that Conservation Assessment Program grants won’t be announced until the federal budget is passed.

Rethinking the Mission Statement

Historic map and toolsThis week I’m attending the Small Museums Association‘s 29th annual conference in Ocean City, Maryland, where I’ll be giving a plenary address this morning on, “Mild-Mannered Superheroes Rarely Make a Difference.”  As you might have guessed, it’s a mash-up of a quotation by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and the conference theme on superheros.  I hope to encourage attendees to rethink their mission, vision, and strategy to become more relevant and engaging in their communities.  Unfortunately, most museum mission statements are mild-mannered, with the usual phrase of “collect, preserve, and interpret” stuck behind the name of the organization.

Funding agencies, museum accreditation, and strategic plans require a mission statement, so many organizations create a least offensive version that can be approved by the board.  The result is that mission statements are often so vague that they’re ignored, have little to no influence on day-to-day activities, and are viewed as empty public relations gestures that provokes cynicism.  No doubt they’ve found that having a mission statement doesn’t have much impact, but a recent study shows that the right kind of mission statement can significantly improve financial success and organizational performance.

In “Looking at the Value of Mission Statements: A Meta-Analysis of Continue reading →

New England’s History and Architecture Explored in June

Program in New England StudiesHistoric New England presents the tenth annual Program in New England Studies (PINES), an intensive learning experience with lectures by curators and architectural historians, workshops, and behind-the-scenes tours of Historic New England’s properties and collections, as well as of other museums and private homes in the region.  This year’s program begins on June 17 with Cary Carson on the 17th century in the Boardman House and ends on June 22 with Richard Nylander and Nancy Carlisle on the Colonial Revival at Beauport.

PINES examines New England history and material culture from the seventeenth century through the Colonial Revival, and delves into building design and technology, and the wide-ranging lifestyles illustrated by the historic sites on the itinerary.  Highlights include private tours of Historic New England properties in Greater Boston; Essex County, Massachusetts; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; South Berwick, Maine; and Woodstock, Connecticut; workshops in furniture, ceramics, and textiles at Historic New England’s facility in Haverhill, Massachusetts; and a private tour of Continue reading →

WebWise Conference Coming Up in Early March

WebWise 2012: Project demonstrations

WebWise 2012: Project demonstrations

WebWise, the annual conference hosted by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, will be held in Baltimore on March 6-8, 2013. This year’s conference is co-sponsored by the Roy Rosensweig Center for History and the New Media and is being organized and presented in a very different manner.  In advance, participants (anyone, actually) voted on the proposed workshop topics and then the conference organizers recruit speakers to fill the slots. For the project demonstrations, the participants will be divided into three groups and then rotate through three different sets of presentations. In addition, there will be a series of three-minute lightning talks over lunch, facilitated project/partnership incubator groups, and one-on-one speed consulting sessions. Indeed, there’s only one plenary session scheduled for the entire conference–Audrey Watters of Hack Education–as a keynote on the last day.

I’ve attended as many WebWise Conferences as possible because the content has been outstanding and I often come away with new approaches and strategies, even from the sessions that are far outside my field. This year’s reformatting seems intriguing, but much of the content remains a mystery so Continue reading →