Category Archives: Governance and management

Highlights from the Latest Journal of Travel Research

I doubt many people read the Journal of Travel Research (yes, there are such things!) but I’ve been referring to it in preparation for a presentation at the Historic House Museum Consortium of Washington, DC.  Looking at the September 2012 issue of the Journal of Travel Research, I thought I’d share some of the highlights from articles that might interest historic sites and house museums:

  • In “GPS as a Method for Assessing Spatial and Temporal Use Distributions of Nature-Based Tourists,” Jeffery Hallo et al examine the use of GPS devices to study visitor behavior in national parks (an idea that can be easily be applied to large historic sites).  This research typically has to be done either by asking visitors to recall their experiences in a survey or by asking visitors to record their own behavior in diaries–both cumbersome and highly subjective methods.  GPS provides a better way to study human behavior, but so far the inaccuracy and cost has been major hurdles.  A test of three of the newest GPS devices, however, shows that these hurdles have been overcome by Continue reading →

HBO CEO named Mt. Vernon CEO; A Step Backwards IMHO

George Washington’s Mount Vernon

Today, Curtis G. Viebranz becomes the president and chief executive officer of George Washington’s Mount Vernon.  Unfortunately, this decision by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association is a step backward for its mission, history, education, preservation, and ironically, women, too.  Viebranz succeeds James C. Rees III, who retired in June.  Here’s an excerpt from the official announcement:

Viebranz brings to Mount Vernon more than twenty years of experience at major multinational Internet and cable enterprises, including a successful tenure as president of HBO International, the global arm of Time Warner’s Home Box Office unit. Prior to that, as Time Warner turned its attention to digital distribution strategies, Viebranz was tapped to serve as the first president of Time Inc. Multimedia. During his seventeen-year career at Time Warner and its predecessor company, Time Inc., Viebranz built an impressive resume, also serving as president of Time Inc. Europe and HBO Video.

After departing Time Warner, Viebranz helped to launch Continue reading →

AASLH Workshops for Historic Sites

The American Association for State and Local History offers a wide range of educational workshops and professional training that is particularly helpful for staff and volunteers for work at historic sites and house museums–if you know where to look.  I’ve previously mentioned the sessions during its annual meeting but people often forget that it also has half-day and day-long workshops before and after the annual meeting to explore topics in depth.  What most people don’t know is that you can register for just these workshops; you don’t have to attend the annual meeting–a great advantage for local folks!

This year, AASLH is offering 14 workshops, including:

What Sites Can Learn from the Olympics

The summer Olympic games in London are now over and if you were watching, I bet you not only reveled in the athletic competition, but you also contemplated the logistics and expenses.  Those of us who work at historic sites don’t experience events like most other people.  Sure, we like the music, food, and tours, but we also look at the placement of signs, calculate ratios between attendance and restrooms, check out the store for items we can sell, and mentally map out visitor circulation and note the bottlenecks.  Or is that just me?

The Olympics is just another special event, although it’s huge and involves a cast of thousands and decades of planning.  The designers and planners of this event are the best of the best, so what can historic sites, at a much smaller scale, learn from their experience?  One of the most valuable lessons is that Continue reading →

Making Mission and Vision Visible: Put it by the Coffee Pot

A recent visit to Museum L-A in Maine, a local history museum serving the communities of Lewiston and Auburn, revealed a clever way to keep the mission and vision visible and prominent.  They were posted on large boards in the conference room above the refreshments–whenever a group met, they couldn’t miss these reminders of the organization’s purpose and direction.

Their mission and vision were developed through a community-wide facilitated process led by E. Verner Johnson and they came up with statements that go far beyond the typical “collect, preserve, and educate”:

Mission

Museum L-A strengthens community and connections between generations by documenting and celebrating the economic, social, and technological legacy of L-A and its people.

Vision

Museum L-A chronicles the history of work, industry and community in Lewiston and Auburn; serves as a community gathering place; creates engaging learning experiences; and contributes to the civic, cultural, and economic revitalization of L-A.

For more details, see their strategic plan highlights on their website.  I was pretty impressed with this local history museum, so you’ll find a post or two about it in the future.

Put Your Organization to the Rorschach Test

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If you’re finding that your organization is in a rut and you no longer feel as inspired about its work, it might be useful to look at it in a new way by creating a “word cloud” of key documents, such as a strategic plan, mission and vision statements, interpretive themes, or visitor evaluation.  A word cloud is a visual presentation of the most frequently used words, sized by frequency.  For example, if you use the word “history” ten times more than “preservation” in your strategic plan, “history” shows up much larger than “preservation” in the word cloud.  The word cloud allows you to look at your organization from a different perspective: words jump out at you and prompt questions about what’s being emphasized (and what’s not).

As examples, in the slide show above I’ve assembled word clouds from the first few paragraphs of the About section of the websites (which often includes the mission or vision statements) of the following historic sites:

I’ve used word clouds in strategic planning sessions to Continue reading →

AASLH Council Meets in Maine

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This past Saturday, the Council (aka board) of the American Association for State and Local History met in Maine for one of their three regular meetings each year.  It’s been a tough few months due to the discovery of embezzlement and fraud within the organization, so this meeting had been preceded by nearly a dozen additional meetings of the Council and several committees by conference call to deal with various aspects related to the situation, potential threats to the organization, and improvements to our current financial management by reviewing and revising various policies, procedures, and practices.  This meeting adopted revised financial policies and procedures; adopted revised codes of ethics for board, staff, and organization; adopted a revised conflict of interest policy for board and staff; and discussed how the by-laws may need to revise the finance and audit committee responsibilities as well reconsider how Council members are elected to ensure we have sufficient people on board with financial skills.  We also began working more strategically, looking longterm to identify priorities so we can preserve those programs that matter most to members and most effectively fulfill the mission.  History News and the annual meeting/conference rose to the top as expected, but Continue reading →

Sold! Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in Oak Park

Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Oak Park, Illinois

On Monday, the National Trust for Historic Preservation sold Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio in Oak Park, Illinois but don’t worry, it’ll still be preserved and open to the public.  It was acquired by the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, who has been operating and managing the site for nearly four decades and I suspect will be there for many more.  In the 1970s, the FLWPT was a fledging organization that was attempting to save the Prairie-style home and studio of Frank Lloyd Wright, which had become badly deteriorated and cut up into a half dozen apartments by a private owner.  It didn’t have the ability to purchase the property when it came up for sale, so they partnered with the National Trust to buy the property.  The FLWPT would eventually repay the National Trust for its half of the $260,000 purchase price but in the meantime, the National Trust would hold the title and lease it to the FLWPT at a nominal price.  The success of this venture prompted these two organizations to partner on the preservation of the Robie House, a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece which is owned by the University of Chicago but was badly maintained (another example of a university mistreating historic places!).  With the sale of the Home and Studio, the Robie House partnership is also concluded and the FLWPT will work directly with the University.

I’m not sure what the change in relationship means, but just a few days ago, the Robie House and Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio were National Trust Historic Sites, two of 29 historic places sprinkled across the United States.  It’s a ragtag collection that by itself makes no interpretive sense, doesn’t adequately represent American history or culture, isn’t connected by ownership (some NTHS are owned by others) or management (most NTHS are operated by other non-profits), and wasn’t formed to achieve a specific strategy or vision (they were mostly added as opportunities arose, donors made offers, or presidents were seduced).   But with this transition, I hope it sparks some discussion around two important national issues for historic sites: Continue reading →

Let’s Give SWOT a REST

A SWOT analysis (a listing of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is a common exercise in business planning and reached the shores of the non-profit world decades ago.  Some of you probably have experienced a SWOT analysis at your site as part of your strategic or long-range planning.  The staff and board gathers around a flipchart to list  your organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses, and then your external opportunities and threats.  Sometimes there’s a bit of confusion over definitions (what’s a threat?) or where an item should be listed (is this a strength or opportunity?).  You might feel a bit of competition to mention a particularly incisive opportunity or are sweating because you can’t name a strength (all the good ones have already been mentioned!).  Eventually, the list might be prioritized and some items consolidated so it can be typed up and included in the strategic plan as a basis for decision-making.

Despite its popularity, I’ve come to the conclusion that we need to give SWOT a rest:

  • The analysis depends heavily on the people participating and it’ll always be biased in that direction.  If you conduct a SWOT exercise with board members who really aren’t involved with the organization, the analysis will probably be superficial and light.  Stock the group with lots of educators, the results will lean towards education.  There are no surprises here–people talk about what they know.  The problem is that the bias is typically not recognized and you wind up building a plan on a foundation that’s skewed or weak.
  • It’s often long on strengths and even longer on Continue reading →

Are Your Metrics Just Skin-Deep?

I’ve long been a fan of developing clear measures of success or metrics in planning.  Too often, though, boards and staff at historic sites only use total attendance or the financial bottom line to judge their success.  Certainly, having no visitors is not a good sign, but is a large number of visitors a mark of success?  Not necessarily, because high attendance may be due many factors, including some that may have nothing to do with advancing your mission in a significant manner, such as weddings rentals or dog walkers or corporate retreats.  I’m not knocking those activities and they may be an essential part of your programming, however, what I’ve most often heard at board meetings are conversations like this:

Board chair:  I heard we did well last month.  What was our attendance?

Director:  We had 2,500 visitors in March, double what we had in February.

Boardmembers (in unison):  Wow, that’s great! 

Director:  And looking at the guestbook, we had people from 14 different states and 3 foreign countries, including Latvia.

Board chair:  This must be a record for us.  Okay, let’s have the financial report–looks like the bottom line is positive.  Is there a motion to accept?

Don’t assume this only happens at the local historic house museum–it happens at the big ones as well.  As I’ve often said, Continue reading →