For nearly two months, museums across the country have been physically closed due to the coronavirus. In response, cultural professionals have developed and delivered exciting new content across a range of platforms to keep their audiences engaged during these unprecedented times. Now, as some states lift their stay-at-home orders and the world prepares to slowly reopen, museums are thinking about what reopening is going to look like.
On May 6, 2020, over 4,700 guests joined Brendan Ciecko (CEO and Founder @ Cuseum), Mark Sabb (Senior Director of Innovation, Marketing & Engagement @ Museum of the African Diaspora), Holly Shen (Deputy Director @ San Jose Museum of Art) & Ellen Busch (Director of Historic Sites Operations @ Texas Historical Commission) as they talked through the strategy, operations, process, and planning involved in reopening your museum successfully. This webinar will explore strategic planning, design thinking, and innovative approaches to welcoming your audiences back.
View the full video recording here.
Read the full transcript below!
Brendan Ciecko:
Hello, everyone. My name is Brendan Ciecko. I'm the founder and CEO of Cuseum. I want to thank everyone who's joining us today as well as say thank you to our amazing panelists. I hope that you're staying safe and healthy during these unprecedented and challenging times. If you're joining us for the first time, I want to give you a big welcome. For those of you who have tuned in to any of our past webinars, this is webinar number eight. Welcome back. It's great to see you again.
Over the past week or so, more and more states, and countries, and counties have been moving towards their slow reopening and loosening of their restrictions. It seems that every new day brings a new announcement, a new guideline, and many new questions we never thought we'd have to consider. There's definitely no established playbook on how to reopen a museum after a pandemic. But today we hope to discuss some of the ideas, some of the best practices, some practical steps for your consideration and sometimes parallels to things you might already have been prepared for in the past.
For some of you, the road to reopening is months away. For some of you, it's only days away. Some of you might already be reopening, albeit in a limited capacity. Today's topic is strategy, planning, and process on the road to reopening your museum. And over 4,700 people from all around the globe have registered to take part in this very important dialogue. Without any further ado, please allow me to introduce our special guests. Let's do some introductions.
First, we have Ellen Busch, Ellen M. Cone Bush is the director of Historic Sites Operations with the Historic Sites Division of the Texas Historical Commission, also known as THC. She has been with the agency since 2012 as a part of the division's senior management team overseeing the stewardship and operation of the agency's 32 museums and historic sites throughout the State of Texas. Ellen's academic background in secondary education and American cultural history was built upon professional studies with the Victorian Society in America, the Attingham Trust, and the Columbia Business School's Institute of Nonprofit Management. Prior to her work with THC, she spent 17 years working with nonprofit museums, beginning as a curator and an educator and eventually serving as executive director of two medium-sized history organizations. Her current work the Texas Historical Commission integrates the many facets of museum operations in a wide variety of sites creating systemic approaches that encourage innovation and entrepreneurial solutions. Thanks so much for joining us, Ellen. Thank you.
Brendan Ciecko:
Joining us from the Bay Area, we have Mark Sabb. Mark is the Senior Director of Innovation, Marketing, and Engagement at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, California. Mark joined MoAD in 2105 and oversees the museum's expansion of digital engagement along with onside implementations of augmented and virtual reality. Mark is also a senior strategist, a digital strategist, artist, and designer dedicated to the intersection of art and community. Through independent collaborations and solo exhibitions, Mark has cemented himself as a cutting edge digital artist in San Francisco. Thanks for joining us, Mark.
Mark Sabb:
Thank you.
Brendan Ciecko:
Looking forward to some cutting edge conversation today.
Mark Sabb:
Always.
Brendan Ciecko:
Also joining us from the Bay Area, we have Holly Shen, who is deputy director of the San Jose Museum of Art where she leads programmatic and development strategy for public programs, community outreach, and digital engagement. Prior to her current role, Holly held positions at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, SFMoMA, and Artsy. An accomplished and passionate arts leader, Holly's inspired by the intersection of art and technology and its potential to increase equitable access to arts and cultural resources. Thanks so much for joining us, Holly.
Brendan Ciecko:
I'm Brendan Ciecko, I'm the founder of Cuseum. I'll be your host and moderator for today. Let's jump into the question by thinking about what's happening now and what's happening internally. Ellen, the historic sites you oversee at the Texas Historical Commission reopened on May 1st. What types of internal conversations occurred to make this happen? What types of policies did you put in place to ensure a smooth and safe reopening?
Ellen Busch:
Okay. Well, it's a big answer, but we have 32 different historic sites with very different facilities, different communities, different visitation levels. What we felt we really needed to do centrally was to provide more of an approach and policy solutions rather than plans and leave it to our site staff to really develop the plan. We went to find some of the best information we could about our primary concern, which was the safety of our staff and visitors. We looked to the CDC, the World Health Organization, of course, the Texas Department of Health Services for some of the best guidance in terms of policies and, procedures, protocols, cleaning, whether or not people should wear masks.
Some of those things were decisions that we needed to make, policy decisions, as an agency. One of those things was requiring that our visitors wear masks indoors, our facilities. That was really for everyone's safety. A lot of our facilities are historic house museums that are not easily disinfected with, Clorox Wipes and the like. We really needed to focus on human behavior as well as things like disinfecting, and PPE, and we are encouraging people to wear masks, and encouraging people to use hand sanitizer before they come in, and things like that. Providing these guidelines really helped our sites to create their individualized plans.
Brendan Ciecko:
Great, thank you for that. It reminds me of the old expression that management is easy, people are hard. It's almost like disinfecting is easy, human behavior is the hard part. Mark and Holly, neither of your organizations have reopened yet. But both of you are planning to. Can you talk through your timeline, decision-making framework, processes, and general planning around your reopen?
Holly Shen:
Yeah, sure. I think for me the two big things that we've been talking about with our internal team Well, first we started a task force. We started an interdepartmental task force to think through all of the considerations and issues that would come up before reopening. That's been really helpful to have input and voice from the different departments. The two big themes are really that when we reopen it's going to phased. It's not going to be everything all at once. The more we can prepare mentally for that, the more it will help our thinking around those phases. Also, this is a long term game. We know that there's not a vaccine yet, and there's a possibility that museums could reopen and then have to close again. I'm trying to prep everyone to think of this as a 12 to 18-month marathon as opposed to just a strategy for reopening this summer or fall.
In those phases, the first phase would be staff getting back to work. The second phase would be reopening for visitors. The third, another phase beyond that would be reopening our school tours and programs and all of the interactive and interpretive areas, which, of course, would be not accessible right when we open. As Ellen was saying we're looking at all of the national and local resources and guidelines and planning accordingly, also requiring visitors and staff to wear PPE, thinking about signage is a really, big part of the conversation right now. Signage in terms of the social distancing for restrooms, for exhibition areas, lobbies, that thing, and also, you know, what messaging we can provide to our visitors before they come, e-mail or notifications.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thanks, and Mark you have experience in design thinking and a background from Stanford's D school, one of the most respected institutes of design thinking. When we spoke, you noted that design thinking is informing many of the internal conversations and plans, about reopening at the Museum of African Diaspora. Can you talk through what design thinking is, what its benefits are, and any actionable ways that it's impacted or changed some of your plans to reopen?
Mark Sabb:
Totally. I'll do my best to define the concept of design thinking because it is just so expansive. In a nutshell, a lot of it is inspired by the way designers look at problems and then try to solve them. A lot of it is based on iteration. A lot of it is based on the idea of maybe even throwing out old ways of doing things and looking at the problem from a completely new lens that's also influenced by the communities that it will serve. Also getting a lot of feedback from that community as well. That's really, in a lot of ways, how we've been approaching our reopening as well. The first step we looked at was what's our date that we have in mind, given the way that these phased openings are looking, especially in the Bay Area. We were one of the first areas to really go into Shelter in Place, especially here in San Francisco. We've been in it for a while. As states start to reopen, we're definitely not one of the first states to reopen in that sense.
We have to think about that and also be really flexible just because that's what it calls for. Design thinking creates a lot of room for that. For us, in a lot of ways, like I said, thinking about user feedback, for instance. One of the first things that we've done is really start to blast out and get feedback from our entire community using online surveys, seeing what kind of things that we're doing that are new. As with everyone else, we've really had to launch into online events like super heavily. We've really doubled down into that. At the end of all of our events, we're asking people questions. "What do you like? What do you not like? What do you want from us in the future?" I think in a lot of ways, exactly what Holly was saying and what Ellen was saying, it's totally true for us as well. This is something that's going to change the way that our museum works forever. We might as well approach this using design thinking in a way where we start to rethink our museum as well.
We're having conversations now, "What does it look like to build a station that has a green screen in our offices so that we can continue to do stuff like this when people are back in the office? What does it look like to do in the front of house? How do we reimagine our bookstore so that people can feel comfortable interacting with books but also be safe?" In a lot of ways for us, it's been going through that entire process, and looking at everything that we've done before, and asking ourselves, "Well, what worked? What didn't work? What does our community really want from us from here going forward?"
Brendan Ciecko:
That's great. I love the focus on it being community-centric and also iterative. It's not a one and done type of operation. I love that you're building the future of your museum with your community versus building it for them. You're building it for them but you're building it with them. I loved hearing your design thinking perspective on this. Ellen to date, you serve as the director of operations, but you have an extensive background in the nonprofit world. As a curator and an educator, you've expressed your commitment to innovation and entrepreneurial thinking in your current work which is something that I am a huge fan of in the cultural space. Do you have any thoughts around how all departments at cultural organizations might work together to facilitate a smooth transition to reopening? And what aspects of the entrepreneurial mindset are you looking to navigate this completely new event of reopening after a pandemic?
Ellen Busch:
Well, I'm so glad to hear folks, my colleagues here are thinking long term, because crisis mode isn't really sustainable. We need to be thinking long term, we need to be making good decisions that are going to benefit our communities and our institutions going forward for the next 18 to 36 months. We know from pandemics in the past that this is not a short term scenario. We really have had to look at all aspects of our organization to find solutions because we are so varied, our different sites. We started by putting out these guidelines of what we wanted to achieve. Of course, since we are a state agency, we did take direction from the governor. They put out a document on phased reopening, which helped us plan how we were going to do things. We're looking right now at being in the middle of phase one, which is 25% capacity. At some point, we'll be moving to phase two which is 50% capacity.
What that looks like on the ground, of course, varies. We've had to talk with our site staff, the maintenance departments, the educators, the retailers, the tour guides, to find solutions for how we can continue to do what we do well, deliver history and engage people, but in a way that met our guidelines. That was one level of conversation and in terms of, "How do we open and how do we do it safely?" We came up with a plan for our phase one. We need to look beyond that and realize that we need to continue to be entrepreneurial and take advantage of the opportunity that we have. As Mark said, to rethink some things that we've been doing. Does it continue to work for our community? Is it really serving people or are we just providing what we like to provide or what we've always provided? It is a great opportunity to rethink what we've been doing and to engage technology where maybe in the past we've shied away from it for some reason.
Also, as Mark mentioned, really invite the community in to provide us with some of the solutions about what they need as a community. Some of what they need now and in the coming months may not necessarily be a group tour. It may not be an exhibition. But there are ways that I think we can look at fulfilling committee needs and still serve our mission at the same time. Those are some of the conversations that currently energize me and are energizing our staff teams at our sites.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you for sharing that. At this point, looking at all of the dialogue taking place in the chat and the Q&A, there's one question that has over 82 upvotes, and that comes from Rachel Rabinowitz at the Historic London Town and Gardens in Edgewater, Maryland. We're going to shift gears a little, for this topic, but I saw it, and we want to continue to address some of the questions people have. How are you dealing with volunteers coming back into your museums? Let's talk about that. Mark, do you want to jump on that one?
Mark Sabb:
Sure. Super interesting. We actually had a call right before this one, was our staff meeting, a big part of it was actually talking about the volunteers. The interesting thing for us is that's one thing that we're thinking about, too, is actually thinking about, "What does it look like to manage space with volunteers?" But we are taking them in. Once again, just redesigning the entire process. If there are volunteers that are interested in something like public programming, I think in the past, we probably would have reeled them in, and tried to get them in different things. With space limitations, maybe it makes sense to actually have them focus on public programming and only come for the hours that we're doing programs.
If someone's interested in something like the development, they're mostly going to be in the office. That's a totally different kind of path. I think in a lot of ways, exactly what Ellen said about actually having the time now. Or we still don't have the time, but it's just being forced to address these things in a way where it was like, "Oh, we want to build out our volunteer program." Well, now, in this world, if we're going to have a volunteer program, it needs to be as organized as possible and as deliberate as possible. We really just started that conversation.
Other teams were having that conversation for maybe two or three weeks. Now we're at the point where we're pushing that to the entire staff. It is totally a work in progress. But we're still doing volunteers and internships in that sense. All of those different groups have been really crucial to supporting our online programs as well. We're doing several online programs a week. One of them is really being led by the docents as well, which are our virtual tours, which happen with our education department. Once again, finding really innovative and new ways that we can keep all of these people active even if our building isn't open and then once we open, thinking about the way that we could get these people in a way that's safe but also a good use of their time as well.
Brendan Ciecko:
Great. Thank you for that. I'm starting to see a lot of conversations on the technical and digital side of things. One of the top concerns that museum professionals have voiced around the reopening is the physical touchpoints that visitors and staff encounter when they make their way throughout the museum. One of the first of these touchpoints is at the admission desk, where tickets, money, credit cards, and membership cards are exchanged, and visitors come in to close proximity with your staff and other guests. In response, a number of organizations have been thinking through new procedures and tools like mobile tickets, time tickets, virtual cues, even coaching their guests through contactless forms of payment and other such things. Are any of these in the work at your organizations? How are you implementing some of these new tools and procedures?
Holly Shen:
Sure. Yeah, we've been discussing all of those. In terms of timed ticketing and phased ticketing, we don't quite have during more regular open hours, the foot traffic to require those types of measures, right now we are mostly working on how to set up the physical environment of the museum so that it is conducive to following the social distancing guidelines. In terms of trying to think about new ways to engage our visitors, we've been looking at different engagement activities that individuals can do on their own personal devices as opposed to having to use a shared interpretive area or something like that. A lot of engagement activities that can be posted back to social media and creating a circle of dialogue around the art, that's mostly what we've been focusing on in terms of trying to rethink how to engage digital visitors without necessarily touching surfaces and objects.
Brendan Ciecko:
Before Coronavirus, many museums had shared audio guides, touch screens, tactile learning experiences, and other types of hands-on activities to provide their guests with a more interactive and engaging experience. This was very surprising, but maybe not surprising to read. Some of these are being banned in certain countries and states. I remember seeing a headline in The Art Newspaper, last week, that some countries were banning the audio guides, which was interesting. Now a lot of these same experiences are, of course, risky in many museums, they're seeing alternatives. Can you talk a little bit more, about some of these new types of visitor experiences that don't rely on the shared devices and physical touchpoints?
Holly Shen:
I think the big thing for us is that we want to continue offering the virtual option for participants again because this is going to be a long term process. We've had a lot of success in the past couple of weeks of transitioning public programs to virtual platforms. When we reopen, we plan to keep the gallery talks in a virtual format. Those who may not feel comfortable going out into the public or rejoining those kinds of activities can still participate. I think that the real key is the sustainability. Another great example of how this crisis has formed our thinking is with regards to engagement with seniors. Again, being a demographic that we know may not be able to come back in strong numbers right away, we actually were inspired to apply for a CAC grant for wellness and community initiative, to partner with an organization that develops sustainable digital programming for seniors. We had been talking about ways to keep that demographic engaged, even before this crisis. I think that’s really thrown into relief how important that is. That's something that we're hopeful we can build out as a result of this.
Brendan Ciecko:
Wow. Thank you. Ellen, you have 32 sites, probably a wide range of different systems and protocols around things like ticketing, and queuing, and things of that nature. Can you talk a little bit about what you've been doing recently, how that might evolve over time?
Ellen Busch:
Well, we had to evolve our reopening plan very quickly. With that short timeframe, we worked with what we had available and what we felt that our visitor base had readily available, which was the telephone. It's a little old school, but in our initial reopening last Friday, we requested, or required, actually, all of our visitors at our house museums in particular, and many of our other sites to call ahead for reserved time slots. A solution that has worked in in-house museums which tend to be smaller, more controlled environments is that we have provided time slots for family groups, we're calling it, to come and visit together. These are groups that, since they're in a household, they can eschew some of the normal social distancing that we apply to people not of our household, and enjoy these house museums together for the 45 minutes to an hour with some self-facilitated, single-use print material.
But we are looking to develop digital assets to provide that experience in our house museums. Folks are calling ahead, they are paying ahead over the phone. We are doing some in-person cash and card transactions, where we are able to make some modifications to our visitor center, for example, with desk shields, those plexiglass panels, to provide our staff and visitors some protection. Again, we're requiring face coverings, we're requiring people to use hand sanitizer, and we have pretty detailed protocols in terms of sanitizing things after each use. That's actually been going fairly well. People are pretty receptive, and understanding, and I think appreciative of some of these restrictions or what we consider restrictions, but I think, to them, it speaks to the care that we're taking in terms of their safety, being at our site. To the larger sites, we're doing things more like metering at the gates. We're checking how many cars are coming in just to ensure that we don't have too packed of an environment for people to enjoy.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. You brought up the topic of safety and that's certainly on the forefront of all of our minds, organizations need to ensure that the staff and visitors alike are safe, but also feel safe after being in lockdown for so long, many visitors have lingering fears and will probably be risk-averse for quite some time. What can you do to help your visitors feel safe again, whether it be warming them up to transition them back in over a period of time, to when they're on-site? What are some of those assurances, both in your marketing, and your communications, the signage, and the digital? I think a lot of people would appreciate hearing what that looks like holistically.
Ellen Busch:
It was a coordinated effort for us, with our communications division. We put a lot of messaging out on social media and press releases when the governor announced that state museums would be opening on May 1st. We selected these protocols and put them out there on social media to let people know, "These are the standards that we're going to be applying at our sites." At many of the sites where folks have to call ahead for reservations, those are conversations that we're able to engage them with individually.
For example, if they're coming with small children, where there's a concern with face masks, we can assure them the children under the age of five are not going to be required to wear face masks. If they have any concerns or questions about any of our other protocols, it's a good time to reassure them. Once they re- arrive onsite, the presence of hand sanitizer and PlexiGuards, and things like that, and signage, is really important. As I said, we've had a good response so far, but I'm sure that's not the end of it. It's really something that we're going to have to carry through all of our messaging going forward.
Brendan Ciecko:
Great. Holly, what does some of the messaging look like from your end around communicating those assurances to your visitors, your members, to your staff about the safety component at the museum?
Holly Shen:
Our team has actually been talking about creating a version of our logo that's a social distancing version to communicate to our visitors that it's top of mind for us. In addition to our logo, having other signage in the building that's also themed along that same line, again, to just convey the message that we're thinking about it at every turn and at every step of the way in the museum. Because we're in the Bay Area, we're still fairly far out from reopening as the Shelter in Place was extended through the end of May. Right now, we're working on the messaging for summer camps, because that's been upended and there's been a lot of back and forth about whether camps would be open. And we have a very popular kids' summer art camp. The messaging around that has been very, "If you want a refund for your camp, we'll happily refund. You're welcome to try the online virtual platform that we're going to be piloting this summer." Letting them know that we're here for them and that we care, I think, is really the most important.
Brendan Ciecko:
That's great. I think it's really clever and creative that you're switching up your brand. It's almost like, for a lot of what I'm hearing from museums, they're looking at this reopening as like a new identity, a new face for their members. If safety is incorporated into that or social distancing, that's a really interesting way to say, "We take this completely seriously."
Holly Shen:
Absolutely.
Brendan Ciecko:
Wow, I didn't know that. That's really cool. Mark, how about you? How are you looking at these assurances to your community, to your visitors, to your members, and staff?
Mark Sabb:
It's interesting, too, because even before Shelter in Place, because the fear was already high, we had been sending out messages about, "Hey, we're here with you. We're making sure everything's really clean. We're ahead of you. We're thinking about this. We're with you." I think for us the big thing has been also leaning into the trust that museums inherently have. Right? People trust us and with that, we're also being honest. I think just being as clear and as real as you can be about these things and continuing to message out to your network. I've worked really closely with our executive director to get messaging out to let people know, "Hey, as we're looking at reopening, these are the steps that we're taking." Being as transparent as possible.
I think that's really what people appreciate now is knowing what you're doing and speaking to them in a way that's real. I think, luckily, at museums, when we say something, if we're being honest, people do trust us. I think that that's something that all museums can lean into and also being real that, "We don't have all the answers yet. No one has all the answers about any of this at all. We're continuing to evolve. We'll make the changes that are necessary to make you feel safe."
At the same time, I think this is also a space for us, especially, we have to be a space where people can also let go a little bit. A lot of our museums and a lot of the art that we have in our exhibitions and our events, it's a rare opportunity for a lot of our audiences to see themselves reflected in that. How do we create an environment that's safe enough where they can also start to get lost in the art again? I think having that balance is important, too, of making people feel like they are safe, "We're protecting you because you're the ones who are important to us. At the same time, we want you to still be able to get lost in our galleries, and experience the magic of that like you always have for us." The big thing is being really honest about where we are with that, and being transparent.
Brendan Ciecko:
Great. Thank you.
Holly Shen:
I wanted to add one other idea to that. I think it might be helpful for people to hear if we're also considering taking some cues from some of the other industries to how with grocery stores they might do like an hour in the morning for the high risk or senior. We're also thinking about in our hours when we reopen, could we reserve a time where there would be even less density, fewer people for those super high-risk groups to come through.
Brendan Ciecko:
Great. Thank you. It makes me wonder in the same way that we have LEED-certified buildings, and we have Department of Health ratings in different cities on restaurants if there will become new standards around making sure from a local state or national level that these places are, doing what they say they will do and should do to keep their audience safe. I have no question that museums take this very seriously and will be some of the front runners for these policies. It's great to hear what all of you are doing at your organizations. Ellen, you oversee historic sites. Mark, you work at a cultural museum, and Holly, you work at an art museum. There are so many different types and diverse types of organizations that are developing their own plans to reopen from science centers, children's museums, zoos, aquariums, nature centers, to botanical gardens. Each may have seemingly unique conditions and limitations that will affect the reopening. Do you have any advice on how to tailor your plan for reopening to these different types of organizations?
Holly Shen:
I'll just jump in really quickly and repeat what I said earlier, which has been super helpful, is in addition to culling through all of the material that's being provided at the local, state, and national level, I think it's really important to have, a cross-departmental team task force that's meeting regularly. First of all, the information's changing all the time. If you have individuals representing different departments, I think that's a good way to make sure that you have all of your bases covered. I think it's a big enough task that it requires a dedicated group of people to be thinking about it and meeting regularly.
Brendan Ciecko:
Ellen, given that you are overseeing a large group of different sites, is the plan very nuanced to the different types of venues and facilities? Or is it pretty inclusive of any type of condition or limitation one could ask for?
Ellen Busch:
As I mentioned, we started by providing some policy decisions and guidelines about operating for retail programs, all kinds of things. Knowing that this information will change. It's an organic base to start with. But really allowing our site teams to figure out how to implement that. I think the conversations that are happening, and that need to happen is really ongoing. It's, "What do we want our visitors to get out of this? Forget about the delivery method for a moment. Because that's up in the air. What do we want our visitors to walk away from?"
Being that we're historic sites, we can provide virtual programming. We are certainly building our virtual programming and digital assets. But we're historic sites. We're about real places telling the real stories. If we are going to have people come onsite, and we need to have all of these restrictions and modifications to the way we do business, in the end, what do people need to walk away with? And how do we make that a priority in everything that we do? I think those safety and those outcomes have been our guide star in moving forward.
Brendan Ciecko:
Thank you. I want to pull a question from the audience right now that has over 90 upvotes. This comes from Caitlin Ferrell at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. She asks, "If we are planning to require masks for all our visitors, do you recommend having masks on hand that you can provide or selling at cost to avoid having to turn visitors away?" Let's talk about masks for a little. Who wants to jump on that first?
Ellen Busch:
I could tell you what we've been doing. What we're saying is, "We will supply masks if supplies allow." Right now supply is a problem. We're barely getting enough to protect our staff. We're not necessarily, at all of our sites, able to supply them to visitors. We do have many of our sites sell bandanas and we're selling them either at cost or at a discount in order to not turn people away. But we're also really focusing on the messaging ahead of time, letting people know that, "This is the expectation." That's what we're doing. And we haven't had real issues with that so far.
Holly Shen:
That's our plan right now, too, is to supply for staff and volunteers and docents. We don't think we have the capacity to be able to supply everyone, especially with the supply issue. Again, encouraging ahead of time for people to bring their own, and including links to all of those DIY solutions, quick ones, which I've done myself and are actually pretty effective. An old T-shirt, cut it up, five minutes, and you have a mask.
Brendan Ciecko:
Great. Mark, how about you? How are you approaching the mask question?
Mark Sabb:
Same. I think in an ideal situation, we would love to have extra disposable masks that we hand out to anyone who doesn't have a mask or anything like that. I think that if it's all about supply, and we want to do our best to also be positive, good citizens of our community as well, also not be hoarding masks away from people who might need them as well. Once again, it's a really delicate thing, our security guards, our staff, and things like that, we have put in orders to at least secure that once we're all back in the office so we can do that.
I think that step one is done, I think, thankfully, well, politically I don't want to get into that. We do have a city where masks are required, right? Anywhere you're going to go in San Francisco, you're going to pretty much need a mask. I hope that that makes it easier for us, versus having to turn someone away from our museum because they don't have a mask or something like that.
It also just brings in really interesting ideas, right? What does it look like to have a workshop where a bunch of people just make masks for people who may be visiting the museum who might not have one. Right? But I think that we can also think about ways as these problems may come up or as we look at them and we think about them, "how do we turn this into an advantage? Right? Into more programming, and into more community engagement?"
Brendan Ciecko:
That's interesting, it almost brings up this mindset that if you're in an art museum, having that be part of your artistic creation. I've seen some contemporary artists starting to engage in designing masks. If you're a children's museum, that's a fascinating how to do type of activity. If you're a science museum, it might be learning about the different types of materials. I like what you're saying, that you can contextualize it to either your mission while producing the masks in the meantime. That's really cool. As we've explored with our variety of webinar guests over the past couple of weeks, museums of all kinds have used Coronavirus closures as an opportunity to ramp up some of these digital engagement efforts. On previous webinars, we've discussed the concept of sustainable digital transformation. Using this moment as an opportunity to facilitate such a transformation like that. Are there any key takeaways or workflows around the digital that you've learned during closures that will continue to inform how things are done at your organization as you reopen?
Holly Shen:
I think for us, we have an interdepartmental digital content team that meets twice a week for 15 minutes to go over ideas. One of the silver linings of this has been the degree to which our exhibitions team has been able to be involved in digital content. They're working a lot of times behind the scenes and doing a lot of documentation but we don't really get the opportunity to share that content that often. I think finding ways to make sure that all different departments can be involved in that digital content creation process because I think it opens up access for other people. Sometimes they might not be interested in one particular avenue and to a topic. But I think that's been the biggest takeaway for us.
Also, one of our core objectives of our current strategic plan is to really build up our art, and tech, and digital presence. Even before COVID-19, we had two digital projects that were in the works. This moment has really amplified how important that capacity building and that growth is. For us, it's affirmed that we were headed in the right direction. The timing worked out that we're going to be launching these two big digital projects during Shelter in Place.
Brendan Ciecko:
Great. How about you, Ellen? Early on we were talking a little bit about entrepreneurship and innovation, and this all in many ways, relates to digital transformation. Has it been an accelerant to the work that you were doing at your organization? Have there been any really significant learnings or outputs that you would want to share with everybody?
Ellen Busch:
Well, from a small museum's perspective, I think one thing that has become very clear to us is that we really need to build our stockpile of digital assets. If that's B roll film, it's just digital pictures, it's coloring pages, whatever it is, having a stockpile of digital assets like that can be repurposed into a variety of formats is really helpful. That's something that we have been focusing on just in the last several weeks, is really starting to build that stockpile with or without necessarily a goal for that particular asset.
The other thing that we recognized is that, in the fall, it's highly doubtful that the field trips that typically come to our sites will be coming to our sites. School will very likely look very different in the fall. I think we need to start, envisioning what that may look like to us, and how we can assist educators. We have an initiative right now of developing virtual field trips. Doing that in communication with Texas educators to understand what exactly they need. We, sometimes, or maybe not always, have created field trips with the idea of what our educators need, but more of what stories we love to tell about our sites. Now we're really doing it from the other side, saying, "What do you need to teach? What do you need to distance teach your students?" Really trying to develop those resources to be available for the fall semester.
Brendan Ciecko:
That's really helpful. I got an email right before the webinar from Yentl Kohler at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town, who wanted to know, "How will we realistically conduct these lessons for our school trips?" Ellen, I think you answered that perfectly. That's really helpful. Mark, are there any things that you've learned about your organization on the digital transformation front? I imagine it's been a work in progress for years prior to the pandemic. What were some new things that came about through this forcing function?
Mark Sabb:
Well, one of the biggest things that we've been shocked by is how global our community is. I think, which is given what we represent, being the African Diaspora. I think in a lot of ways we've sometimes get so caught up in, "how many people do we have in the building? How many people are coming to this event?" Sometimes I think in a lot of ways, getting an event on YouTube or something like that, it would just be a secondary thing, and then it was like, "Oh, we'll report the analytics out at the end of the month or something." It wasn't something that was deliberately serving the global community.
That's been one major shift, even down to the times that we have our events, now we're thinking, "if we stream at this time, what does that mean for these different time zones?" If we have an artist who has a huge following in Ghana, "what time should we do this event?" It's probably going to be different than an artist who's more so based in New York and has a following there. We really had to rethink it. We learned that, like I said, we have a truly global audience. Also, just to be honest, too, looking at the different platforms that are actually the most impactful. Our Facebook channel has been huge for us now, being able to live stream to Facebook and YouTube simultaneously, it surprised me about how much more engagement is happening on a platform like Facebook now.
I think whereas a few months ago, industry trends would have probably pushed people more towards Instagram or even started thinking about something like TikTok, it's really interesting to see in the global sense, Facebook is still really powerful and where a lot of people are spending their time. When they get that notification that a livestream is happening, they're way quicker to join it there, and leave comments and interact. They're used to that. I think what we've really seen is those two things.
It's important to be on as many platforms as possible at all times, to reach people and that our audience really just comes from anywhere. Now that they have the opportunity to engage with us more, they're doing it. I think that's been great. That's something that we're figuring out, "How do we carry this into the future and make this a part of the DNA of who we are." Rather than before, I think a lot of times we would have been like, if we're going to do this digital event, are people really going to tune in when they could just rather come to the museum to see it? Now we're seeing they definitely will.
Brendan Ciecko:
Wow. It all reminds me of the concept of the distributed museum that people have been talking about for many years, now. It seems like in the case of your museum, you've very quickly become distributed, and you're seeing how global your audience is. Congratulations on that. With many organizations at reduced capacity, or limited hours, and with many audiences still hesitant to return when that time comes, I want to hear a little bit more about how you're looking at the hybrid nature of your content. Mark, you were just talking about the events, and the timing, and thinking that historically people would just want to see it in person, but now there's a great opportunity to reach a wider audience. Holly, you have some interesting initiatives on the digital content side. I'm hoping all of you can talk a little bit about will this be a long term fixture of how you're engaging audiences, even when you're physically reopened? Is this a new standard for your organizations?
Holly Shen:
I think for us, the answer is definitely yes. As I mentioned earlier, thinking about the senior demographic, too, and how this may completely change the way that they interact, and go about their lives, and wanting to make sure that we keep them engaged. We’re definitely thinking about how to build programs onsite but maintain that virtual touchpoint. The other thing I wanted to add, just for those listening is that we've had great success at transitioning our donor events online, too. Not just the public programs but for the people that are really close to the institution and supporting, making sure that you're giving them those virtual programs to participate in. Right now, we're most likely going to do a virtual version of our gala this September.
Brendan Ciecko:
Please send us invites. Send us all invites, Holly.Fascinating.
Holly Shen:
People should be definitely thinking about that side.
Brendan Ciecko:
It's interesting because I think in a lot of ways when we think about our digital content strategy, it's very one-directional. Hearing about the two-way conversation and even that you would have a virtual gala is fascinating. That's really interesting. Ellen, with your organization, again, as you mentioned earlier, focused on the historical and the experience around historical sites, it is very much about being there, feeling and embracing that history in the place around you. How are you looking at some of your long term digital content strategy? Are your properties virtually available in some way, shape, or form? Have you started to do more virtual tours? Will that continue even now that you have reopened?
Ellen Busch:
Absolutely. There's always going to be a place for onsite, immersive experiences. There needs to be. I think what this has really pointed out to us and pushed us towards is that there is also really a place for that virtual experience and for people to be able to experience our resources from a distance. The answer is we are looking to expand our digital footprint, and reach, and also be able to monetize that in a way. When we talk about this being a longterm game, many institutions, and arguably, all of our institutions are dependent on revenue. We're dependent on admissions and retail sales. We're dependent on programs to bring in revenue.
I think when we are looking to develop our virtual content, we've been doing, I think, a bang-up job on short notice, really building our Facebook Live experiences, and some of our virtual tours on a shoestring. I think we need to look a little bit longer term in building the quality and value into these experiences that I think people will pay for. We know from the entertainment industry that people will pay for what they value. It is not a bad thing when museums have to rethink, "What do people value about us?" Also, as a preservationist has to think, "Not everybody is going to be able to visit our historic sites. We need their buy-in on their continued preservation." There are so many cultural sites in this world that need people's advocacy and support for their continued existence. And what better way to do that than through the internet and through building our digital assets?
Brendan Ciecko:
I totally relate to that and even scrolling through the World Monuments Fund on Instagram every morning and seeing places that I know I'll probably never have the opportunity to go to these precious gems of world heritage, I totally hear you on that. I want to say a couple closing words before we jump into our last big question of the day. I want to mention that, after the webinar, we're going to compile everyone's questions, ideas, and solutions into one living and breathing document to share with the entire community at large. Feel free to share your thoughts in the Q&A or the chat. We received so many questions today, I wish we had a 10-hour webinar to answer each and everyone's question, but we are limited by time today.
Send those over, we'll try our best to connect the dots for you. Overall, we're all hoping for smooth reopening and strive to be as ready as we can be. And the fact that you're here right now shows that you're taking proactive steps in preparing your museum for this reopening period that we're entering. The last question of the day for all of our panelists is, can you leave us with one big idea or small idea that we can bring back to our organizations right now about this reopening phase that we're in?
Mark Sabb:
Wow. My big thing, and a thing that's been on my mind, I think, just even this whole time as we've all been talking and listening to so many great ideas from Ellen and Holly, is that from my perspective, and I think anyone else who is very heavily on the art and technology side of things, is that I think in a lot of ways, we're always looking into the future, right? I think a lot of what you said, Brendan is that future is here now, and it caught up, right?
If you look at things that AAM was talking about like the future of museums, what does 2050 look like? That reads like tomorrow now. I think part of that is not just because of what we're doing, but because of the larger buy-in from society now. Society is a lot more comfortable with technology than they've ever been. We can lean into that more now, to donors and even people in our board. Even at this time last year, there were only one or two people on our board that I could really depend on to be like, "They're going to get why we need to do streaming.
They're going to get why we even just need faster wifi in this building." I think, now, everyone gets it. I think that that's something that is important to take and realize. Look, the, the world is with us now. Right? We should feel, like use all of the amazing data that you have online, use all of the facts that these donor events, you can do virtual donor events. I don't think anyone would have thought that that was a serious possibility a year ago. How do we take that data and that success and use that to really start to build out what these museums of the future can really be, and start to realize some of this stuff.
Brendan Ciecko:
Great. Thank you for that, Mark. I think you're totally right that reading AAM's TrendsWatch. Year over year, everything that's been projected is here with us now, even if it's 30 years out. Ellen, how about you? What's a big, medium, or small idea we can bring back to our organizations right now? Seeing that you've actually reopened, you're speaking from the perspective of someone who has reopened a large group of tourist sites, historical sites.
Ellen Busch:
Well, that is still very much a work in progress, and we'll keep you all posted. I think if I had to leave everybody with a single message, take a breath, be brave, think again. We can do this, we know our museums. We know our audiences. We know our staff are talented and capable people. Pandemics have been with us, they will be with us. Think long term. This isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. Just think about the quality of the content and the goals that you have for your visitors and for your organization.
Brendan Ciecko:
Excellent. Thank you for that. Holly, how about you? What's one big thought you would leave with the museum and cultural community?
Holly Shen:
I would just piggyback off what Mark was saying about how important it is to build capacity in the digital realm. Also looking at it as a big opportunity, I think both on the programming and fundraising side, we've been able to reach people who are interested in our programs and our ideas that we never would have been able to reach before. In the realm of camp, we're thinking about who are the artists that we could do virtual studio tours with that we would never be able to work with before. Really thinking about it as an opportunity, I think is the best way. Also, just keep the conversation positive. Which, at this time. My other mantra with my director of development has been, who has reminded me and at some point when I was really stressed out, is "don't get too emotional and do the right thing. Just try to keep your head about you. It should all come together."
Brendan Ciecko:
Excellent, thank you, Holly, thank you, Mark, thank you, Ellen. I really enjoyed and appreciated your insights over this past hour. I hope that everybody at home feels one step more empowered, one step more inspired, and one step more comfortable with the reopening phase of their museum or cultural institution. I thank everybody who's joined us today. I thank our great guest speakers, Ellen, Mark, and Holly, you guys were incredible. I hope everybody's staying safe, staying healthy, and staying positive during these really uncertain moments with us right now. Thank you, everybody