Work · Earlier Work
Museum Consulting
Label voice for a science museum in Bihar, gallery labels for a percussion museum, and focus groups that reset a plan in Ohio. Decide the voice, then write.
Context
Between museum jobs I ran a consulting practice for cultural institutions. Three engagements show the method: settle the voice before a single label is drafted, write to a word count, and listen before recommending.
Bihar: one label, five voices
Rhythm! Discovery Center: the labels
Massillon Museum: four focus groups
- Listen first. Four groups, 18 participants, eight questions, over two days in January 2017: members, docents, artists, educators, board.
- Find the pattern. Loyal audience, loved staff, and four gaps: interactive space, more challenging exhibitions, educator and artist programmes, outreach.
- Recommend specifically. Touch galleries built from collection favourites, art and history shown together, pop-up exhibits downtown during construction, teacher materials as PDFs.
- Deliver fast. Report to the museum on February 16, 2017, four weeks after the last group.
Why It Works
- A voice decided on paper first means fifty labels agree with each other.
- Word counts are a design constraint, not an afterthought.
- Focus groups earn their keep when the recommendations name the exhibit, the object, and the audience.
5
Registers written for one label
3
Percussion galleries labelled
18
Focus-group participants
4
Weeks from last group to report