WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2018
8:30AM- 9:45AM CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Bridging the Talent Gap: Hiring, Training, and Developing our Future Museum Leaders
Intermediate/Museum Operations (Human Resources, Accounting, Guest Operations)
Moderator: Michelle Powers, Independent Consultant
Speakers: Brandy Vause, VP of External Relations, Bay Area Discovery Museum, Charles Castillo, Director of Human Resources & Administration, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; Melissa Russo, Director, San Bernadino County Museum
Description: The cost of employee turnover is at a breaking point. How can museums recruit, cultivate, and motivate talent to ensure we retain the best in the field? This session will discuss the basics of effective talent management and build the foundation for proactive staff retention with the support of the board of directors.
Learning Objective: Build the foundation for a talent management strategy, effective staff retention techniques to use immediately, and methods to coach and support employees from their first day until their last day at their museum.
New Perspectives: Explore the Latest in Collections Management with Emerging Museum Professionals
Introductory/Collections
Moderator: Joy Tahan Ruddell, Museum Collections and Registration Specialist, JTR Collections Management
Speakers: Christina Samore, Graduate, John F. Kennedy University; Ian Gill, Graduate, San Francisco State University; Kim Turner, Graduate, University of San Francisco
Description: Recent museum studies graduates from three Bay Area programs will present their collections-related master’s projects. Come and hear what is up-and-coming in the field of collections management, including innovations in collections access and updates on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).
Learning Objective: Learn current collections management practices and trends from emerging museum professionals.
The Intent to Understand: Using Visitor Data for Decision-making
Intermediate/Public Programs (Education, Outreach, Research, Evaluation)
Speakers: Joaquin Ortiz, Director of Innovation, Museum of Photographic Arts; Cate Thurston, Assistant Curator, Skirball Cultural Center; Michelle Maghari, Director of Visitor Services, Crocker Art Museum
Description: Museums can use surveys, video recordings, and interviews to listen to their audiences for ways to change and improve the museum experience. Staff from the Skirball Cultural Center, Museum of Photographic Arts, and Oakland Museum of California share how collecting visitor feedback has changed strategies at their organizations.
Learning Objective: Understand how collected data can inform your museum’s strategic choices and be able to do basic analysis on data to make decisions.
Empowering Teen Voices
Intermediate/ Public Programs (Education, Outreach, Research, Evaluation)
Speakers: Mariel Rowland, Family Programs Coordinator, The Skirball Cultural Center; Hallie Scott, Education Specialist, The Getty Center; Manny Guardado, Associate Education Specialist, The Getty Center; Chelo Montoya, Director of Education, California African American Museum
Description: How can museums inspire and cultivate diverse youth voices? In the current political climate, museums serve as crucial centers for the community. For teenagers, these spaces encourage a deeper understanding of themselves as agents of change. Join the Skirball Cultural Center, The Getty Center, and the California African American Museum for an exploration of empowering and inclusive teen programs.
Learning Objective: Build teen agency within programming through project-based learning, teen advisory councils, and drop-in community spaces.
8:30AM- 9:30AM ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS
Bilingual Programs: More than Translating Words
Public Programs (Education, Outreach, Research, Evaluation)
Facilitator: Vicki Wawerchak, Director of Public Programs, Guest Experience, Monterey Bay Aquarium
Description: How do we look beyond strict translation when creating bilingual programs? Learn strategies on how we transformed two public programs into an accessible and inclusive experience for both Spanish- and English-speaking audiences. Hear about successes and challenges that we learned along the way.
Discussing the Small Museum
Multidisciplinary
Facilitator: Doug Jenzen, Executive Director, Dunes Center
Description: Come discuss small museums and build your network. We will collaborate to answer questions and issues facing the small museum and provide the opportunity to connect with peers, develop networks to reach out to post-conference, and reflect on the 2018 CAM conference.
Programming through a Social Justice Lens
Public Programs (Education, Outreach, Research, Evaluation)
Facilitator: Ann Burroughs, President/CEO, Japanese American National Museum
Description: With the support of our board, we are in the process of looking at our programming through a social justice lens. We would like to invite you to share your experiences and ideas of how you have done this in a sustainable and meaningful way.
Creating Meaningful Dialogue: Difficult Subjects and Text Galleries
Public Programs (Education, Outreach, Research, Evaluation)
Facilitator: Sydney S. Garcia, Education Specialist: Race, Equity, and Social Justice, San Diego Museum of Man
Description: A challenge for museums and educational institutions is being able to reach developing young minds without weighing them down with hard to access academic language and mind-numbing text panels. When throwing in difficult topics such as race, privilege and discrimination, lecture based programs and one-sided docent experiences will not suffice. This round table will discuss various ways of developing meaningful dialogue.
10:00AM- 10:30AM INDIVIDUAL AND INSTITUTIONAL CASE STUDIES
A Not-So-Perfect Storm of Collections Disasters
Intermediate/Collections
Speakers: Karen Lacy, President and Co-Founder, Muse Curatorial Consulting Group; Melanie Dellas, Collections Assistant, San Diego Museum of Man
Description: Join us to explore collections challenges of a mid-sized California museum. Working with a small budget, no database, and mold and moths, jump into the deep end and see how we learned to swim with a re-housing grant and a lot of hard work. We will share the lessons learned and the strategies used to develop a sound re-housing, inventory, and monitoring system.
Learning Objective: Learn how a small staff overcame large problems implemeting collections management strategies with limited resources.
Crafting Relevance: How a Small Museum has Increased Reach and Revenue Through a Policy of Doing
Introductory/Public Programs (Education, Outreach, Research, Evaluation)
Speakers: Sarah Charlotte Jones, Education and Programs Manager, Museum of Craft and Design
Description: In 2017, Museum of Craft and Design embarked upon a mission to expand community reach and visibility in San Francisco. Inspired by the Summer of Love celebrations throughout the city, the education and programs department adopted a policy of “saying yes” to outside arts activation opportunities wherever they came up. As a result, MCD has seen a measurable increase in membership, revenue, and brand recognition. Explore how harnessing visibility quickly translates into robust calendars of private events and facility rentals, expanding reach and revenue.
Learning Objective: To be able to identify and accept public programming opportunities outside the museum walls to increase value and recognition in the community and leverage those opportunites to make programs more relevant to in-house audiences.
Equity=Diversity: Actionable Steps any Hiring Manager can Take
Introductory/Museum Operations (Human Resources, Accounting, Guest Operations)
Speakers: Julia Latané, Head Preparator, The Broad; Stacey Swanby, Associate Director of Visitor Services, The Broad
Description: Do you ever feel paralyzed on where to start to build a more diverse workforce and equitable workplace? Join two hiring managers from The Broad who sought change in their own departments and hear about the actionable steps they took to diversify their teams. From changing the interviewing process to providing better job descriptions, they have seen an increase in representation within their staff.
Learning Objective: To create a list of concrete actions to move toward a more equitable work environment, including hiring and performance review practices, training opportunities, and self-reflection.
All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50. Case Study of Community-Engaged Exhibition Development, Interpretation, and Evaluation
Intermediate/Multidisciplinary
Speakers: Lisa Silberstein, Experience Developer, Oakland Museum of California; Johanna Jones, Associate Director, Evaluation and Visitor Insights, Oakland Museum of California
Description: This case study spotlights Oakland Museum of California's recent exhibition, All Power to the People: Black Panthers at 50. Hear about the community engagement practices that informed the exhibition development process, including design and interpretation and learn about the visitor evaluation outcomes and impacts the exhibition had on OMCA.
Learning Objective: To learn about community-engaged exhibition development and visitor evaluation practices, including creative convenings and listening circles, as well as Net Promoter Score (NPS) and internal project team evaluation.
Planting Seeds: The Art of Indigenous Resistance and The Youth Ambassador Program Case Study
Intermediate/Multidisciplinary
Speakers: Nijeul Porter, Cultural Organizer & Producer, Sons & Brothers; Nathalie Sanchez, Art Educator and Arts Education Consultant, Self Help Graphics & Art
Description: What does community mean to you? In this case study, hear about the process, programming, and partnerships that work to build equity and inclusion in a multi-institutional and multidisciplinary art project. Through the highly acclaimed Art of the Indigenous Resistance exhibition in Los Angeles, strategize with us as we look at the intersections of art, community, and youth leadership. Learn from an exemplary model for youth-centered cultural and art institutional partnerships, exhibition, and youth programs that embrace the intersection of art, gallery education, community, and social justice.
Learning Objective: To become familiar with best practices for interdisciplinary organizational partnerships, inclusive practices, and youth gallery educator programs when presenting and working with communities of color.
10:45AM- 11:15AM INDIVIDUAL AND INSTITUTIONAL CASE STUDIES
Meaningful Community Engagement: Existing Outside Your Walls
Intermediate/Public Programs (Education, Outreach, Research, Evaluation)
Speakers: Daniel Aguirre, Community Engagement Manager, Fleet Science Center
Description: The Fleet Science Center, in collaboration with over 60 local STEM organizations and host sites, has run more than a year of free weekly programming outside the museum’s walls. Daniel Aguirre will share his experience successfully collaborating with other institutions and how they present high-level content in an accessible format. He will also discuss strategies for engaging diverse audiences, mainly Latino and Hispanic communities.
Learning Objective: To get diverse audiences to engage with your institution by building relationships with various outside communities and creating a space and reputation for your institution within an existing community.
Docents Tell All! Reflections on Docent Training
Intermediate/Public Programs (Education, Outreach, Research, Evaluation)
Speakers: Jackie Kodish, Docent, Skirball Cultural Center; Anna Schwarz, Senior Educator, School Program, Skirball Cultural Center
Description: As museum Educators, we strive to offer participatory and inclusive experiences for visitors. Can these same qualities be applied to docent training? This frank conversation between Skirball Cultural Center docent and staff provides real-world insight into the challenges and overriding benefits of embracing a training model rooted in shared leadership.
Learning Objective: To gain practical strategies for docent and volunteer training that create enhanced communication and a strong peer-learning environment.
Reimagining Annual Fund Stewardship
Intermediate/External Affairs (Development, Membership, Marketing and Public Relations)
Speakers: Jacqueline Rais, Director of Indivudual Giving, Curators’ Circle
Description: The newly transformed San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) opened May 2016. Staff and volunteer stakeholders worked together to overhaul the museum’s annual fund programs, pricing, and benefits to create deeper engagement with donors and grow revenue. Learn about the creative strategies employed that doubled revenue in two years. This case study emphasizes the opportunity that major institutional change creates to rethink donor engagement.
Learning Objective: To understand how to advance complex restructuring of long-standing membership programs resulting in increased revenue.
Artistic Collaborations with the Community
Introductory/Public Programs (Education, Outreach, Research, Evaluation)
Speakers: Holly Gillette, Education Coordinator, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Albert Valdez, Education Coordinator, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Description: How do you move beyond the traditional classroom art experience to a community-based collaborative project? Join LACMA educators as they share their artistic collaboration with two middle school teachers, 400 students, a public library, a government building, and a local assembly member to conceive of, make, and install a large-scale public artwork. Participants will receive a framework on how to initiate and navigate a collaborative project with city officials, school officials, and students, and leave the session saying, “I want to do this too!”
Learning Objective: To be able to identify strengths and limitations of large-scale collaborative partnerships.
11:00AM- 1:00PM CREATIVE STATION
Crafting Relevance: Sharpie Tie Dye
Make a groovy conference souvenir using Sharpie markers, rubbing alcohol, and a bandanna! As an illustration of their case study of the same name, MCD will share a favorite technique from last year’s Summer of Love celebrations in San Francisco. Join us to create a colorful reminder of how you, too, can use craft to activate your institution’s relevance in your community.
Presented By: Museum of Craft and Design
Mapping Your Journey
Inspired by the artistry and repurposed materials that make up Noah's Ark at the Skirball along with with the exploration of identity in the Skirball Cultural Center's Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibitions, create an eco-friendly wall hanging that maps out how you came to live in California.
Presented by: Skirball Cultural Center
11:30AM- 12:45PM CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Piecing it Together: The Integrative Power of Customer Relationship Management Tools
Intermediate/Museum Operations (Human Resources, Accounting, Guest Operations)
Moderator: Karen Kienzle, Director, Palo Alto Art Center/
Speakers: Susie Terada, Director of CRM Enterprise Solutions, SFMOMA; Jonathan Hicken, Director of Development and Partnerships, Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History; Sherrill Ingalls, Director of Marketing and Communications, San Jose Museum of Art
Description: Struggling with multiple different tools for recording information about and communicating with visitors, community members, partners, members, and donors? Explore the possibilities when those tools are integrated into customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. Hear from small, midsize, and large institutions using a range of CRM tools to increase their organizational effectiveness.
Learning Objective: Understand the benefits, challenges, and opportunities in adopting CRM technology and gain tools and ideas for embarking on a technology needs assessment
Recruiting and Retaining a Happy and Productive Board of Directors
Intermediate/External Affairs (Development, Membership, Marketing and Public Relations)
Moderator: Sue, Lafferty, Independent Museum Professional
Speakers: Randy Shulman, Vice President Advancement, The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens; Keasha Dumas, Board Member, Museum of African American Art, Celetse DeWald, Executive Director, California Association of Museums
Description: Do you know how to recruit and retain really great board members? Is your museum utilizing your current board of directors to their full potential? Join our expert panel of executive staff and experienced board members in exploring the nuts and bolts of recruitment, care, and feeding of your volunteer leadership. Understand the specific duties of a board of directors and how to keep members feeling challenged and valued for their talent and resources.
Learning Objective: Employ effective methods of recruiting and retaining great board members.
Virtual Museums: Expanding Museum Reach and Revenue with 3D Immersive Models
Intermediate/External Affairs (Development, Membership, Marketing and Public Relations)
Moderator: Dave Alpert, Architect and Co-founder, Geopogo
Speakers: Shelby Graham, Director/Curator, Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery University of California Santa Cruz; Zoot Velasco, Director, Kern County Museum; Mike Hoppe, Creative Director, 3DFX
Description: Emerging 3D technology offers museums the opportunity to create virtual models that can be visited through web, mobile, and virtual reality platforms. These offer increased revenue and margins, inexpensive new exhibit spaces, access to new visitors and demographic sectors, participatory options, and a greater opportunity to inspire the public to visit the physical museum. This expert panel provides diverse perspectives and examples of virtual museums.
Learning Objective: Understand the costs and benefits of virtual museum options and gain familiarity with some key technology implementation strategies and tools in order to adapt 3D models to suit your specific facility and program needs, tailored to your musuem’s current and targeted demographics and cultural content.
A Registrar's Tale: Stories from Museum Collections’ Trenches
Intermediate/Collections
Moderator: Leigh Gleason, Curator of Collections, UCR/California Museum of Photography
Speakers: Kara Vetter, Registrar, San Diego Museum of Man; Meredith Patute, Registrar, Oakland Museum of California; Vickie Stone, Registrar & Curator of Collections, Coronado Historical Association
Description: Learn how three registrars are combating scattered collections documentation, fighting against dirty data and poor database implementation, contending with old loans, and wrestling with some of the most outrageous registration challenges ever seen, to gain intellectual control over their collections.
Learning Objective: Tackle registration issues at your institution, evaluate the state of your collections and documentation, and formulate a work plan based on what best suits your needs.
Building STEM Identity in Girls Outside of Science Centers
Introductory/Public Programs (Education, Outreach, Research, Evaluation)
Moderator: Carol Tang, Executive Director, Children's Creativity Museum
Speakers: Isabel Ziegler, Supervisory Museum Curator, Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park; Irene Rodriguez, Executive Director, Cabot's Pueblo Museum
Description: In this panel, hear from non-science center museums who promote girls' interest and identity in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), through exhibitions, girl-friendly activities, partnerships with girl-serving organizations, and community events. Become inspired that all museums can play a role in empowering girls to explore STEM content and create new narratives around women's roles in science and engineering.
Learning Objective: Learn how non-science museums promote girls' interest and identity in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), through exhibitions, girl-friendly activities, partnerships with girl-serving organizations, and community events.
12:45PM- 1:45PM LUNCH
Enjoy a grab-and-go sandwich lunch and have a seat with your new friends. Exchange contact information and make sure you keep in touch. Start brainstorming how you can contribute to the 2019 CAM Conference. What kinds of sessions and activities would you like to see?
1:00PM- 3:00PM CREATIVE STATIONS
STEAM: LEVITATION
How might you levitate a 10-pound rock? Using STEAM, of course! Join LACMA educators to work individually or as a team to design, build, and test a structure that will withstand the weight of one (or more) granite rocks. Find inspiration for your design from LACMA’s megalithic sculpture, Levitated Mass.
Presented By: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Ethnobotanical Bookmarks
Using cuttings and pressed samples from the Native Plant Garden, attendees will make beautiful, one-of-a-kind bookmarks to take home. During the creating process, Barona Museum shares ethnobotanical research: the scientific study of the traditional knowledge and customs of a people concerning plants and their medical, religious, and other uses. Learn the plants’ Latin names, common names, names in Kumeyaay/Diegueno language ('Iipay Aa), and their traditional uses.
Presented By: Barona Cultural Center & Museum
1:45PM- 3:00PM CONCURRENT SESSIONS
Reimagining Museum Evening Programs: From Drab to Fab!
Intermediate/Public Programs (Education, Outreach, Research, Evaluation)
Speakers: Catherine Lee, Public Engagement Manager, San Diego Museum of Man; Andrea Decker, Adult Public Programming and Executive Assistant, Reuben H. Fleet Science Center; Drew Oberjuerge, Executive Director, Riverside Art Museum
Description: Today’s cultural market is saturated with engaging evening offerings: beer tastings, festivals, 80’s parties. How can museums capture audiences while remaining true to their values? This session examines how four institutions rose to this challenge. Each will discuss successes and failures, partnerships and community engagement strategies, and the risks taken to remain relevant. Exchange ideas for re-imagining your own evening programming and learn insider tips about pitfalls to avoid.
Learning Objective: Discover tools and strategies for engaging in partnerships with other museums and community organizations to create evening events true to your institutional values.
Diversifying Earned Revenue - Shark Tank Style!
Intermediate/External Affairs (Development, Membership, Marketing and Public Relations)
Moderator: Christine Stokes, Museum Director, Coronado Historical Society
Speakers: Michael Warren, President & CEO, Turtle Bay Exploration Park; Michael Shanklin, Chief Executive Officer, Kidspace Museum; Anthony Brown, Chief Financial Officer, Aquarium of the Pacific
Description: The American Alliance of Museum (AAM) forecasted the need for revenue diversification in 2012. With an uncertain federal budget, earning from a variety of sources is more important than ever. Hear from three organizations who caught on early and are actively diversifying their income streams. Then come with YOUR best revenue generation ideas and the judges will vote on them, Shark Tank-style, complete with prizes for top ideas! Hear some new ideas for earned-income diversification projects from those already launching.
Learning Objective: Practice how to think outside the box using your organization’s assets to generate income to support your missions.
Real Talk: Tackling Uncomfortable Topics in Small Museums
Introductory/Multidisciplinary
Moderator: Amy Cohen, Executive Director, Exhibit Envoy
Speakers: Wendy Abelmann, Director of Education and Community Engagement, History San Jose; Diane Curry, Curator/Archivist, Hayward Area Historical Society; Stefanie Ritter, Museum Program Supervisor, Hi-Desert Nature Museum
Description: With limited staff, time, and budgets, small museum workers face particular challenges when tackling uncomfortable topics. Learn how three professionals at small museums have successfully addressed topics that are hard to talk about – from immigration to death and from race to bodily functions – through exhibitions, education, and public programming. Feel empowered to create community conversations around and about uncomfortable topics.
Learning Objective: Learn techniques you can put into practice at your own institution, even with limited resources, to successfully present uncomfotable topics.
Hot Topics: Museums Responding to Current Events
Intermediate/Multidisciplinary
Panelists: Bill Bailor, Director of Operations, The Tech Museum of Innovation; Bob Beatty, Founder and President, Lyndhurst Group; Linda Blanshay, Director, Program Development, Museum of Tolerance
Description: Join museum leaders from across disciplines to explore how recent events around the globe are impacting your museum. This interactive session will encourage you to think critically about local and global events and when adn how museums responded. Does your museum have a plan? Join us to discuss current events adn what we can expect moving forward.
3:15PM- 4:15PM CLOSING TOWN HALL
Welcoming New Audiences, Honoring Tradition
Speaker: Jeremy Bernard, Founder and President, JMB Ltd.Donors, front line staff, foreign dignitaries, politicians and volunteers......What do they all have in common? Jeremy Bernard believes they all deserve to be treated well and that treating people well requires a certain level of flexibility. As the former social secretary to the former President Barack Obama and the First Lady, Bernard will share stories that demonstrate the importance of providing inclusive events and experiences that lead to welcoming new audiences and changing the way we view tradition. Join us as he shares valuable lessons about how to work productively with people from different walks of life and points of view.
About the Speaker: Jeremy Bernard served as White House Social Secretary and Special Assistant to the President from 2011-2015. He is writing a book, Treating People Well, with Lea Berman, Social Secretary for George W. Bush. It is due out in 2018 from Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Jeremy has been interviewed on television and for print articles over the course of his White House tenure and was profiled in a recent article in Voguemagazine as the first male and first gay White House Social Secretary (March 2015). He was also profiled in the New York Times, “White Gloves Not Needed” (Sunday, April 20, 2012). He lived in Paris and worked as the senior advisor to the US Ambassador in France before becoming the White House Social Secretary. Prior to that, he was the White House Liaison to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). He had his own consulting firm in Los Angeles, worked as Director of Government Affairs for a cable television company, and worked for a family foundation. He has worked on various political campaigns, including the 1992 Clinton for President campaign, and on the 1993 Presidential Inaugural Committee, the 2009 Presidential Inaugural Committee and was appointed by President Clinton to the Presidential Advisory Committee for the Arts of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He was also appointed to the Democratic National Committee in 2001 and reappointed in 2005. He was an Obama Super Delegate in 2007-2008. He has given numerous speeches, including at the Meridian International Center.
Jeremy now lives in Los Angeles. He is founder and president of JMB Global, LTD. He is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.
5:00PM- 7:00PM HAPPY HOUR IN THE DESERT
Sticking around, waiting for traffic to slow or just want to spend more time with your new museum friends? Join us for happy hour from 5-7pm. Location TBD.