Category Archives: Glossary

Glossary, T

Thought Leadership

Posted on by James Heaton

What it means

Thought leaders are public-facing subject matter experts, who seek to proactively influence broader opinion. It is not a permanent title and it requires that the content be at the forefront of the subject matter. Thought leaders can organically emerge from inside the museum and it is not required that they be a senior leader in the organization.

How it’s used

Museums are an excellent platform for individuals to be recognized for their expertise. The museum can empower and enable its people at all levels of the organization to develop their thought leadership capacity. Communications teams are often tasked with raising an internal thought leaders’ profile by leveraging opportunities for them. 

Thought leadership is frequently a goal of museum leadership and recognized as a strategy to utilize the talents of individuals within the organization. It positions both the individuals, and the organization as leaders, and increases the visibility of the museum’s work. Museums themselves can be thought leaders, staking out a consistent, focused, and publicly recognized position of expertise and thus become sought after when the subject arises in public and professional discussions.

Smaller museums have a brand imperative to find and keep focus as you can only be a thought leader on a few topics. Larger encyclopedic museums often struggle with focus because they are inevitably pulled in so many different directions. 

At encyclopedic museums it’s more likely that there will be individuals with niche areas of expertise that don’t represent the museum as a whole. For specialized and smaller museums however, thought leadership is an opportunity to gain recognition and public stature for the museum itself. 

Why it matters

Thought leadership translates into greater visibility, more frequent invitations to panels and conferences, and publications within the field and for general audiences. This, in turn, bolsters a museum’s public profile and funding opportunities, while also enhancing public awareness and trust. Consistent thought leadership can also help attract and keep capable employees.

Recommends

All members of a museum should be able to contribute to an institution’s thought leadership from their particular vantage point, as such it is important that all individual contributors on a museum’s team should have full bios on the website so they can be more easily sought out.

Glossary, S

Staff

Posted on by James Heaton

What it means

Staff are all paid employees of the organization from the CEO to the front line. They typically make up the largest line item in a museum’s budget. Museums also have an array of other service providers, including regular vendors, contractors, and others who are all seen by visitors in the same light as paid employees and who contribute profoundly to the organization’s success. Paid employees, however, have access to different information and are held to higher standards.

How it’s used

While all members of the museum community are expected to uphold its values and serve to engage the public, it is the museum staff that are ultimately responsible for this work and are paid to represent the museum in the eyes of the public. The museum is responsible to ensure that anyone actively working with the museum conducts themselves appropriately because they are in effect representing the museum even though they may not be staff.

Staff are thought workers who help shape the direction of the organization. They are the core team that carries out the museum’s mission and activates the strategic plan. As such, they are critical to the success of the organization and are not just resources in the same vein as facilities or collections.

Note: The majority of North American museums are small museums, many of which have few or no paid staff. In those cases, the roles and responsibilities of paid employees may fall to board members and volunteers.

Why it matters

Since museums exist to serve the public, all those who interface directly with the public are critical to its purpose. Any negative experience in the museum is a threat to the brand and thus, future visitation, membership, etc.

How a museum treats its employees has a direct impact on audience experience. The health and well-being of museum employees is thus foundational to an organization’s capacity to effectively serve the broader public and fulfill its mission.

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The word “staff” is commonly used for employees who are not part of the leadership and this, in our view, is problematic because it supports a particular mental model.

As we see it, the term staff creates a false sense of separation between decision-makers or “thinkers” and “doers.” All employees should all be both decision makers and doers.

“Team members” is a better term in our view and all members of the team should be empowered to make executive decisions within their designated area of responsibility, rooted in the organization’s Core Values and also be fully empowered to carry out those decisions. “Staff” as a term interferes with this sense of agency.

C, Glossary

Core Values

Posted on by Joyce Kwon

What it means

Core values are a focused set of guiding principles that define your highest organizational aspirations. The organization is stronger when all members honor the core values and apply them in all decisions, large and small. They operate internally and externally; this includes team behavior, colleague interactions, and how the organization interacts with the public.

How it’s used

Core values should be used in critical decisions such as board selection, hiring, training, onboarding, and program selection. They should also be used in day-to-day discussions, planning, and strategic planning as an active tool for all decision-making. Core values can serve as a type of rubric to assess the compatibility of a partnership.

Core values serve as guardrails for everyone, including the board, executive leadership, team members, and volunteers, and they should extend to expected visitor behavior. All members of the organization should take responsibility to uphold and defend the core values. This work should be regarded as part of one’s role and responsibility as a member of the organization.

Core values should address an organization’s highest aspirations rather than reiterate standard nonprofit management practices. Safety and integrity, for example, should not clutter the core values, as these should be regarded as basic prerequisites for continued operation.

Core values must be well defined, easy to understand, and ready to use by everyone involved in the museum; this puts a severe limit on how many core values any museum can reasonably have.

Why it matters

In a world where museums face an increasingly uncertain future, core values serve as critical guardrails and inspiration, protecting the organization from going off the path as it moves toward the achievement of its most aspirational vision.

Core values are a powerful tool in the development, evolution, or maintenance of organizational culture, which is, in turn, a key constraint on organizational strategy. If the culture, and thus the behavior of those inside the organization, is out of alignment with the strategy, the museum’s capacity to execute that strategy will be severely limited.

Notes

See also Purpose Statement (Purpose, Mission, Vision, Values)

Recommends

We recommend using only three core values and to avoid “values soup” with five, six, or more values. A total of three core values allows every member of the organization to keep them all clear in their heads and top-of-mind so that they can make use of them. A large collection of core values, especially those with absent or nebulous definitions, are nearly impossible to use in real-world decision-making. We see this as a significant and very common problem when an organization seeks to activate its core values in service of building a stronger organizational culture, or by extension, executing an organizational strategy.

 

Recent years have witnessed the addition of DEAI to many organizations’ list of core values. This is problematic for at least two reasons: (1) diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion are actually four additional values; and (2) they should, like safety and integrity, be part of the baseline for any museum’s operation today. Reality, however, lags way behind this ideal and so the impetus to add them is understandable. Our recommendation at this time is to include DEAI in the definition of all of a museum’s core values rather than adding them as an appendage.

Glossary, T

Target Audience

Posted on by Joyce Kwon

What it means

A target audience is a group of people with shared demographic and/or psychographic characteristics that the museum has identified for a particular purpose, such as exhibition or program attendance or participation in a survey. Target audiences are often represented by a persona (see Audience Persona) with a name and detailed description, highlighting specific characteristics that are representative of a member of this group.

How it’s used

Consider a marketing campaign for an upcoming project; a broad message targeted to the general public might be seen, but is at risk of being overlooked, whereas a much more focused message that keys in on the needs and interests of a particular audience is likely to be more effective. Well-defined target audiences and research-based knowledge of what these audiences value enhance the museum’s project team’s ability to work together in a more focused manner as they seek to achieve the project’s audience-based goals.

A product, such as an exhibition, is best developed with a target audience in mind. Not doing this means that the target audience defaults to those within the museum instead of an identified external audience. Nothing is truly for everyone, but specific targeting, when done well, can have the effect of energizing the audience most likely to benefit from the program or exhibition. This, in turn, can spark word-of-mouth and thus significantly extend the reach of the museum’s marketing and communication efforts and expand the realized audience beyond the original target.

It should be noted that, in general, new audiences are far more difficult to attract than existing ones and any new target audience will require persistent and sustained effort to develop and maintain.

Why it matters

Target audiences allow the organization and its staff to focus their resources and efforts on an agreed-upon audience or community. This helps to clarify where to advertise, for example, and what aspects of the offer to highlight in the museum’s communications. Deepening a relationship with a target audience requires both focus and consistency, so having too many target audiences can diminish the museum’s ability to deliver its message.

Notes

See also Audience Persona

recommends

Narrowing your target audience will consistently have greater yield than expanding the target. This is a discipline because it is so easy to want things to be for “everyone.”

 

For examples of highly specific targeting and its positive effects, see: You Need a Target: What Makes a Marketing Plan Strategic?

 

For a deeper look at the difference between audience-centric product design and internally focused product design, see: Curatorial vs. Marketing

F, Glossary

Free

Posted on by Joyce Kwon

What it means

Free means eliminating the price for a museum offering, program, or initiative (e.g., “The program is free to attend” or “Admission to the museum is free”).

Free can have significant benefits to the public, the organization, and the community. When costs are removed for the audience, accessibility improves; however, it is important to recognize that for the organization, free comes with unavoidable costs and consumption of the organization’s resources. It is also important to acknowledge that there are hidden costs of participation for the audience as well (e.g., transportation, parking, food, or even opportunity cost of what else could be done with one’s time).

How it’s used

A museum can offer programs or admission for free on a periodic or permanent basis to support the museum’s mission or for marketing purposes.

Permanently free admissions or program offerings can also have the potential to reduce perceived value, commitment to attendance, and/or reduce the amount of time a visitor spends at an exhibition or event.

Free is not a substitute for direct invitations to a particular community to visit or attend. The museum should not assume that being free is sufficient as an invitation to participate, especially for minority or traditionally underserved communities.

Why it matters

Free admission or free programming is an important tool to increase access, particularly local community access to the museum and its programs.

For the public as well as the staff, it is important to communicate the value the offer brings despite its being free. Furthermore, appropriate public recognition should be given to the supporters that made free admission or programming possible.

Recommends

See: Museums and Race

Glossary, W

Word-of-Mouth

Posted on by Joyce Kwon

What it means

We all tell stories. Word-of-mouth is shorthand for the stories told about your museum or its products out in the marketplace. These stories can be positive or negative. They are generally regarded as the most reliable and powerful types of information a person can receive regarding your museum and its offerings. Organic social media operates as a kind of word–of-mouth. Online reviews are also a closely related form of storytelling and have a similar effect.

How it’s used

Word-of-mouth is the result of every component of the experience and thus, the responsibility of every function in the museum (see also brand equity). Marketing, communications, and audience engagement play a role in setting the stage for word-of-mouth, but fundamentally, it is driven by product quality (e.g., exhibitions and programs) and lived experience. Extremely good experiences encourage positive word-of-mouth. Modestly good experiences typically do not. Negative experiences, even mildly negative ones, encourage negative word-of-mouth. This range of response to an experience is important because negative stories carry more weight than positive ones.

Why it matters

Word-of-mouth is arguably the most powerful marketing mechanism because it can drive behavior. Because it is rooted in storytelling, it has always been with us, and in a world that is oversaturated with marketing, the first-person story or testimonial given to you by someone you know and trust overrides almost any other message. This power is the origin of such widely used tools as the Net Promoter Score. For a museum, the same dynamic is at play. What people are saying about you and your products (e.g., a special exhibition) is often the strongest determining factor for a person’s choice to attend or not.

Recommends

See: If you satisfy your customers you fail.

Glossary, W

Wellness/Well-Being

Posted on by Joyce Kwon

What it means

The National Wellness Institute (NWI) defines “wellness as an active process through which people become aware of, and make choices toward, a more successful existence.” And wellness can be understood against various dimensions, including the spiritual, emotional, mental/intellectual, social/relational, environmental, and physical.

Today, it is not uncommon for businesses, organizations, and academic institutions to consider additional dimensions or wellness-based elements for their institutions. Whether the organization thinks about wellness using the six dimensions from NWI or an expanded menu, wellness offers a deeper and more holistic view of a person’s health and well-being, moving away from one singular vantage point, for example physical health, to other considerations such as social connections, relationships, or spirituality.

Wellness for museums inspires a fuller, more complete view and understanding of their staff, audience, and community.
As noted by the International Audience Engagement Network (IAE), “museums have an active role to play in responding to and sustaining the various wellness needs of our communities.”

How it’s used

Wellness can be considered both a mindset and a framework for museums, assisting them in engaging and understanding their staff and volunteers, audiences, and the communities the museum serves.

The wellness mindset provides the museum with an expanded understanding, moving from a singular consideration to a pluralistic one. An example of the wellness mindset might encourage the museum to consider the negative impact of loneliness during the pandemic on individuals and their relationships with their friends, family, and neighbors (social). Looking at another dimension, people’s fitness activities were also forced to change during the pandemic (physical). In considering yet another dimension, many were no longer able to attend religious activities at their houses of worship (spiritual).

The wellness framework allows the organization to consider, plan for, and where possible, address an expanded range of needs for museum staff and volunteers, audiences, and community. A wellness framework encourages the museum to expand its offerings and create opportunities for group participation so that the individual can socialize with family and friends (social). The museum could include the step counts for its exhibitions (physical). In considering the religious needs of its audiences (spiritual), the museum might consider altering its food options.

The IAE provides a wellness-based framework for museums to further assist them in planning and addressing their staff, audience, and community’s holistic needs.

Why it matters

A wellness mindset and framework provides the museum and its staff with an expanded view of the needs of staff, audiences, and communities. Putting a wellness framework into practice can make people feel nourished and more satisfied with their museum experience, thus encouraging greater visitation and engagement. Wellness moves the discussion beyond the primary consideration of common touchpoints to a broader perspective of each group’s holistic needs and motivations. This allows the museum to better plan, engage with, and meet those needs and expectations.

Glossary, V

Visitor Experience

Posted on by Joyce Kwon

What it means

Visitor experience is the interactions a person has with the museum that form and inform their feelings about it. Visitor experience starts well before a visitor walks into the museum, but once a visitor does walk in, it is the cumulative effect of every interaction from ticketing and security to food offerings and the quality of interpretation. Visitor experience is delivered by the building, its contents, and all of its frontline employees and volunteers. It is also affected by external circumstances, such as the weather or what’s happening in the surrounding community.

While the visitor experience usually applies only to the physical, the same considerations apply to user experience (i.e., any digital experiences that the museum offers).

How it’s used

While visitor experience is highly subjective and individualized, and is affected by some elements that are beyond the control of the museum, it is a critical consideration that should be at the heart of team planning and design for all public-facing aspects of a museum’s offer. It can be measured using tools such as net promoter surveys, spot interviews, observation studies, or even having those normally behind the scenes, such as curators, walk the floor and observe how people take in what is on offer.

Why it matters

An excellent visitor experience is essential for positive word-of-mouth. The enthusiasm of the story a visitor tells after a visit, or how they share the experience with their network, is a key determinant of higher or lower attendance and brand building. Visitation can and should be kickstarted via marketing and communications, but it is visitor experience that determines if the attendance numbers escalate or fall off as an exhibition or program runs its course.

Notes

See also Wellness/Well-Being