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Reposted from MuseumNext
As the song goes, “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone”. And that’s certainly how the world is feeling right now about those cultural venues and institutions that we all miss so dearly.
With the COVID-19 pandemic dominating our lives for close to a year now, the loss of our favourite pastimes and enriching experiences has become increasingly painful. So, it’s only natural that we attempt to reflect on how things have changed and how much we have all had to adjust to a “new normal”.
Significant change causes us to try and make sense of the world around us, and time and time again we turn to art as a way to express and perceive the complex emotional impact of pivotal moments in human history. While spending time wandering the corridors and galleries of our favourite institutions may not have been possible for much of the last year, it’s true to say that museums haven’t been standing still. In fact, they’ve been finding new ways to resonate and connect with the public – at a time when their value has become intensely clear under the microscope of restrictions and hardship.
A case in point: the Covid Letters:
The UK’s Foundling Museum was originally founded in the 1700s as a home for abandoned children. It seems fitting, therefore, that their most recent exhibition gave voice to the young people struggling with the realities of the pandemic.
The Covid Letters was pieced together by designed Jonny Banger, who sought out works from the nation’s children during lockdown. Using the letter Prime Minister Boris Johnson sent out to households to announce the lockdown as a canvas, children under the age of 16 were encouraged to customise and decorate it in a way that articulated their feelings about the pandemic. This included how they felt about the Government, the NHS, schools and the changes to family life.
The result is over 200 unique works which give a direct insight into the way the pandemic has impacted young people. From anti-government graffiti to support for the NHS, this colourful collection is full of frustration, inspiration and stories.
When much of the world first went into lockdown in spring 2020, museums were forced to shut their doors. Almost one year later, many of these institutions have mastered the art of digital exhibitions.
Even the world’s biggest cultural powerhouses like The Louvre, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and Amsterdam’s Van Gogh museum have spent the last year creating a constant stream of illuminating and inspiring content for museum fans to enjoy from anywhere in the world. And although this level of digitalisation has been forced upon us by chaotic circumstances, in a way it has made museums more accessible than ever before. The ever-evolving use of social media by museums in lockdown has also created a clear line of communication between institutions and the public, allowing fans and followers to inform the dialogue – rather than acting merely as the audience to broadcast messages.
So it’s no wonder that the rise in digital exhibitions has been well-received. The Centre Pompidou in Paris has seen record numbers of “visitors” in lockdown, and a huge spike in digital interest. The museum’s official podcast has had eight times as many listens since the building’s closure, and the popularity of the museum’s YouTube channel is reportedly up by 60%.
Not every museum has found success in lockdown, and many may struggle to entice visitors back through their physical doors in the wake of the pandemic – even if they have survived the financial hardship of the last 12 months. For those who succeed in battling through, however, there will almost undoubtedly be a period of self-reflection and introspection to navigate over the coming months and years.
This is exactly what the Guardians of Sleep exhibition aims to achieve. Created through a collaboration between the Museum of London and Canada’s Museum of Dreams, the exhibition will collect descriptions of people’s COVID dreams as a way to explore and understand any commonality in how our mental health has been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. Such ambitious exhibitions highlight how, by engaging with today’s society, museums have the power to help us all feel less alone.
Of course, any discussion about mental health must address the anxiety, fear and stress that has been a common feature of everyday life in recent times. But if museums are equipped to do anything, it is to help make sense of the world through. As we emerge from the trauma of Covid-19, capturing the knowledge we have gained and documenting the stories created during this period will be an essential role for museums.
The pandemic has turned museum culture on its head. To find out more about the journeys museums and galleries have taken to tackle the COVID-19 crisis, don’t miss the MuseumNext Digital Summit later this month.
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Reposted from California Academy of Sciences
Earlier this month, the Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) awarded the California Academy of Sciences an IF/THEN® Gender Equity Grant to increase the visual representation of women and gender minorities in STEM across museum content. The Academy joins 27 other recipients around the U.S. working to showcase greater gender diversity in exhibits, displays, and materials as part of their broader efforts to advance diversity, accessibility, inclusion, and equity. The Academy also received one of four prestigious Moonshot Awards given to support extraordinary efforts that can be easily replicated or shared with other science centers and museums.
“Representation matters, and as the oldest cultural institution in San Francisco, the Academy is proud to highlight the diversity of STEM practitioners that reflects the diversity of our city,” says Dr. Lauren Esposito, Curator of Arachnology and Founder of 500 Queer Scientists, a powerful visibility campaign for LGBTQ+ professionals working in science, science education, and science advocacy.
The Academy will develop a pop-up exhibit that tells the first-person stories of LGBTQ+ women and gender minorities of color in STEM professions. The exhibit will be made available for other institutions to easily and inexpensively recreate and display, allowing them to showcase the stories that resonate most with their audiences. In addition, Google Arts & Culture will host a virtual exhibit that features all first-person profiles plus additional content, helping to ensure these powerful stories extend beyond museum walls. The goal is to create space for the LGBTQ+ community to see themselves in STEM, and to help all audiences better recognize the true diversity of STEM practitioners in their communities.
“People with LGBTQ+ identities have propelled science forward from the shadows, and they’ve persisted in the face of persecution—scientific and otherwise—for centuries,” says Esposito. “It’s long past time for us to be seen for our accomplishments, and embraced for our identities.”
A growing body of evidence indicates that LGBTQ+ people in STEM are statistically underrepresented, encounter hostile work and educational environments, and leave STEM professions at an alarming rate. LGBTQ+ representation in STEM has lagged behind societal progress, particularly where identities of women and gender minorities intersect with Black, Indigenous, and other person-of-color identities. Museums like the Academy are perfectly positioned to start a conversation that catalyzes a culture shift across society. The Academy’s pop-up exhibit will be transformative by creating space for the communities being highlighted and by showing future LGBTQ+ professionals in STEM that they’re not alone.
The pop-up exhibit opens later this summer and will feature the work of inspiring individuals who are a critical force for STEM progress but whose voices have traditionally gone unheard. To nominate someone for the exhibit, please fill out a submission form.
Reposted from Retail Customer Experience
Self-service automation can improve efficiency, but in a retail environment, the human touch is as important as ever.
What many retailers are learning is that self-service technology cannot only help support a humanized environment; it is necessary to give consumers the choices they are looking for.
These were the takeaways of a panel presentation, "How, When and Why to Add Self-Service Kiosks" at last week's Self-Service Innovation Summit.
The coronavirus pandemic has encouraged some retailers to hasten their introduction of self-service options, although not at the expense of not having employees on hand.
COVID-19 caused The Hudson Group, which operates stores in travel facilities, to accelerate its use of automated self service, said panelist Ruth Crowley, vice president of merchandise and brand strategy, The Hudson Group. This past summer, the company introduced personal protection equipment vending machines in 27 airports and the Houston Space Center.
"It doesn't mean we lose touch with the customer," Crowley said. The company makes sure associates are on hand to help the customer at the kiosk.
"What we have tried to do is humanize the elements of the experience," Crowley said. One way they do this is through the use of an app that allows the customer to make a purchase even before they arrive at the airport.
Crowley said customer expectations are higher than ever. "They want what they want when they want it," she said.
Saladworks, a fast casual restaurant chain, began adding a robotic salad maker, known as "Sally" — which allows guests to select from 22 toppings and serve themselves a fresh salad in less than a minute, said panelist Eric Lavinder, chief development officer at Saladworks.
"With food, you have to be convenient, you have to be accessible and you have to make it easy," he said. "The biggest thing is putting healthy food in more places."
Lavinder said the company also has a guest engagement program that allows it to interact with customers on personal level and learn their tastes and habits.
"It's really about learning the customer. You can give them better consistency," he said, as well as up-sell them. "They (consumers) also want choice and control. To me the technology is a necessity."
The Ontario Regiment Tank Museum in Ontario, Canada, repositioned its digital concierge avatar, Lana, to provide contact tracing information and screen visitors before they enter, said panelist Jeremy Neal Blowers, executive director. They added facial recognition that allows Lana to know if you are a visitor or a staff member. A staff member requires a daily COVID screening.
The contact tracing allows the museum to send information on all visitors to the health department, Blowers said.
The museum introduced Lana in 2019 to recognize and engage visitors when they enter the museum. They wanted to welcome visitors to make check-in seamless and answer common questions about the museum.
For the museum, Lana actually enhanced the human interaction, Blowers said, since it gives the volunteers the chance to talk about the museum and not deal with mundane transactional tasks.
In addition, high value customers (regular visitors or donors) have the ability to opt in at the concierge to a higher level customization, Blowers said. The facial recognition can offer special things for VIP visitors.
"It creates a consistency because it is an automated system," he said for the technology.
The Wooster Red Sox, the minor league team for the Boston Red Sox, will have self-service kiosks for selling tickets and for automated food concessions at its new ball park, said panelist Matt Levin, the company's senior vice president and chief financial and technology officer.
A fan will go in, take something from the shelf and take it to the self-serve kiosk to pay. They plan to allow a fan to do it from their mobile device too.
Levin said an even more personal experience will emerge as his company gathers more data on shopper behavior. If more shoppers are looking for candy bars, for instance, they can relocate that product in the store.
"This gives us the means of redeploying some of our human assets to help be better ambassadors for our fans," he said, echoing Blowers. "As opposed to somebody being a cashier, we can now utilize that body to actually create meaningful dialog with our fans and help them with the kiosk."
"It's not about having the technology replace the human capital but it's actually using the human capital to help the customer with the technology and beyond to help them find targeted experiences," he said.
Throughput metric is a crucial metric, Levin said. "We only have them for a limited amount of time," he said. Having to wait in line for a hot dog causes people not to order food.
Offering both a contactless and staffed approach is the best of both worlds, said panel co-moderator Mark Thomson, director of retail and hospitality solutions EMEA at Zebra Technologies.
The panelists agreed that the use of apps will increase since it enhances the customer relationship.
"This is the only way forward. It's not going to revert back," Crowley said, noting that research has found that 66% of people are more comfortable engaging with an app. "To engage with people in a more holistic way, you have to do this."
"Once you open your mind to the customization and the automation, it's amazing," Blowers said. "I'm sure everybody here is working on more ideas." With the virtual concierge, they will recognize a foreign language and personalize the experience. They could also deploy a concierge at an exhibit as opposed to just the entrance.
"All of us here are really just the tip of the iceberg on where it is going," he said.
Which isn't to say the journey will be easy.
"Technology is not cheap to deploy, and some things are going to be wrong," Lavinder said. "We do a lot of research and spend a lot of money. Everything we do is not exactly perfect. You have to be willing to invest in the infrastructure and technology because you don't know what you don't know and you don't know what's going to work and not work. You have to invest the time in technology." In addition, you need to be willing to fail sometimes.
"I don't think it's ever going to replace live stores and live people," Lavinder said. "It's on their terms, and how they want it."
Co-moderator Richard Thompson, director of global OEM sales at Zebra Technologies, said that going forward, there will be more collaboration among companies on technology.
Reposted from Artnet News
Nearly 100 French museum directors and curators have shared an open letter urging the culture minister to reopen the country’s arts institutions, which have been locked down since late October.
Addressed to culture minister Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, the letter argues that with the safety protocols instituted over the past 10 months, museums now represent a low contamination risk and will in fact help to combat another public health risk: the “heavy psychological and social consequences” of confinement.
The missive was written in response to President Emmanuel Macron’s January 29 announcement that museums in France will remain closed for the foreseeable future, even though he’s chosen not to impose a third national lockdown.
“After hearing the latest government announcements, we want to make our voice heard,” the letter reads. “We ask to be able to fully play our role of unifying places, conveying what has meaning, and to reopen the doors of our institutions as widely and as soon as possible.”
“For an hour, for a day, for a week, or for a month, let us partially open our doors,” the document implores.
Among the first wave of signatories were Quentin Bajac, director of Paris’s Jeu de Paume; Isabelle Bertolotti, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon; Emma Lavigne, president of the Palais de Tokyo; and Chiara Parisi, director of the Center Pompidou-Metz. Now, more than 2,300 additional signatories have added their names to the letter since the Palais de Tokyo published it through the platform change.org.
For museum leaders, Macron’s recent announcement represents the third time a projected date for reopening has been postponed or moved since going into lockdown for a second time last fall. Mid-December was the first targeted reopening date, before being moved to January 7, and then again to the end of the month. Now, it seems, the timeline for cultural institutions to resume business remains a guessing game.
The French Ministry of Culture did not respond to a request for comment.
“At a time when many cultural institutions are considering the creation of spaces dedicated to well-being through art and artistic mediation,” reads the letter, “we wish to be able to take care of visitors now, because it seems essential to us that places of culture can once again offer a sensitive experience, necessary for mental well-being to face this crisis.”
The letter concludes: “Art, like health, helps heal the human soul.”
Reposted from Anthony Amore
What is it about Massachusetts and cultural property crimes? The commonwealth has been home to a list of jaw-dropping heists that set precedents, as well as records, for the value of the items taken.
The question was posed to me during a recent lecture I gave (virtually, of course) during which I stated that all great heists have a Massachusetts connection. I was speaking about Rose Dugdale, the subject of my recent book The Woman Who Stole Vermeer. Dugdale was not merely the first woman to pull off a major art heist, but her take from the 1974 theft of 19 works from the Russborough House in Ireland was the biggest of her day. What’s her connection to Massachusetts? After graduating from Oxford, she came to the United States and attended Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley to earn a master’s degree.
Admittedly, Dr. Dugdale’s is a tangential connection. No matter, though. Here’s a summary of some of Massachusetts’ more notorious heists:
1972 - The first ever armed robbery of a museum occurs at the Worcester Art Museum when members of Florian “Al” Monday’s gang steal four masterpieces and shoot a museum guard along the way. The story is detailed in my first book, Stealing Rembrandts.
1973 - A thief uses a rouse to trick an overnight security guard into letting him into the Fogg Museum. Once inside, the thief brandishes a gun and allows three others into the facility from which they steal millions in gold coins. It is the largest coin theft in history.
1975 - Myles Connor and accomplices pull off a daring daytime heist of a precious Rembrandt painting from the Museum of Fine Arts. The work is later used to negotiate a sentence reduction for Connor related to other art heists. It’s the most prominent example of a masterwork being used by a thief as a get-out-of-jail-free card in modern history.
1978 - A Cezanne still life and six other paintings are stolen from the home of Michael Bakwin in Stockbridge. The paintings are valued in the tens of millions of dollars and the heist is considered the biggest property theft from a home in American history. The story of this heist is told in my book The Art of the Con.
1990 - The Gardner Museum heist. Simply put, the biggest property theft in the history of the world.
Interspersed throughout these years and since, Massachusetts also became known as the armored car robbery capital of the U.S., with violent gangs from the South Shore and as far as Pittsfield picking off money trucks on what seemed like a weekly basis. And none of the above includes the legendary crimes of the likes of Whitey Bulger, the Winter Hill gang, the Angiulo Brothers, and the innumerable other museum thefts perpetrated by Myles Connor.
One wonders what was behind all this. Could it have been the corruption of a rather large number of law enforcement officers that provided thieves with a sense of protection? Might it have been the natural byproduct of a city with two distinct sets of ethnic mafias running amok, inspiring lower-level hoods by providing at least the potential for lining up illicit sales? One thing is for sure: Massachusetts, from the late 1960s through the mid-1990s, was a veritable Wild West situated right here in New England. Thanks to a strong effort to clean up its ranks, law enforcement has made great strides in defeating the large-scale heist epidemic that plagued Massachusetts for too long.
Reposted from Art Sentry
Art Sentry, the leading object protection and surveillance solution for cultural properties has partnered with Axis Communications to integrate the Axis Perimeter Defender product into its system. This feature is designed to extend the protection of cultural properties beyond the interior of their facilities and assist with the early identification of potential threats.
Cultural property executives have historically lost sleep due to concerns that their collections may not be properly protected during the visitations of their patrons. Countless hours of strategic planning have been invested in the pursuit of maximizing exhibit protection from theft and damage. Investments in personnel, training and various types of electronic security equipment have all been made in this pursuit.
However, recent events have introduced an entirely new set of threats related to the protection of cultural properties nationwide. Civil protests targeting historical figures have repeatedly been organized and our nation has been littered with destructive examples. These protests start on the outside of a facility but can easily spread to the inside of the building.
No longer is it safe to concentrate only on the protection of the artifacts housed within the walls of cultural properties. More focus is now being dedicated to the immediate identification of threats by these protest groups at the facilities perimeter, and new technology can be indispensable to assist with gathering more timely intelligence related to these threats. Early threat identification at the perimeter can give the security forces extra time which may be the difference between threat mitigation or the escalation of violence.
It is likely that these protests will continue as history is ripe with deliberate attacks on cultural heritage during times of civil unrest. Often civil protests target cultural properties because the artifacts they house can represent controversial material and history. Symbols of controversial topics are often represented within and around cultural properties to present a historical record to be studies and learned from. Sadly, as passions are inflamed, these symbols are targeted and have become the focus of protest groups because their destruction is perceived as having maximum impact to bring attention to their cause.
The integration of Perimeter Defender gives cultural properties the ability to quickly identify threats where security starts—at the perimeter of their facilities. The video analytics application provides a highly effective system that automatically detects and responds to people and vehicles intruding on your property. It can be customized to the customers’ facility and other individual needs.
This feature is another layer in the Company's comprehensive museum protection system. It is said that security starts from the “outside-in” and the Perimeter Defender capability is just another way that Art Sentry helps its customers Guard the World’s Treasurers.
Do you need more information about Art Sentry? Would you like to schedule a demonstration to see how it works? Contact us and we’ll show you the benefits of the Art Sentry system.
Reposted from The Peninsula
Qatar National Library has taken action to combat antiquities trafficking and illicit circulation of documentary heritage in the Middle East, North Africa and neighboring countries, according to Minister of State and President of Qatar National Library, H E Dr. Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari.
Speaking at a special webinar antiquities trafficking yesterday, H E Dr.Al Kawari said that the Library continuously monitor to find antiquities trafficking and take action against the activity together with regional and global partners.
‘What is Antiquities Trafficking?’ webinar discussed the structures of supply chains for the illicit trade of cultural items, identified key stakeholders involved in the criminal practice, and explored the source, transit routes and market countries of the illegal activity.
“Trafficking and smuggling of antiquities and artifacts in the region is threatening its cultural heritage,” said Dr. Al Kawari.
He also shed light to online antiquities trafficking and said that social media is being the ‘wrong hot bed’ for such activities.
“In recent times we have seen an increase in the online illicit trade of antiquities. Lately the social media, especially Facebook groups have become the wrong hot bed for antiquities trafficking,” said Dr. Al Kawari.
“Illegally trading such heritage items is piracy of nations. We at Qatar National Library believe in role of intellectuals in the world. We urge them to take more responsibility to address this serious issue of antiquities trafficking. We urge the international community to deal and eliminate such activities,” he added.
The webinar is part of the Himaya Project Lecture Series, an initiative the Library launched to counter the trafficking and illegal circulation of documentary heritage in the MENA region and neighboring countries. Himaya engages international agencies and regional organizations to protect heritage artifacts and thwart the trafficking of such items.
The webinar featured Director of Distinctive Collections, Qatar National Library, Stephane Ipert, Veronica Costarelli, Project Manager, Cross-Border Syrian Emergency Response with IOM and a post-crisis antiquity trafficking researcher, Post-doctoral research fellow in cultural heritage and conflicts, Norwegian Institute in Rome, University of Oslo, and Dr. Samuel Andrew Hardy. The event was moderated by Maxim Nasra, Book Conservation Specialist at the Library. The two-day webinar is held mainly for cultural heritage experts, scholars, academics and law enforcement officials. It will conclude today.
Reposted from AAM
In 2024, the Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block (TMA) in Arizona will celebrate its centennial anniversary. From its humble beginnings as a community gallery and lecture space to the museum’s formation in 1975, TMA has served Southern Arizona through engaging exhibitions and educational opportunities.
In preparing for this important milestone, TMA is affirming its commitment to relevance and equity by fostering connections to its audiences and local communities. In envisioning the next 100 years through the lens of a global pandemic and calls for racial equity, TMA is confronting urgent, existential questions: How can we sustain and enhance services to our audiences? How can the museum more proactively and fervently support community partnerships? How can we facilitate community-driven initiatives? How can TMA reimagine its structure and practices to achieve equity and inclusion and foster sustainable and systemic change?
Along with the region’s diverse demographics, including Latinx, immigrant, refugee, and Indigenous communities, TMA is situated on the original territories of the O’odham and an hour’s drive north of the US-Mexico border. This unique context pushes the museum to build access creatively and collaboratively for its communities, which it is doing through the institution-wide Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Plan.
TMA’s focus on inclusion, diversity, equity, and access didn’t start with the creation of the IDEA Plan, however. First, the museum assessed its community engagement history. Beginning in 2016, after leadership changes, it evaluated its outreach to traditionally underserved communities; identified disparities in exhibition development and artworks in the collection; and addressed internal challenges, such as diversifying the museum’s board.
In 2017, the museum created a Department of Community Engagement to integrate a broad range of community stakeholders within TMA’s collections, exhibitions, and programs through bidirectional collaborations and community partnerships. One example, “Museum as Sanctuary,” founded in 2010, works with organizations serving immigrants and refugees to highlight the benefits of creative expression and language acquisition through art-making and in-gallery activities. “Museum as Sanctuary” participants have authored labels, exhibited artwork, participated in focus groups about the future of the museum, and supported program development and expansion.
Challenging traditional internal power dichotomies, the department has had a profound impact on curatorial practices while reinforcing the principles of IDEA decision-making in programmatic endeavors and community-based practices. The department has leveraged partnerships and conducted facilitated conversations and convenings that have led to prioritizing interpretation and exhibition development that is reflective and inclusive of our local community.
Simultaneously, the CEO worked with the board’s committee on trustees to expand its criteria and rationale to include the important role trustees play in helping the museum become inclusive, diverse, and community-centered. To avoid the historical challenges of “tokenism” on museum boards, TMA established new committees, including the community initiatives committee, which serves as a bridge between the institution and local Indigenous tribes, Latinx, and communities of color.
Beginning in early 2018, TMA drafted a new three-year strategic plan, which was adopted in December 2019. The Strategic Plan commits to IDEA across all its strategic priorities, including economic stability, programmatic focus, audience experience, and messaging.
Although TMA was focusing on programs and exhibitions that were culturally relevant and rooted in equitable access, it was clear that in order to realize systemic change, TMA needed to ensure a shared baseline understanding of and framework for IDEA, including definitions, principles, strategies, and metrics. So in the fall of 2019, TMA began creating an IDEA Plan, with help from the board’s community initiatives committee and community representatives recommended by the curator of community engagement. TMA’s board of trustees approved the IDEA Plan in July 2020. (See the “A Trustee’s Perspective” sidebar at left for more on the board’s role.)
In order to represent, activate, and advocate for all Southern Arizona communities, the IDEA process requires ongoing reflection, training, and discussion. To achieve the plan’s principles of relevancy, community, respect, and multivocality, they had to be instilled within the museum’s collection, exhibitions, programs, and people, including the board of trustees, staff, and volunteer groups. The plan also had to be uniquely tailored to address both the internal and external challenges we faced. Internal challenges included a lack of cultural competencies across the institution; a lack of diversity in the museum workforce, volunteers, and trustees; and a history of interdepartmental silos. Externally, TMA sought to become more relevant to audiences and bridge the historical disconnect between the museum and its communities.
The IDEA Plan defines the four foundational principles as follows:
We stand for RELEVANCY All individuals have the right to access art and the museum, including its collection, programs, and exhibitions, in a relevant and meaningful way.
We stand for COMMUNITY The museum will listen and respond to the needs of the communities it serves and strive to be an asset to them, existing as a vital community anchor. As a space for civic dialogue and social and cultural participation, TMA aims to improve the well-being of its audiences.
We stand for RESPECT The museum will be a source of lifelong learning by ensuring that all visitors have access to a relevant, engaging experience that connects them to the artwork in ways that are respectful of the visitor’s expertise, references, and experiences.
We stand for MULTIVOCALITY Programs and interpretation will honor and amplify the inherent value of multiple points of view, and the museum will encourage open-ended experiences and inquiry-based dialogue.
These principles guide TMA in representing regional identity, building collaborations with communities, increasing cultural competencies, and broadening access so that all visitors can connect art to their lives. Additionally, they provided museum staff with IDEA philosophies to drive decision-making and reinforce an inclusive and equitable work culture.
TMA’s IDEA Plan was developed by the museum’s community initiatives committee, led by John-Peter Wilhite, trustee and committee chair; and Marianna Pegno, curator of community engagement, with guidance and recommendations from Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Jon and Linda Ender Director and chief executive officer; Robert Alpaugh, strategic planning consultant; and Patricia Lannes, diversity and inclusion consultant, as well as TMA staff recommendations.
To break the traditional cycle of exhibition development and instead become a responsive and collaborative institution, we needed to incorporate IDEA philosophies into curatorial practices and, more broadly, the permanent collection. Staff strengthened long-term systemic and systematic community engagement approaches in which stakeholders identify relatable issues, which then inform the museum’s approach to its programs, exhibitions, and collections. These include strategies to connect or bridge the museum more intentionally to its local communities/audiences and reinforce the museum’s commitment to IDEA through community-based programs, multivocal approaches to exhibition development and interpretation, and regular and sustained conversations beyond the institutional walls.
With the support of a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, TMA is exploring innovative approaches to exhibition development that are rooted in local communities and that amplify the complex and unique cultural diversity of Southern Arizona. For example, the development of the Kasser Family Wing of Latin American Art, which connects contemporary and ancient visual traditions from over 3,000 years of Latin American history, involved sustained conversations with community members who offered feedback on themes, wrote exhibit labels, and supported outreach.
And we are expanding this approach in an exhibition of the museum’s Indigenous Arts collection by involving community expertise from inception to implementation and beyond. Together, curators, cultural liaisons, and tribal representatives from across the region are selecting artworks, identifying themes, and developing multivocal approaches to recontextualize the Indigenous Arts collection.
The next phase of implementation will focus on the application of IDEA principles and strategies in developing department-specific action items—ensuring that each department has ownership and agency in the implementation process. Additional short-term projects, to be accomplished over the next six to 12 months, include:
We believe a commitment to IDEA will enable TMA to build internal capacities, create financial sustainability, and set the foundation for an institution that can meet its own, and the community’s, needs for the next 100 years.
Real systemic change means proactively addressing reactionary situations, setbacks, and evolving needs. The work is tough and never-ending, and it will entail no shortage of difficult conversations and decisions. However, now more than ever museums must be nimble, responsive, and inclusive to meet the needs of our local communities, address injustice and inequality, and build a more relevant future.
John-Peter Wilhite, a Tucson Museum of Art (TMA) trustee, shares why he saw IDEA as an institutional priority.
When I became a TMA trustee in 2018, it was due to the changes I saw happening at TMA. I knew the board was predominately white and I’d be the only Black member, but I saw it as an opportunity; I wanted to support the museum in becoming more inclusive of communities in Southern Arizona. Once I was officially on the board, I listened to how programs were developed in the past while simultaneously seeing where the board was in terms of understanding inclusion and equity.
The process of working with the IDEA strategic planning team, comprised of board members and staff, was tough at times. We had difficult conversations about the importance of the IDEA concepts being woven through all aspects of the plan, and some on the team did not understand why that was important. We leaned into those conversations and made it happen. Using my skills in communication, we found common language and built a collective understanding in order to commit to these practices holistically. Next, a small team of us (the community initiatives committee) had to create the actual IDEA work plan, which detailed the ways we were going to implement the concepts from the strategic plan and begin creating change in the programming and makeup of staff and board.
Finally, with the strategic plan approved by the board of trustees in December 2019 and the IDEA work plan completed, we put the final IDEA Plan before the board for approval in July 2020. I was concerned there would be some pushback, but to my surprise, the full board unanimously agreed to the document.
Now we have the hard work to do—we have to constantly check in and continuously assess ourselves. If we just have the plan but aren’t doing the work to move forward, then we aren’t truly committed to prioritizing IDEA.
Facing Change: Insights from the American Alliance of Museums’ Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion Working Group, AAM, 2018 aam-us.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/AAM-DEAI-Working-Group-Full-Report-2018.pdf
CCLI National Landscape Study: The State of DEAI Practices in Museums, Cecilia Garibay and Jeanne Marie Olson, Cultural Competence Learning Institute, 2020 community.astc.org/ccli/about-us/landscape-study
Tucson Museum of Art IDEA Plan, 2020 tucsonmuseumofart.org/inclusion-diversity-equity-access/
Tucson Museum of Art 2020-2023 Strategic Plan, 2019 tucsonmuseumofart.org/strategic-planning/
Boston authorities have arrested and charged 48-year-old Robert Viens, a resident of Randolph, Massachusetts, for smashing a glass door of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum last weekend.
Police responded to reports of an attempted break-in at the notorious museum at around 4:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. According to a spokeswoman, “the person made no attempt to enter the building” and fled the scene on a bicycle.
The suspect shattered a glass door on the Palace Road side of the building using a “hard object” and then throwing something inside, prompting the bomb squad to respond. (They found no explosives.) Apparently, what was thrown into the art museum was actually a blanket-wrapped painting that had been stolen from the nearby Arden Gallery on Newbury Street during a break-in on January 11.
The Boston Police Department posted an update on the investigation confirming that Viens had been located. He was arraigned on Tuesday at the Roxbury District Court on a slew of charges on behalf of both the Gardner and Arden Gallery, including breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony; wanton destruction of property; and possession, transportation or use of a hoax device or substance, according to NBC Boston.
Viens, of course, isn’t the first person to breach the Gardner’s walls. In 1990, the museum was the site of the most valuable art heist in the nation’s history when thieves made off with some $500 million worth of paintings, including those by Rembrandt and Vermeer.
In 2019, a man suspected of being involved in the heist, 52-year-old David Turner, was released from prison for a separate robbery. Turner, despite being offered a more lenient sentence if he copped to any information about the case, denied any knowledge or involvement.
The two men believed by many to have orchestrated the daring heist—George Reissfelder and Lenny DiMuzio—have both died. The historic crime, which involved posing as police officers to infiltrate the museum and tying up security guards, remains unsolved to this day. Empty frames hang in the museum today to signify the loss.
Reposted from Security Management Magazine
As an essential business, United Facilities has remained open during the coronavirus pandemic. The warehouse, distribution, and logistics company, which is headquartered in East Peoria, Illinois, made changes to protect employees from the potential spread of the virus, including using enhanced cleaning procedures, altering workers’ schedules, and increasing fresh air flow.
To find out how the 400 employees felt about these changes, company leaders asked managers to conduct interviews to measure workers’ sentiments.
“We recognize these are special times, so we had a special survey for COVID-19,” says Tammie Rogers, the company’s senior HR generalist. The survey asked about the company’s response to COVID-19, the altered processes and whether those processes made employees feel more comfortable about coming to work.
“Managers administered it in one-on-one conversations with the employees,” explains HR director Renna Bliss, SHRM-CP. The responses were uploaded to a SharePoint site, along with the managers’ summaries and recommended actions.
The information is visible to HR and executives, Bliss says, but managers are tasked with making recommendations because “we believe it’s better for the data to be interpreted at the local level.”
Adds Rogers: “Employees really appreciated the managers taking the time to ask.”
Measuring employee sentiment and gathering feedback is more important than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in widespread anxiety and a lot of dramatic workplace changes, including large swaths of employees who began working from home. Employee engagement, which had been fairly static for the last 20 years, reached an all-time high of 40 percent in July, according to a Gallup survey of 3,127 full- and part-time U.S. workers.
Why? Some say the primary reason is employees who were disengaged got laid off en masse, but others believe the increase is the result of improved communication between employees and their leaders. For companies to maintain a motivated, productive workforce, organizations need to find the best methods to gather and interpret employee feedback, including from remote workers, and make changes accordingly, experts say.
Employee engagement is often used as a catch-all term for employee job satisfaction, motivation, productivity, and retention. Gallup defines engaged employees as those who are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and workplace. Job satisfaction, productivity, and retention can all be affected by an employee’s level of engagement.
Some of those elements are easy to measure, such as retention rate; others, such as employee motivation, are harder to gauge.
To make the most of employee engagement efforts, organizational leaders must be clear about their primary goal, experts say. Do they want to reduce turnover? Improve productivity? Increase employee enthusiasm?
Before conducting an employee engagement survey, determine “the questions that are most relevant in the current climate and aligned to strategic priorities,” says Genevieve Coleman, vice president of global talent management at Stryker, a medical technology company based in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with 40,000 employees worldwide.
Then, consider the timing. Is it wise to measure employee engagement during a pandemic? Absolutely, HR professionals say.
“Collecting survey data in ‘bad’ times is actually more or equally as important as [doing so] during ‘good’ times,” says Chris Roederer, senior vice president and chief HR officer at Tampa General Hospital, a teaching hospital that employs 8,500 in Tampa, Florida.
The hospital last May conducted a pulse survey—which is a short, targeted survey—about COVID-19. The result?
“The single most important action step was to create a daily communication plan,” Roederer says. “Team members were fearful for their health, their jobs, compensation, and family members. We addressed all of those issues and concerns on a daily basis.”
As part of its response, the hospital added COVID-19 updates to its daily safety meetings and provided extra pay to those employees working with COVID-19 patients, he says.
Regularly scheduled employee engagement surveys are mainstays for measuring employee sentiments, but most HR professionals gather employee feedback in a variety of ways. Those include:
Annual surveys. At Amplify Credit Union, a financial cooperative with 202 employees in Austin, Texas, the HR team collects feedback each year through an online survey.
“At one point, we were using SurveyMonkey and conducting our survey in-house,” says Jenny Voigt, SHRM-CP, senior HR generalist at the credit union. “That worked well enough, but there are always those who will be concerned about the anonymity of an in-house survey, and unless you have some statisticians on your team to help you correlate each question with employee engagement, it’s pretty hard to know what to focus on because each question carries the same weight.”
Pulse surveys. Unlike annual employee engagement surveys, which tend to have dozens of questions on various subjects, pulse surveys seek input on specific topics by asking five to 10 questions.
“This year has been an unprecedented challenge, and creating forums to collect employee feedback has been more important than ever,” says Coleman, who notes that Stryker deployed a pulse survey in the spring with a second one planned for the fall. “Pulse surveys allow us to gather employee feedback on a targeted set of questions that address topics most relevant to the current climate.”
Peter Cappelli, professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and director of its Center for Human Resources, recommends fielding pulse surveys because they can be created quickly and the response rates tend to be higher than for longer surveys.
Focus groups. Cappelli says focus groups are good for gathering data on complex questions, such as whether to implement a wellness plan.
At Stryker, Coleman says, “we collect employee feedback using a combination of quantitative surveys, listening sessions, formal and informal focus groups, one-on-one interviews, and ongoing dialogue with leaders.”
Internal social media platforms. Plante Moran, a professional services firm with more than 3,000 employees in Grand Rapids, Michigan, conducts several surveys and individual check-ins with new staff during their first year. However, the company mainly relies on its intranet for collecting feedback.
“We have group chats and threads that staff leaders participate in daily,” says HR director Diana Verdun. “This is a great way to understand how our staff is feeling and dealing with different situations in real time, rather than limiting feedback to certain moments during the year.
“Some may worry, especially in times like this, about asking for feedback and coming off as out of touch or insensitive,” she continues, “but since our continuous feedback model is a part of our culture, it works well in good times and in challenging times.”
Leader accessibility. Plante Moran also holds town halls and small-group staff meetings. “These smaller sessions encourage an open dialogue,” Verdun says. “We have our team partner system, where leaders in each office are assigned a small group of staff to develop.”
Direct access to decision makers can make a big impact. At Tampa General Hospital, a registered nurse’s comment to the CEO, who regularly walks the campus to talk to employees, prompted a significant and beneficial change. The nurse complained that the hospital bedsheets repeatedly came untucked, creating safety issues for the clinicians and patient care techs. IV lines got tangled in the sheets, and patients became uncomfortable.
“As a result of that situation where the team member expressed her concerns, the entire hospital—1,007 beds—transitioned to fitted bedsheets, beginning in the ICU,” Roederer recalls.
Stay interviews. After United Facilities’ HR team was asked to help slow the constant turnover among forklift drivers, Bliss decided stay interviews might be part of the solution. In the first year of implementation, the company reduced turnover at three locations. The reduction created a significant cost savings, too. The HR department discovered that losing one forklift driver cost the company more than $11,000 and that 43 percent of departing drivers left in the first 90 days.
The HR team expanded the use of individual stay interviews to all employees to learn the employees’ greatest needs and build individualized stay plans.
“We collect one-on-one feedback after their first week of employment, after the first month of employment, and then on an annual basis,” Bliss says.
Managers are coached to ask employees, “What can I do to help? What would you like to see more of from me?” Employees can state what they want. Even if they don’t want the manager to do anything differently, they know the supervisor is available and listening to them, she says.
Dick Finnegan, author of The Power of Stay Interviews for Engagement and Retention (SHRM, 2018) and CEO of C-Suite Analytics, a consultancy headquartered in Longwood, Florida, says, “The best thing about stay interviews is they lead to the creation of solutions. Many companies think surveys are the same or better, but surveys just give you data. They give the best employees’ input the same weight as someone you will fire tomorrow. Top performers do the work of their job plus four others. You can’t lose your top performers. If you don’t use stay interviews, you won’t know what they think.”
Stay interviews provide United Facilities with a better sense of employees’ thoughts and feelings than generic employee surveys do because the supervisors also get a sense of tone, inflection, passion, body language, and other verbal and nonverbal cues during the in-person meetings, Bliss says.
“By gaining involvement at the manager level, we get more engagement,” she says. “In one of our locations, several employees asked about advancement opportunities. The conversation afforded us the ability to probe their specific interests and provide additional training to prepare them for the next steps. In January 2020, three people were promoted to new positions based on their qualifications and expressed interest.”
In a more recent case, a stay interview revealed that one employee’s work schedule was no longer a fit for her, so a shift change was approved.
Some employers might argue that stay interviews are too time-consuming, but Bliss says that’s a false assumption.
“It’s a time investment,” she concedes. “For some employees, it’s only 10 or 15 minutes. For others, it’s much longer. But when we think about how much time we spend running ads and interviewing to replace an employee who leaves, it’s a no-brainer for us.”
The best employee engagement surveys are precisely targeted.
“Don’t ask every question under the sun,” Voigt says. “This is truly a case where fewer, focused questions give you more than asking every question in the book.
“When possible, give your survey company the demographics of all the employees invited to participate in the survey, rather than asking demographic questions in the survey itself,” she continues. “This saves time on the part of your team members, and it makes them more comfortable with the process. But it also ensures you have the data you need to be able to see if the issues the company is having are stemming from a particular department, level of tenure or minority group.”
Voigt recommends using an external company to administer the survey. “Don’t be afraid to budget for and use a consultant to help you work through the results,” she adds.
The more personal the methods for gathering data are, the more likely the data will be to yield insightful comments.
“Some feel more comfortable sharing their thoughts with a manager or team partner with whom they have developed a trusting relationship,” Verdun says. “For others, our internal social media platform provides a 24/7 option to share ideas and suggestions. Each company is unique, so how people prefer to provide and gather feedback should be centered around what’s conducive for the business.
“Keep in mind, surveys are just one tool,” she says. “They may work well, but they aren’t the only method. Open lines of communication are also important.”
It’s critical, as well, to look for ways to take action based on the results.
“Look for actionable items and track those action items,” says United Facilities’ Rogers. “To create a trusting relationship, show you’re actually taking steps based on the feedback.”
In turbulent times like these, employees crave interpersonal communication. HR professionals need to create environments and opportunities for employees to share their desires and difficulties in personalized ways, and then respond to the feedback in a way that makes the employees feel heard. When this happens, the organization’s leaders will build trust, which is the foundation of any successful workplace.
The biggest mistake companies make is launching employee engagement surveys and then taking no action to address the results.
"If companies are just checking a box to say they've done a survey, then they might as well stop wasting everyone's time," says Jenny Voigt, SHRM-CP, senior HR generalist at Amplify Credit Union. "Nothing kills engagement like asking for an opinion and then not acknowledging the response with action."
In a 2018 LeadershipIQ survey, 59 percent of HR executives admitted their organizations took no action or only easy actions based on employee engagement surveys.
"There may be no quicker way for staff to lose faith in leadership than when they've been asked for feedback but nothing changes," says Diana Verdun, HR director at professional services firm Plante Moran.
Here are some other tips for fielding more-effective surveys:
Don't ask too many questions. The longer the survey is, the less likely employees will complete it, which means there will be little to no data to analyze. "We've used a number of different tools over the years, some of which were 50 to 70 questions long, which got a little fatiguing," Voigt says.
According to an OfficeVibe study, 20 percent of people abandon surveys if they take more than seven minutes to complete.
Don't assume a low-scoring area is important to employees. Voigt cautions HR professionals not to get "sucked into focusing on the areas that have the most negative response. Those may or may not be areas that are actually impacting employee engagement, and companies waste a lot of time, effort, and money addressing issues that really aren't important to their team members."
Avoid knee-jerk reactions. Verdun advises HR professionals to take their time coming up with viable response plans. "The desire for immediate action can cause organizations to react instead of having a measured approach to implementing changes," she says. "By taking a measured approach, we can better evaluate feedback, gauging how an issue will affect people, and use continuous communication to let people know we're looking into these matters."
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