Empathetic Audience Engagement During the Apocalypse
Table of Contents:
Part 1- You First, Then Audiences: Letting Go of Our Pre-Virus Identities
Part 2- The New Frontier: What Adapting and Surviving Looks Like
Part 3- Inspiration for Experimentation: Examples and Concrete Ideas
Part 1 - You First, Then Audiences: Letting Go of Our Pre-Virus Identities
In the space of a single week, our lives have been turned upside down. I suspect the date of the true impact of the Coronavirus on daily life was different for everyone, but my last “normal” day was Wednesday March 11, when I facilitated a workshop at President Lincoln’s Cottage. And now it seems like we live in another dimension. The museum field, in particular, has been dealt a vexing challenge. How can we remain relevant if people can’t visit?
Although I’ve dealt with a lot of stress in the last week, I’m finding support and a bit of perspective thanks to a recent project and my overall focus on empathy.
This past fall, I wrote an interpretive plan for a history exhibition at the Mattatuck Museum (Waterbury, CT). The essential question that frames the exhibition is “How do life’s big changes affect who we are?” The exhibition will use stories in Waterbury history to illuminate one of the most universal human patterns: life transitions. As a guide, we are using a best-selling book called Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes which pulls apart the processes we all go through when we lose a job, start a new relationship, have a baby, move from our home, come out of the closet, etc. The book encourages us to recognize that these changes affect our identities (ex: “Who am I now that I am not married to X person? Who am I now that I have a new country to call home?”).
In this current moment, we’ve gone through an epic, life-altering transition in a very short span of time. We were working for museums that collectively host millions of visitors a year.
Who are we now that we don’t have visitors?
The author, William Bridges, outlines 3 stages that we must go through in order to have an emotionally healthy transition.
Endings: saying good-bye to the old habits, patterns, lifestyle
The Neutral Zone: a liminal space that is full of uncertainty but also creative exploration of different identities (Honestly, it’s a stage that feels anything but neutral. This stage really needs a new name!)
Beginnings: the start of a new set of patterns that feel good to the new you -- a true identity shift
Museum professionals didn’t choose this transition, which makes it even harder. We need to take time to grieve that loss of normalcy. Seriously, take some quality time to recognize and honor what has been lost. This is the first stage.
Regardless of how long this pandemic lasts, it will inevitably change the museum field in monumental ways. If museums take the “hunker down and wait it out” approach, they are less likely to emerge with the new, healthy identities they will need in a post-epidemic world.
Are you still out there celebrating women’s history month using the same social media plan you had from “before?”
Smithsonian social media guru Erin Blasco recently wrote a very persuasive, honest Twitter thread about the need to accept the new landscape that has been forced upon us. She may have been responding to colleagues that are still in denial. Or, she may have been giving herself a pep talk. Whatever the case, sometimes it takes a gentle nudge to get folks on the path to evolving. And the first step is saying good-bye to the old pre-virus world— Bridge’s first stage: endings.
So, how can you facilitate “endings” and help your team to say goodbye to old work-flow habits, old position descriptions (hey, we’re all social media managers now), and old ways of thinking about audiences? At the beginning of each team meeting, could you check and ask “What expectations of ‘normal’ are you letting go of today?” and raise a toast to each one?
Museum professionals are going through Bridges’ three stages, and so are audience members. How can you help them to make a healthy transition, too? One way to start the “endings” process is to hunt down and remove evidence of your museum’s “Zombie Identity.” These are visitor engagement initiatives that are now completely irrelevant.
Now, every program, every exhibit, and every advertisement that your museum has planned should be looked at through the eyes of a society dealing with the coronavirus. Think about that empathetically. As an audience member, what does it feel like to look at the current version of your website or your irrelevant event calendar, given the circumstances?
A well-known museum cohort, The Empathetic Museum, has a name for the “powerful messages museums convey through unspoken and unwritten manifestations of their being;’ they call it “institutional body language.” The idea is that a museum can act very much like a person who communicates their true feelings and values through implicit cues. Have you ever had a conversation with someone who says they are listening, but who actually talks more about themselves than hearing your thoughts? Actions speak louder than words. This is the perfect time to ask: what does your institutional body language communicate about your museum’s values and its capacity for compassion at this critical moment?
Doing this kind of “cleaning house” or “auditing” work can be healthy for staff, too. It can help them to make a healthy transition by saying good-bye to projects they may invested lots of time planning.
While I want us all to come around to accepting and dealing with change, I also want to acknowledge how hard that is for everyone to do so quickly. We’re dealing with a lot right now— childcare, anxiety, cabin fever, and the threat of lay-offs. So, put yourself on a path and a pace of change that feels right for you, but try to make steady progress towards it every day.
Part 2 - The New Frontier: What Adapting and Surviving Looks Like
From the museums that are going through a healthy transition, I think we are going to see an evolution of audience engagement initiatives that mirror the stages of life transitions outlined in Bridges’ book (see above). The museums that will pull through the Age of Quarantine will be the ones that understand their audiences’ emotional needs, while remaining financially stable.
Stage 1: Endings
Museums advertise offerings that they already have that may be of use now. (Ex: previously developed online lesson plans, previously developed virtual tours). In this stage, museums have not fully let go of their previous identities, but they are in the process of saying good-bye to old ways.
Good! Do what you can to be responsive in the short term. You can’t create dynamic products overnight, when you’re trying to keep your own head above water. You’re concerned about lay-offs and financial survival. But as time goes on, now there’s a lot of content out there online. As a friend of mine said recently, “All we have left is the internet and nature.” And really, you don’t want to spend your day on the internet. The programs you had planned for an in-person format don’t quite work online. There are already sooo many lesson plans for parents to use. Sooo many virtual tours. Put yourself in the shoes of your audience members. It’s hard to know where to start. And they are getting sick of their screens.
Art: Paul Frank, NY Times
In the swell of repackaged content, people need to know why the things you’re offering meet their particular needs—THEIR NEW NEEDS.
Photo by Melchior Damu on Unsplash
We’re accustomed to targeting audiences based on things like demographics, geography, or interests— or to think about their learning needs or their recreational needs. But being relevant to audiences in the Age of Quarantine means meeting their emotional needs. Most messaging I see online from museums does acknowledge the tough times we are facing. But “tough” can be different for everyone. And frankly, despite everything, there are some people who are really shining right now. Before the epidemic hit, a friend of mine was experiencing a sort of mid-life crisis and having a tough time going to work every day. Now she is now relishing the chance to take a step back— to explore interests and to breathe. We are all experiencing this time differently.
As a thought experiment, I started to brainstorm a list of new audience segments based on emotional needs. I asked friends on Facebook to add to the list.
For example:
People who are bored, adrift, or in search of self-enrichment
People who are lonely
People who are feeling inadequate as educators of their kids
People who need relief from anxiety
People who are experiencing grief, from the loss of normalcy or the loss of a loved one due to coronavirus
Several of my favorite museum thinkers contributed to a longer list and I hope you will, too:
New Audience Segments During COVID19
Consider this an audience empathy starter kit, or a catalyst for thinking about audiences differently.
Stage 2: The Neutral Zone (or Experimental Period)
Museums will leave the “Endings” phase and acknowledge that their identities must change but are unsure of what the new identity will be. They will begin to experiment with new kinds of programs. They may repackage old content, but with a new purpose built especially for people’s new emotional and sometimes physical needs. Many will have become more savvy and will produce completely new content and ways to engage. Some of these ideas work, others don’t. But old strategic plans no longer apply. Roles shift. It’s confusing and scary. But for some, it’s exciting and freeing.
This is the stage some museums are in right now. They’ve adopted the mindset “Less Prep, More Presence.” They know that their communities need them. And they need their communities. So they learn to exist in prototype mode and are open to making mistakes. (This is one of activist adrienne maree brown’s core principles of emergent strategy). Museum staff also pay attention to self-care and their human limitations as they continue to live with discomfort on one hand and the zeal for a new, elevated purpose on the other.
Finding this new, elevated purpose and figuring out ways to adapt your mission to new mediums is an exercise in self-reflection for an organization. What is at the beating heart of your mission? A recent Washington Post article explored the ways that churches are doing some powerful reflection in order to determine how to serve the spiritual needs of their congregations.
These are great reflection questions for museums to explore, too. There are core parts of our organizations’ identities that will remain true. But museums that endure this ordeal will be the ones that are most reflective of how they need to change and adapt to the new circumstances.
Stage 3: Beginnings
Museums that survive will emerge with deeper connections to their audiences and communities. They have a well-defined, battle-tested sense of purpose that makes them stronger than ever— but also strengthens those that they serve. They have become more emotionally intelligent and responsive. They have become good listeners. Will your museum be one of them?
We don’t know what kind of society we will have when this is all over. It’s scary. I’m scared. But honestly, things have not been great in America lately. We have been polarized politically, the income gap is widening, the social safety net has disappeared, and the environment is on the brink of irreversible damage. Could this crisis catalyze the kind of seismic change that we need? Could it purge the poison and bring us lasting change?
“This could be the very apocalypse we’ve been waiting for,” explains DC-base activist Aja Taylor. “ Apocalypse. Rooted in the Greek words “apo,” meaning “un,” and “kaluptein,” meaning “to cover,” apocalypse is generally regarded as something terrifying and negative. A life ending event. But ...what if the apocalypse was indeed an ending— but to all of the things we actually needed to end. . .”
Part 3 - Inspiration for Experimentation: Examples and Concrete Ideas
As museums venture into Stage 2, a time of experimentation, they may be looking for ideas and inspiration. What we don’t need is more lists of resources without some quality control. There are increasingly too many of those and not enough time to sort. So, I’ve collected some promising ideas for new and experimental audience engagement strategies from colleagues, around the internet, and from my own brain. I’ve categorized them according to some of the new audience segments I discuss above (based on emotional needs). I’ll continue to add to this list as I see new innovations, so check back.
People who need social connection and to feel “oneness” (we're in this together):
Unless you are The Museum of Broken Relationships, a “Love is Blind” watch party may not be mission related :) But you get the idea.
Viewing Parties. Use Netflix Party or other shared streaming platforms like Kast to host a viewing party of a film related to your museum’s mission. Have a curator or other expert join the chat and weigh in on the accuracy of historical films or invite activists to host a dialogue with viewers after watching a social justice documentary.
Twitter games. Famed game designer Jane McGonigal hosts a game she calls “The Stay at Home Scavenger Hunt" with fun prompts like “Find the object, area, or corner of your home most likely to be haunted. Post a description of it.”
Dancing, music and shared joy. From a new online hub called Dancing Alone Together, “In this unprecedented time of isolation, Dancing Alone Together aims to be a central resource for the digital dance world that is beginning to bloom.” I tried one program called “Dance Church” — which was all dance, no Jesus— but it did happen on Sunday, when you might want to let the spirit move you! And if you want to feel the flow with thousands of strangers, tune into the DJ DNice #ClubQuarantine hour at 5pm EST on Instagram Live. Literally everyone with a pulse is there.
Matching people with pen pals - either paper or email. What if objects from your collection or famous artists from the past sent letters to those who need a lift. Facilitating ways for lonely people to connect could be an analog experience. Plus it’s fun to get mail. TimeSlips is a non-profit that focuses on creative aging. They’ve put together numerous efforts to help the elderly feel less isolated during the quarantine. One of them is this post card writing campaign. Here is a list of senior care facilities that would love to hear from your audiences and members.
Therapeutic Virtual Workshops. The empathetic folks at President Lincoln’s Cottage have planned an virtual workshop that aims to help audiences “find strength and comfort in our common humanity.” This event, scheduled for April 7th, will be lead by a certified Compassion Cultivation Training Instructor. I love the way that The Cottage has found ways to bridge our current circumstances with its own mission: “We find that the very things that make us vulnerable are also what make possible our survival and flourishing as individuals, communities, a nation, and the world. Abraham Lincoln modeled this again and again by expanding his understanding and compassion in response to personal and global suffering. In turn, his ability to see and embrace the humanity of all - from friend to slave to enemy - changed him and the world.”
Matching historical content to the times. We are all realizing the good feelings that “oneness” can bring as we all face quarantine. But you could enlarge that feeling even more by connecting the emotions we are having today to emotions people had in the past. President Lincoln’s Cottage (above) has found some poignant connections between the uncertainties of war and the current crisis. What connections can you find?
People who are bored, feel adrift, feel stir-crazy, or are looking for personal growth.
Note: This category is going to be increasingly crowded as everyone on earth puts up content to address general boredom. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your content, which may have been hard to make interesting before, is now suddenly interesting. Make your content stellar and customized for at-home audience like families with bored kids, people looking to learn new skills that will help them during this time, etc.
Kid activities. Author Mo Willems is killing it with his “Lunch Doodles” videos for artsy kids. His gentle demeanor and acknowledgement of these tough times mixes well with simple lessons in creativity. I also really enjoyed the first episode of the Spy Museum’s new video series “Spy From Home” - which is put together by Jackie Eyl, Education Director, in her own home! The activities are fun and use ordinary materials in completely new ways. Several museums have been going old-school and creating curbside to-go kits for parents to pick up. Educators all over the internet have been reporting an insatiable demand for these! Rebecca Shulman, Peoria Playhouse, recently wrote a blog post including the popularity of their maker kits. I suspect that parents are liking the opportunity to get out of the house to pick up the kits as well as planning activities with their kids that don’t require screens.
Learning new skills. I am loving the Climate Museum’s #TimetoMend movement It’s so well connected to their mission of slowing climate change and improves the well-being of quarantiners at the same time. If your museum has a history focus, think about what kinds of “lost” skills could benefit our new lives of isolation and conservation. Not too unlike the old agrarian lifestyle, eh?
Speaking of skills, what does your museum do internally that could be applicable in these times? How about helping families and individuals document the pandemic’s effect on their own household through objects and at-home exhibits? Being a museum person, I’ve been thinking about what kind of objects represent this whole chapter in my life. It is truly historic. Donna Sack at Naper Settlement is currently planning an initiative to ask community members to journal through their experience and do some “rapid response collecting” to document their experiences during the pandemic. They would like this project to evolve into community curated exhibits. Incidentally, did you know that creating community curated exhibits of objects related to loss can actually help people heal in meaningful ways? Check out Dr. Breda Cowan’s blog post series about her research into objects, healing and wellness.
Family Time. President Lincoln and his family played games to relieve tension during the Civil War. So President Lincoln’s Cottage organized a weekly family game night over zoom. The first one sold out in a couple of hours (They try to keep a limit on numbers of participants so the zoom room doesn’t get too unruly). Players were asked to complete challenges with pieces of paper, a hat, and a spoon. And then to design their own game with only these objects. The key was to mute the players during instructions and then unmute during game play for maximum social fun. The Cottage partnered with Game Genius to facilitate the night’s activities. They plan to make this a regular event.
People who feel out of control in these present circumstances and would like to volunteer, give service, or make a difference
Crafts for a cause. As we all know, protective masks are dangerously scarce. Americans made their own masks during the Flu epidemic of 1981 and we can, too!
Museums doing service. I don’t think the Old Salem Museum and Gardens is allowing visitors to help with the gardening, but I love that they are modeling service by turning their gardens into a source of food for the hungry. The Baltimore Museum of Industry has just announced that it’s parking lot will be used as a Coronavirus testing site. While these effort may not seem like “audience engagement,” ultimately they will help the public to see that your museum is living its values. Make sure to document these stories and to help the public to see the connection to mission.
Art and activism. The Center for Artistic Activism is leading the charge to use creativity to fight for the changes we need during this crisis. This piece, “Keep Away” in Macedonia, reminds citizens to follow the recommendations of the health department. But in announcing the project, they made special note that “no direct contact between the members of the group [was made] during the preparation of this action— we worked in phases and sequentially. Each artist worked on a different stage in order to avoid direct contact, but also to prove that although it is difficult, it is not impossible to get things done this way.”
Art Activism to draw awareness to the need to social distance. Center for Artistic Activism
People who need stress relief through humor, fun, and novelty.
Immersive Theatre. Majestic Theatre has taken its performances to Instagram Live. On Sunday I attended “Dial S for Salvation”— a weird and interesting experience in which an actor playing a minister took audience phone calls to absolve them of their sins. Set in 1960 as a tornado approached, the reverend claimed we could all avoid disaster if we repented now! The comment feed from the audience was pretty hilarious. Next week I’ve purchased tickets for a live texting experience called “Love in the Time of Corona.” I’m eager to see how texting works as a performance medium. If I can spend less time at my computer, I’m game to try it.
Silliness. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the bumbling genius of Tim the Security Guard who is tweeting on behalf of the National Cowboy Museum. Apparently the only one left in the museum, Tim is not tech savvy (yes, his hashtag is #hashtagthecowboy). But he represents the “all in” feeling we have right now. Do what you can with the skills you have. We’re going to get through this together, cowboy.
People who need to process grief or loss.
Memorial featured by Center for Artistic Activism
Memorials. This “508” memorial art piece was created to mark deaths due to the opioid crisis in Seattle. But this kind of public art could easily be initiated by art museums as the death toll rises. Featured by Center for Artistic Activism.
Loss of Normal. As time goes on, people will be having babies, celebrating birthdays, not going to summer camp - all during quarantine. Rather than saying to our audiences, “Chin up! It will be better!” what if we try to find ways to honor those losses, help people process them, and to recalibrate?
For another a whole slew of resources sharing how museums are dealing with of COVID19 resources, check out this shared folder: Museums and COVID19
Also a great tool, the Empathetic Museum’s “Maturity Model” is a rubric that can help you to assess your museum’s overall stance as an empathetic institution using characteristics like “Timeliness and Sustainability'“ (responding to events just like this) and “Community Resonance” among others.
Andrea Jones is an independent consultant and experience designer working with museums to reinvent storytelling and interpretive methods in the service of greater relevancy for audiences.
She is located in Washington, D.C.
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