Several years ago on a strategic planning project, my planning partner Andrea Fox Jensen referred to a museum’s audience as an area enduring focus.
Someone on the strategic planning team had commented that the museum
had already been through discussions about their audience and what it
should be.
The
group seemed reassured by Andrea’s characterizing audience in this way:
important, in fact so important, consideration of it is never complete.
In any case, they engaged wholeheartedly in lively and productive
discussions about age ranges, audience groups, and geographic radius.
Later when the planning team brought the board into the discussion,
members conveyed the value of revisiting this important question without
a “been there, done that” subtext.
Andrea’s
observation was so smart and helpful. Every project I work on–a
strategic plan, learning framework, exhibit master plan, or something in
between–involves a key discussion about audience. I don’t mean a
back-up-and-start-from-scratch audience conversation. Typically these
are fruitful discussions that review, check, or affirm the current
audience. They relate the audience to the current project and get
everyone on the same page. Sometimes they help bring new staff or board
members along. These discussions are also opportunities to share new
information or a chance insight about the audience like the arrival of
universal pre-kindergarten in a community, declining school group
visits, or an increase in moms’ groups.
These and countless other discussions about audiences, museums, and public value point to features that distinguish audience and other possible
areas of enduring focus. Moreover, they underscore the critical
role of audience in a museum acting intentionally and steadily on its aspirations and long-term value.
Of Persistent Interest
Enduring
assumes a long-term, continuing interest. Nothing could be more central
to a museum’s aspirations and reason for being than its audience. Who a
museum intends to serve is as fundamental at start-up as it is during
periods of growth and change, as it is at each step of fulfilling a
promise to the community.
A
sound and shared understanding of a museum’s audience is essential.
Museums go about this in many ways and on an on-going basis: identifying
primary, secondary, and emerging audiences; surveying visitors;
analyzing attendance data; and sometimes conducting audience research.
Museums then apply an understanding of the audience to shaping and
presenting collections, engaging experiences, and educational services
in order to open up possibilities of learning to its visitors.
Sometimes, however, it seems that the persistent focus of audience is confused with attendance. A focus on attendance can, in fact, distract from the centrality of audience to a museum’s value. If, for instance, the challenge of audience was simply about more visitors, a museum could just send out a bus, pick up visitors, and hand out free passes.
A Significant Difference
An
area of enduring focus must be capable of making a major contribution
to a museum’s public service. Audience is pivotal, from community-wide
awareness of a museum to making a difference in the learning lives of
children, building social cohesion across neighborhoods, or increasing
science literacy among citizens.
In this respect, the challenge is less about bringing more visitors to the museum than about bringing the right
visitors to the museum. To be certain it serves all parts of its
audience well and serves priority audience groups fully, a museum must
be knowledgeable about, alert to, proactive, and respectful towards its
audience. Stories spread about museums realizing the
consequences of being vague about or indifferent to their audience.
Using
a current and well-informed understanding of its audience, a museum
needs to effectively reach and actively engage families, school, and
community groups, children and adults, both current and potential
visitors. The informal learning experiences it offers must address
age-related development; be relevant to visitor interests, expectations
and everyday lives; and align with its own aspirations.
A Sharpening Perspective
Perspectives
on critical, complex, and constant areas are never static. They evolve,
advance, and become nuanced. Museums as well as their audiences exist
in multiple, dynamic, external contexts. Successes and failures produce new
insights that affect understanding and reaching audiences. New practices
help refine and advance audience knowledge.
In
only a few decades, museums have shifted from being about something, to
being for the general public, to serving specific audience segments, to
being concerned with who is not
coming to the museum. Learning from and about actual and intended
visitors shifts perspectives, reveals interests and expectations of
visitors, and produces new insights about what is attractive to them.
A
body of audience knowledge builds from multiple sources: surveys, focus
groups, and visitor panels, census data, and information generated by
other organizations. New practices and insights come from the work of other
museums, from research conducted in the field on behalf of museums, and
from audience development work supported by, for instance, the Wallace Foundation.
Continuous scanning of emerging community and audience trends, sharing
and interpreting observations, and following the implications of new
information sharpen perspectives.
Supporting Practices
An
intense commitment to audience in a pocket of the museum is inadequate
in serving audiences well and catalyzing the mission. A museum must
operate with a shared understanding of priority audiences, an
organization-wide value on relationships that serve the audience well, and a strong belief that improving service to the audience will make a difference.
Robust
audience-centered systems and procedures, integrated with practices,
supported by resources, and reaching across the organization are
necessary to grow audience knowledge, facilitate its transfer, and apply
it effectively to experiences. Supportive practices must permeate
developing and designing exhibitions; involving audience groups in
planning programs and exhibitions; training staff for interaction;
calibrating the variety of offerings and pace of change; and evaluating
programs and exhibitions and their impact on the audience.
This is a museum’s everyday version of enduring focus.
It circulates and re-circulates, interprets and re-interprets audience
information and visitor studies. Staff look for evidence for-and-against
goals and hunches. Teams address audience interests and engagement strategies
at the forefront of every project and initiative. They prototype and
revise experience goals, activities, messages, and designs. They
evaluate the impact of experiences on the audience. And they begin
again, playing it forward.
Intensifying Attention to Audience
In my work, I have found that identifying audience as an area of enduring focus is useful in intensifying
attention on this critical piece of a museum’s potential to make a
difference. It clearly signals to staff and board that the people
and communities they hope to serve are the highest priority, at the
center, at every step, now and in the future.
