Learning from others at 2x4.
If you read my last post on 2x4, you might be wondering how it all went. It turned out to be incredibly valuable for a number of reasons.
This year we were exploring how the Barnes can grow its audience to be reflective of Philadelphia. Prep for this event turned out to be very useful because it included researching and reading a number of studies and resources on the subject of diversity in museums. This packet of materials, which was sent to all of the participants ahead of time, ended up including three pages of single spaced bullet points each with links to external resources and examples in the field. Materials were organized around several themes including growing new audiences for the arts, community engagement vs. increased visitation, and institutional leadership, staffing, and structures. While all of the resources could be considered required reading, the nature of having to provide resources for others helped me hunker down with what’s out there in systematic way that my day to day rarely gives me time for.
As we went through pre-meetings for this event — it became clear that our data and its variance could provide the framework for the public event. Looking at a fairly complex data set and getting it into a shape that could frame a discussion was another valuable challenge. This meant having to spend some time with the data, internalize the findings, and refine it to the points that were most interesting for the discussion areas while still proving to be areas of the most interest for potential institutional change. That deck has proven to be one of the more useful tools for ongoing internal discussion because of its clarity.
The discussion during the event was focused on “lighting rounds” where our two thought leaders responded to specific data points and questions within that coming from the themes we outlined. Overall this proved to be an excellent format allowing us to weave the data right into the discussion.
The students were then asked to respond to lightning rounds of discussion and there were several things that struck me. The presentations focused on a lot of ideas and while not all of them are something we’re going to run out and just do, many of them — especially threads of them — pointed out aspects of things we should be thinking about and maybe were not. For example, social bridging is mentioned in Kenneth’s presentation as a basis for a digital project. I had a personal ah-ha moment. One of those “of course” and “why didn’t I think of that” and “seriously, I know better” moments. Social bridging is an important part of this work and having someone causally mention it as the basis for their own idea was a great reminder to me — and hopefully others — about critical components that we might not have been focused on. I think we could say the same about certain parts of each one of the presentations.
If there’s one thing I could have changed it would have been the fire alarm going off right as the event started due to unforeseen issues with some onsite construction. There’s a great deal of complexity in this topic and we had intended for a full 25 minutes of discussion, but the evacuation and subsequent re-entry meant we had to cut the program short by about 15 minutes and a shortened discussion is where it took its toll.
The event left me wondering if our next 2x4 should focus on the same discussion topic, but act as a check in — how’d we do over the course of a year? I found myself thinking if you have to report on your progress to the public a year later is there more urgency to keep the kindle lit?
2x4: an innovation forum at the Barnes Foundation is sponsored by Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business
