In their book Thriving in the Knowledge Age, Falk and Sheppard assure readers the museum audience isn’t tapped-out and that there are “many more people who could find museums satisfying to their identity-needs than currently avail themselves of museums.” You can find these people (or they will self-identify) by first providing the necessary “catalysts.” In general, however, museum managers, curators, marketers, and fundraisers aren’t asking fundamental questions about engaging audience thinking beyond exhibits; extending the museum experience beyond the actual visit. I agree museums have to avoid appearing paternalistic. But at what point do museums tread so intellectually softly that they actually abdicate their responsibility to challenge people’s thinking?
Consider the implicit message behind the publication of the magazines Smithsonian or Natural History: does their existence signify the Smithsonian Institution and the American Museum of Natural History respectively are forceful advocates, or that both are vital, relevant, and important organizations because they widely transmit their unique and compelling knowledge? At a minimum, these institutions stand for something because they give people something substantive to talk about on a regular basis.
What is the business of museums – or any nonprofit for that matter? Connecting people to your ideas, and keeping them connected, is your primary business. Success will elude museums for as long as they persist in believing that meaningful marketing — communicating broadly and substantively — is unnecessary. Instead of transforming what they know into mission-connecting products that develop and nurture the interests of a community of supporters, the most likely scenario is that most museums will continue down their traditional path, and continue wondering why they are increasingly irrelevant, under-visited, and underfunded.
