Let me introduce you to Dustin... I'm not actually sure what he does

Management meetings and all-staff meetings are held periodically at our museum so that everyone will get the chance to learn about what everyone else is doing.   When I speak at these meetings I let the rest of the staff know what my department is working on.  Unfortunately, saying things like "Harry Potter Day went great.  The kids really seemed to like it and I had a fun time dressed as a wizard," doesn't really give the other staff members a sense of the event and my part in it.  We all leave these meetings with an idea of what our colleagues are working on, but it is only a superficial understanding.  If a museum visitor started asking questions to one of the other staff members about Harry Potter Day, how many could they answer?  Probably not many.

The problem with telling someone about what you do is that some things just need to be experienced.  Unfortunately it is impossible for the whole museum staff to attend every new program or review every project.  So what is the solution?  There are many ways you could address this issue, but I just want to explain one that we have recently started trying at my museum. 

At the beginning or end of some of our meetings we've started adding 5-10 min. presentations.  Today, at the end of our meeting I put on my wizard outfit and did a shortened version of the potions demonstration I had done during Harry Potter Day last weekend.  I've performed and watched so many demonstrations that I didn't fully realize how most of the staff never get to see them.   When I finished the performance I was surprised how many people came up to say how much they enjoyed it, and there were even requests for me to do a demonstration at all of our big staff meetings.

I don't know how to measure the impact of having presentations like this at all-staff meetings, but I do know that everyone who attended can now give much better answers to any museum visitors asking about our potions demonstration.  I'm sure I'll be asked to do more demonstrations in the future, but what I am really interested to see is what kinds of presentations other staff members will give.


If you know of any good ideas to help museum's and other institutions with this issue, please add your thoughts in the comment section.