Answers Unwrapped

I've had some great questions recently that might interest you. So this month I'm bringing answers back to 'the full room' of all you newsletter readers. 

If you have an interpretive question you'd like answered, email me and I'm happy to answer you real time, but also roll the answers up for the full group periodically! 

Some of our visitors come for the details on our stuff.  Are you saying we shouldn't do that anymore?

Not at all. I’d be that person if I was visiting a medical history museum so I get it.  However (and it's a significant however...)

If the folks visiting you want to dive into the minutia of your paintings, trains, furniture, or amphibians, you may have a hobbyist audience rather than a generalist audience.  If that works for you, I'd say keep doing what you are doing.  Continue to experiment with story and relevance because hobbyists are humans too, and will enjoy being surprised by the insights your stories spark, even as they nerd out on tiny details.

But, are you bringing in enough hobbyists to achieve your goals?  Do you also want to attract a generalist audience?  They will need a different approach.  They want you to meet them where they are at, not talk to them as if they, too, are hobbyists.  In fact, talking to generalists like they are hobbyists may make them feel excluded and like you have nothing to offer them.  They don't come back.  They don't bring friends.

Here are a couple of ways to keep your hobbyists happy as you work to open your experiences up to generalist audiences. 

1. Create hobbyist programs. Hobbyists love opportunities to go deep and value things like time to ask questions to a curator, backstage access, or deep, complex dives into a single object or idea. Be sure you advertise in a way that clearly signals a deep-dive into details type experience.  You may have adventuresome generalists that are curious about the deep end of your informational pool and choose to opt in!  But the marketing should be clear and help people make a good decision. 

2. Gear your core program for your generalists, but let your hobbyists know that you will have some things for them along the way.  And even if you market your new program as being ‘for everyone’, remind folks what you are doing right up front at the start of your program.  This is where relevance and storytelling can capture both audiences.  Your generalists will find entry points into your subject, and your hobbyists will get something that enriches the raw data they came for.  

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Packaging our information as stories feels like we are moving away from truth.  Can you speak to that?

Sure. 

First - when you create your story, the basis of it should absolutely be historically or scientifically verifiable truth. 

Second - keep those facts that you are replacing at the ready.  If your story engages, your audience will ask you for exactly the facts that most interest them.  One caution - don't take this as an opportunity to shower them with every fact you held back. Answer succinctly so you don't overwhelm. If they want even more, they will ask.  

Third - artists throughout time have used their creations to spark thinking about true things.  I challenge you - think about a movie that was a piece of fiction, where you felt something and left thinking about a very real thing. Maybe it was something going on in the world, in your community, or in your life.  That is how storytelling can serve your interpretation.  Combine it with a mix of facts, questions, and mini discussions, and you have something memorable and powerful.

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My audience really is 'everyone'.  We get a mix of ages, races, and visitors from the entire globe.  We're like the Smithsonian only smaller.  So how do we define that audience without saying 'we serve everyone'?

So if you’ve never heard me preach against defining your audience as ‘everyone’ let me first clarify. In order to create relevance interpreters often look for audience specifics in terms of demographics, geographics, and psychographics. We try to avoid saying ‘everyone’ because relevance isn’t typically one-size-fits-all. That said, here are three ways to think about your audience if you genuinely get a diverse mix of folks.

1. Tailor your interpretation on a group by group basis.  This means making a quick evaluation based on the evidence of your eyes (bearing in mind your conclusions may be wrong) and any time you have to chat with folks before you begin.  Learn what you can and then think about how you are making your information relatable and enjoyable.  Do you think it will work with this audience or do you need to swap out things like pop-cultural references for some that will fit better?

2. Let the audience determine how things relate.  If you are ready for conversation and facilitation, instead of you supplying the metaphor, pop culture reference, or modern comparison - describe what you are looking for and ask them what they think is the best match.  

3. Even if your audience is genuinely diverse, people are self selecting out if they think what you offer doesn't relate to them.  So look at other aspects of your audiences’ identity stacks.  What values or dreams might they share?  What sorts of life experiences might unify them even across demographic differences? What relationships might they have? What daily life experiences will be part of their routine? I used to interpret medical history and even in a totally diverse audience everyone gets sick, everyone tries to stay well, and I'd wager nearly everyone dreads going to the dentist! (Sorry dentists!)

If you have a demographically diverse audience already, take a moment to celebrate that.  It's something many organizations are working hard to achieve.  And if you have knowledgable subject matter experts on staff, you are ahead of the game.  Get the team together and start brainstorming some of these other ways of thinking about your audience and how some of these other aspects relate to your subject.