Conference Workshops

Beyond the Label:

The Experience Designer’s Toolkit for Powerful & Engaging Storytelling

About the Program

What if a museum could feel less like a vault that preserves the past and more like a laboratory for exploring the present?

This intensive, full-day workshop gives museum professionals the tools to make that shift — moving from institutions that tell visitors what to think toward experiences that invite them to feel, question, and discover. Using a multi-stage methodology, participants will learn how to conceptualize exhibits and experiences that are  educational, personally meaningful, and fun. The results? Experiences that give visitors fresh perspectives and transferable skills for their everyday lives.

Drawing on decades of practical experience and leadership–including the re-imagining of the International Spy Museum–the instructors will support you in moving away from “what we want to say” to “how visitors can most meaningfully experience it.” You will leave with a practical framework for experience design.

Who Should Attend?

Anyone who wants to go “beyond button pushing” to create meaningful, memorable and relevant exhibit experiences. 

• Exhibit Developers
• Educators
• Curators
• Historians 

Who is facilitating this workshop?

Your workshop leaders are the creative team behind the ground-breaking and award-winning exhibits at the International Spy Museum. 

• Jacqueline Eyl, MAAM Board Member and Independent Museum Consultant.
• Anna Slafer, Independent Museum Consultant 
• Alexis Albion, PhD Historian, Researcher and Curator 

Managing with Care:

Management Training for Mid-Career Professionals

About the Program

This full-day management institute is a day dedicated to developing more compassionate, effective managers. It offers participatory activities and conversation, using a combination of individual, small-group, and large-group work.

The day will include: developing your personal management approach; uncovering your core values & how they differ from your institution’s / your direct reports’; exploring complicated staff management issues through real-life case studies; and understanding organizational culture & how your management choices contribute to it

We know non-profits historically neither hire nor train for management skills, leaving staff unprepared for some aspects of their jobs. The SEED approach to management training emphasizes co-learning, co-creation, and thoughtful risk-taking. The SEED trio (Rachel, Rebecca, and David) have both museum-based management experience and research-based understanding of key management skills. As consultants, we have heard from both leadership and new and seasoned managers that good management is key to institutional (and individual) success.

Who should attend?

Anyone who:

• Manages at least one direct report (could be full-time, part-time, freelance, volunteer)
• Wants to grow their ability to manage people productively
• Is seeking new tools and strategies to be a more compassionate, effective manager

You will leave with tools to be a better leader, a sense of common ground with other managers, and the confidence and understanding needed to take on new leadership experiences.

Who is facilitating this workshop?

The SEED Trio have both museum-based management experience and research-based understanding of key management skills. As consultants, we have heard from both leadership and new and seasoned managers that good management is key to institutional (and individual) success.

• Rebecca Shulman
• Rachel Ropeik
• David Bowles, Museum Educator & Training Consultant