Is there a better way to collaborate?

What’s the secret to good feedback? How do you manage 40 people in a room? Are group facilitators ever truly neutral? Should you tell your teammates their responsibilities, or have them tell you? What’s a RACI chart? If collaboration is so important, why hasn’t there been a book about it — until now?

Emily Saich (Vice President of Exhibitions) and Joey Noelle Scott (Director of Exhibition Projects) from the Monterey Bay Aquarium discuss their new book “A Collaborative Approach to Exhibition Making” with host Jonathan Alger (Managing Partner, C&G Partners | The Exhibition and Experience Design Studio).

Along the way: post-mortems, “Yes And,” and cardboard kelp cutouts.

Talking Points:

1. A book for creatives, facilitators, and problem-solvers
2. Create responsibilities *with* collaborators
3. Truly neutral facilitators are rare
4. Healthy teams seek feedback
5. Build trust with contractors
6. Celebrate the work

How to Listen:

Listen on Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/making-the-museum/id1674901311  

Listen on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/6oP4QJR7yxv7Rs7VqIpI1G  

Listen at Making the Museum, the Website:
https://www.makingthemuseum.com/podcast

Links to Every Podcast Service, via Transistor:
https://makingthemuseum.transistor.fm/

Guest Bios:

Emily Saich has more than twenty years of experience leading exhibition development, design, prototyping, and fabrication of exhibitions and innovative visitor experiences. She has worked on several award-winning and influential exhibitions and managed projects for all types of museums and organizations, including science centers, natural history museums, children’s museums, public gardens, performing art centers, art museums, historic sites, zoos, and aquariums. Emily is vice president of Exhibitions at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where she leads vision and strategy for major exhibitions and guides collaborative teams through design and creation of visitor-centered experiences.  Emily holds a Bachelor of Arts in studio art from California Polytechnic University, Humboldt, and a Masters of Fine Arts from Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University.

Joey Noelle Scott is the director of Exhibition Projects at the Monterey Bay Aquarium where she leads teams that create innovative exhibitions that inspire conservation of the ocean. With 20 years of experience in educational and museum settings, she’s led a diversity of projects, including the creation of curriculum, professional development programs, digital products, and exhibitions. She’s built expertise in facilitation, program development, and project management with a particular focus on developing processes that support collaboration, creativity, and productivity. Her formal training includes a Bachelors of Science in genetics, an MA in education, and a certification as a Project Management Professional and LEED AP ID+C.

About Making the Museum:

Making the Museum is hosted (podcast) and written (newsletter) by Jonathan Alger. MtM is a project of C&G Partners | The Exhibition and Experience Design Studio.

Learn more about the creative work of C&G Partners:
https://www.cgpartnersllc.com/

Links for This Episode:

How to Buy “A Collaborative Approach to Exhibition Making” (The New Book):
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/collaborative-approach-to-exhibition-making-9781538185261/

https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-collaborative-approach-to-exhibition-making-emily-saich/ee61b106aedc6e38?ean=9781538185261&next=t

Emily Saich on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilysaich/

Joey Noelle Scott on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joey-noelle-scott-6359aa12/

Links for Making the Museum, the Podcast:

Contact Making the Museum:
https://www.makingthemuseum.com/contact

Host Jonathan Alger, Managing Partner of C&G Partners, on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanalger

Email Jonathan Alger:
[email protected]

C&G Partners | The Exhibition and Experience Design Studio:
https://www.cgpartnersllc.com/

Making the Museum, the Newsletter:

Like the show? You might enjoy the newsletter. Making the Museum is also a free weekly professional development email for exhibition practitioners, museum leaders, and visitor experience professionals. (And newsletter subscribers are the first to hear about new episodes of this podcast.)

Join hundreds of your peers with a one-minute read, three times a week. Invest in your career with a diverse, regular feed of planning and design insights, practical tips, and tested strategies — including thought-provoking approaches to technology, experience design, audience, budgeting, content, and project management.

Subscribe to the newsletter:
https://www.makingthemuseum.com/