Taylor Studios is happy to announce our attendance and exhibition at the 106th AAM Annual Meeting & MuseumExpo™. The event is one of the industry’s largest and will be held April 28-May 5 in Minneapolis Saint Paul.

While there Taylor Studios will host a celebration of our 20th anniversary. If attending, you are cordially invited to celebrate with us on Tuesday, May 1st from 4-6p with cake and champagne! We’ll be in booth #1011, across from the AAM Showcase.

Taylor Studios will be participating many events surrounding the conference so if you’re there please keep an eye out for us. A few places we know we’ll be in addition to the MuseumExpo include:
Sunday Evening Opening Reception
Monday Evening AAM Events at Como Park Zoo, Minnesota History Center, and Science Museum of Minnesota.
Tuesday Evening TEA mixer
AAM is a wonderful opportunity to rekindle friendships and start new ones. We hope to see you there!

Has your exhibit designer or fabricator done a good job for you? If so, please share with others. Design firms rely on good references in the pursuit of new business. They’re part of the equation in every RFP, “provide references.” Good references are so important to our future.

Business is never so healthy as when, like a chicken, it must do a certain amount of scratching around for what it gets. – Henry Ford

Yup, we’re all scratching aren’t we? Let’s help each other scratch! Okay, no more scratching chicken metaphors – but you know where I’m going here. Referrals are another important benefit of a good relationship. Know of a museum planning new exhibits? Please give your exhibit designer a hot lead. They will be very appreciative and probably send you cupcakes.

And a big THANK YOU to all of our clients who have supported us with references and referrals. We appreciate you and are here for you in any way we can be.

It happened again. I saw a posting for a museum seeking a “local firm” for an exhibit need. Why would a museum limit their pool of vendors by geography? I realize there are valid reasons in some cases. However, today I simply want to suggest a few reasons why you may want to consider “non-local” vendors for your next exhibit.

1. Access to Best Providers. You local provider(s) may not always be the best choice. Comparing vendors on a national level will give you a much broader selection. More options will allow a better chance of finding the ideal firm for your needs.
2. Price. Think “local” equals lower costs? Not always. In some parts of the country prices for local services run higher than the national average. For example, square footage costs for real estate in Rantoul, IL are less than Manhattan, NY. Location can allow lower operating and overhead costs. What are you really paying for?
3. Greater Scalability. Planning for future growth? You may find that your local vendors are not as capable of handling your increasing needs as firms available outside your locale.
4. Superior Customer Service. In some cases, national vendors come with a larger and more fully developed customer service & support. This can help you resolve issues more immediately and efficiently.
5. Personal Touch Not Lost. Long distance correspondence uncomfortable for you? Prefer face-to-face? Many out-of-market firms will invest in travel to service an account or project. We all recognize the value in doing business in person. When feasible, vendors will make the effort to be in the same room with you. Odds are, that’s the way they prefer to do business too.

I invite you to share your opinions. Please post any thoughts or experiences you have with sourcing exhibit vendors locally vs. non-local. We would enjoy your perspective.

We should all incorporate more storytelling into our relationships. Daniel Pink advocates this in his book A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. Stories have a deeper impact than simply reciting facts, figures, and bullet points. Stories take us to a place of high impact and high touch. But how do you become a good storyteller? Practice. And I’ve found a fun place to practice storytelling, StubStory.com.

Do you have an old ticket stub that you’ve saved for years?… a concert, sporting event, Broadway show, etc.? These tiny shreds of paper are powerful reminders of experiences we’ve had. StubStory embraces the idea that we hang on to ticket stubs to help us relive these experiences. These experiences can make for great stories. Roaring amplifiers, race cars fumes, crowded theaters…all wonderful ingredients for stories!

How it works? Simply scan or take a photo of a ticket stub, craft a short story about your experience, then visit the website and follow the instructions to upload it. It’s entertaining to read others’ experiences and a fun opportunity to sharpen your storytelling skills.

“Things Today’s Kids Have No Idea About…” You’ve seen these lists before. Most of them are euphemisms like “film at 11”, “carbon copy”, “hung out to dry”, and “pencil me in”. They all point out something from the past that has been altered and no longer exists today.

I thought about the items on these lists and they reinforce an opinion I have… The more senses an experience involves the deeper the impression will be. Do I sound like a broken record? Speaking of records, I remember shopping at record stores… they all smelled similar, music always blaring, shoppers flipped through the bins of LP’s, and the album artwork was cool. The experience certainly involved more senses than shopping on iTunes. This raises a question…

What experiences might we be taking for granted today that will disappear within our lifetime?…

Could it be pumping gas into our cars? Could the smell of gasoline, lifting the pump handle, and hearing the pump’s beeps be mere ghosts in our future lives?

Here’s a challenge. Consider the experience your organization offers the public. What are the sights, sounds, smells, etc.. Do these make a positive memorable impression? Can you affect these? This is the stuff that lasts. Example: Prairie Grove Battlefield Sate Park (Arkansas) interprets a fiery Civil War battle that resulted in about 2,700 Confederate and Union casualties. Within the park’s exhibit space Taylor Studios installed an audio system that subtlety loops the sound of cannon fire & battle cries. The sound aids guests immersing themselves in the story and heightens the experience. On a recent site visit I noticed a note posted on a visitors comment board that confirms this.

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Finally, I encourage us all to soak up the experiences that make up our daily lives. Even the tiniest experience may prove to be an item of reminiscence with time. Thoughts? Please share – just dial me up. Oh wait, phones don’t have dials these days. Well, you get the picture… or is that a JPEG? I digress.