Facilitating Creative Learning (For Professionals): More Notes On Museumcamp

Last week, I wrote about MuseumCamp, the annual professional development event we hold in Santa Cruz. MuseumCamp is a playful, intense, spirited 3-day adventure in which small teams of diverse professionals do a rapid-fire project together on a theme. Last week, I focused on the 2014 theme (social impact assessment) and the many creative evaluation projects produced by campers.

This week, I want to share a bit about the behind-the-scenes of MuseumCamp. While MuseumCamp is an unusual event, I've learned a lot from it about designing workshops, charrettes, and meetings--pretty much any gathering where you want to encourage playful, creative, risky thinking in groups.

MuseumCamp was inspired by other action-oriented professional development experiences, ranging from open-ended unconferences to tightly-formatted tinkering workshops. Here are five key lessons I've learned about making this kind of event work.

Sleep on it. MuseumCamp uses an "inefficient" format where there are two full days and two half days. We do that so there is as much opportunity as possible to sleep on something and refresh the following day. We know MuseumCamp is intense, and we don't want anyone to feel like the energy of a single day is taking them on a ride without their consent. Wrestling with something meaty deserves a night in the middle.

It is my suspicion that a one-day workshop spread over two days will always be more effective than putting it all on the same day, even with the same number of hours of content sharing. There’s a sense that anything that exists within a single day can wash over you and disappear. A night in the middle helps you come back in the morning on your own terms to make the work your own. Camper James Heaton wrote about how this promotes "stickiness" of the experience, not during the project but afterwards, too.

Acknowledge the dips. At day 2 of project work at MuseumCamp, a lot of teams hit a wall. They are frustrated. They are going in circles. They feel stuck. On that day, counselors spend time helping teams call out their stuckness and cheering them on with the promise that they will hit a breakthrough soon. They do. I don't know that acknowledging the discomfort of the dip helps the breakthrough happen any faster, but it does help people push through with more confidence--and feel even better about the reward when it comes.

I first learned about this technique from Sam Kaner's excellent book, Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making. He calls this dip the "messy middle" of a meeting, when a group has to shift from divergent to convergent thinking.

Tag Team the Facilitation. One of the most effective ways we were able to shepherd MuseumCamp teams is by having a gang of counselors. Each counselor had a few teams specifically assigned to him/her, but other counselors (and me) could pitch in as helpful. Sometimes, getting secondary advice outside the team dynamic can be helpful.

To me, this is analogous to the benefits of having multiple staff members engaged with community partners on participatory projects. One staff member is the cheerleader/buddy, one can be the heavy or the expert or the critic. Yes, it can be inefficient. But it can also help positive relationships form among participants and guides.

And if you want a more efficient approach to multi-vocal facilitation, try an unconference. One of the most amazing professional camp-esque experiences I've ever had was at FooCamp, a completely participant-led event.

Create a safe space by focusing on process, not product. The biggest difference between last year's MuseumCamp and this year's was the product. In 2013, it was an exhibition in our largest gallery, on display for a month following camp. In 2014, it was a rapid-fire research project, documented on a website.

It's probably obvious that a big exhibition is WAY more high-stakes than a webpage. Two-time camper Katherine Gressel wrote about this difference and its impact.  2014 Campers were able to be creative and pursue highly speculative methods with the confidence that they weren't doing it for some big audience. It loosened up the experience, and I think, created more opportunities for learning.

Build structures to support meeting each other. In 2014, we did a better job of making time in the schedule for breaks and fun, both Camper-directed and staff-planned. But we didn't do enough to help people find other campers whose work might be relevant or exciting to them.

Breaks are not enough. Breaks are good for people to settle in with the people they already know... or to take a break from people entirely.

It's ironic that this is the part of MuseumCamp that is most lacking, since it's one of the things I care most about professionally (creating opportunities for strangers to connect). I think in the desire to not make all aspects of camp "too programmed," we miss an opportunity to agenda one of the necessary ingredients to people learning best from each other. I look forward to finding ways to improve this next year.