The Mommy Mommy Test

Here's a quick way to gut-check whether an experiential idea is going to work — before you commit time and money to developing it. Take any idea being considered, put it in the blank in the following sentence, and say that sentence out loud:

“Mommy, Mommy, we have to go see the _____!”

Every word there is important, the punctuation too. Don't leave anything out.

Would lots of your visitors say that sentence?

Try it with each of these sample ideas in the blank. Say the sentence out loud each time. Which passes your gut-check?

1. Velociraptors

2. Butterfly-arium

3. Interactive Painting

4. Text Panel

5. iPad

6. Pie Chart

Here’s the thing:
There is a difference between what visitors would want to see — and what we think they should see. In the heat of a project, it’s easy to lose track. Gut-check any idea by trying it in this blank, out loud:

“Mommy, Mommy, we have to go see the _____!”

Warmly,
Jonathan

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MtM Word of the Day:
Design Development Phase, or DD. In a three-phase design process for an exhibition or building, the DD phase comes in the middle. Concept Design establishes the vision overall; Design Development creates refined drawings that specify the size, quantities and materials of everything; and Final Design creates the instructions to build it. (CA, Construction Administration, is the phase after that).

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Call for Podcast Guests:
Got an idea for a guest or a topic for Making the Museum, the podcast? I’d love to know what you think.

Background: the podcast has been busy the past two years. It’s a top 5% podcast — out of 3,500,000 shows tracked — per Listennotes.com. It’s even got a 5.0-star rating (out of 5.0) on Apple and Spotify. The show features leading voices from the industry, and episodes have been downloaded more than 30,000 times.

Whatever themes, people, ideas, trends, problems, pains, joys, or mysteries are on your mind — I’m all ears. Hit REPLY and LMK.