we need a we need a way now to connect
more than ever I don’t need to tell you
that we are living in extremely
polarized times and the data on
isolation and loneliness are staggering
it seems like there’s a growing lack of
capacity to really connect and Facebook
and Twitter and Instagram are not
helping they’re actually contributing to
the problem of isolation you might not
think that what I do for a living has
anything remotely to do with solving the
problem of disconnection but I believe
it does and it all started when I was a
kid when I was a kid I hated museums in
hindsight I was really lucky that my
parents dragged us around to museum
after museum and ruin after ruin ruining
our vacation but to me it felt more like
sore feet and overbearing docents and
boredom
you know just I’d rather chase the
pigeon chase the pigeons then stand
there and listen to that guy I’d go on
at Stonehenge one more second it seemed
as though the people that made museums
back then were more concerned about
showing off their intellectual capacity
than they were in connecting with me so
it’s an ironic universe that’s placed me
at the center of the museum industry
you see I design interactive exhibits
for museums the immersive kind that
connect visitors to history makers and
in designing those I also offer
opportunities for visitors to connect
with one another and ultimately to
themselves and I believe we can apply
these design methods to our lives to
forge deeper connections outside the
museum walls my dislike for museums has
made me a very sympathetic person
towards the visitor I have an intuitive
sense of what will engage them and for
me it’s not really a job it’s actually
an opportunity to connect people to one
another and also to a greater story of
their humanity when I’m asked to do a
museum project I have a method where I
ask myself some questions first of all
what can I find that’s emotional in the
history that will connect the visitors
viscerally as opposed to just appeal to
their intellect how can I find something
universally human in the history that
will shorten the distance between the
visitor and the history maker and how
can I inspire empathy in the visitor for
that history maker and lastly how can I
offer opportunities for people to
connect with one another and ultimately
to themselves but actually channeling my
younger self the real first question
that I ask is so what who cares how am I
going to make visitors care about this
topic what can I do to inspire their
curiosity to answer that question we
engage in very rigorous research to find
what is human in the history we use our
intuition a lot because we want to
appeal to your soul not just your
intellect you know a neuroscientist one
time asked me if a tiger is coming at
you baring its teeth and roaring its
brains out at you do you care how many
teeth it has and what type or do you
care more about whether it’s going to
eat you you see in museums were often
presented with facts before we’ve been
motivation motivated emotionally
consequently I want you to feel the
content not just study it sound lab at
experience music project which is now
called mo pup was my very first
experience in designing interactive
experiences for museums it’s a gallery
where people can get a taste of rock and
roll musical instruments and I really
wanted people to connect via the medium
of rock and roll music and you’d think
that the design intention behind sound
lab was learn to be a rock star but
actually it’s to promote critical
listening and collaboration to things
that are essential to being a musician
but even more essential for making
deeper connections to people in life we
created the easiest
entre into making music with one another
by recreating the most primal communal
connection we know of from our ancestors
a drum circle around a fire in a cave
now this is a modern version of that but
visitors can jump in and jam with each
other and with total strangers without
hesitation
and because music is such an emotional
medium we used it to tell the story of
the great Seattle Fire at the Museum of
History and industry we used an
unexpected delivery mechanism of a
Broadway musical star in the artifact
singing the parts to make a visceral
connection to the history kids sing the
fire by heart after a couple of viewings
and this musical predates Hamilton we
were asked to tell the history of the
personal computer at the New Mexico
Museum of Natural History and science
and boy what a technical story that is
and we were trying to find what was
universally human in that story but what
we were given were these beige plastic
boxes with dull screens looking up at us
these are the artifacts of the personal
computer history well you’re never going
to make those interesting people said so
we made them human we inhabited the
artifacts with the voices of the
inventors and in a multimedia
extravaganza we see IBM battling it out
with its competitors in a Star Wars like
scene these are the mega nerds of
computer history bragging about writing
code and their superiority in designing
computers the Apple one has Steve
Wozniak’s voice well not his actual
voice but one that sounds bashful kind
of like he used to sound the Dell
computer has a Texas drawl you know in
Microsoft is there too
as a software box on the sidelines
selling code to everyone and Bill
Gates’s voice is a teenager’s voice that
is just breaking
you see people can understand bragging
it’s universal
but software code isn’t people can
understand hubris but not electrical
engineering but the visitors curiosity
is inspired by the intense characters of
these inventors and their excitement
about the topic we also ask visitors to
be empathetic how do we do that
we put them directly in the shoes of the
history makers themselves when we’re
conducting research on the background of
the history makers we try to find what
were their aspirations what was the
cultural context in which they were
living what what is behind their
decision-making and we can usually
relate to it because even though our
material culture has evolved
tremendously our brains haven’t changed
that much when it comes to actually how
we navigate life in Seattle in the late
forties there was a local version of the
Communist crusade or anti-communist
crusade I should say and it was led by
Senator can well senator can well
brought in people and interrogated them
about their personal choices about the
friends they had the books they read the
societies they belong to and if he deems
they were subversive than they were
condemned tried in the press in fact
quite a few university of washington
professors careers were ruined by
Senator Cantwell’s hearings how do we
get the visitor to experience that we
plunge them directly into the experience
of fear judgment and condemnation
we took the transcripts from the Canwell
hearings and converted them into an
interactive where one verse visitor
interrogate the other and based upon
answers to those personal questions
decides on a judgment and condemns them
we find that teenagers really like this
because they love judging and condemning
their family and their siblings and
their friends but they’re connecting to
one another and they’re connecting to
history and they are feeling up to
because they know what it’s like to be
interrogated and they know what it’s
like to interrogate and they’re looking
within because one might ask why do I
like judging and condemning so much is
there a little bit of senator can well
in me and as I said we can use these
design methods in our lives to make
deeper connections with one another
remember I talked about finding what was
emotional as opposed to just factual
finding what’s Universal to shorten the
distance between each other
inspiring empathy and one another today
we sometimes go to facts first we meet
somebody socially and we say what do you
do or what are you majoring in instead
of something like what are you looking
forward to the latter question will
reveal a much richer response from the
person and you don’t want just facts you
want a more meaningful engagement and
sometimes we look at what people are
doing instead of how they’re doing and
we judge it
my mother was pulled over by a policeman
in England right after our trip to
Stonehenge I think it was cuz I was
being such a brat but she was driving on
the wrong side of the road and rather
than accused the policeman said madam
are you quite all right
what a warm way to find out how she was
doing to explain what she was doing and
empathy and put these hard it’s hard to
get into someone else’s shoes and
experience life from their perspective
and look at what we do right now based
on the most superficial facts we swipe
left we swipe right
we thumbs up we thumbs down imagine that
you’re in the company of someone from
the opposite political persuasion can
you imagine coming from your humanity
instead of your position could you
conduct an exhibit design project in
your mind and pursue a deeper line of
research into what the underlying
motivation of the person is what are
their aspirations where are they coming
from instead of engaging at the surface
level of things you don’t agree with if
you can do that you’ll find something
that resonates emotionally with you
because you’re coming from your humanity
first and empathy means feeling the
answer not just hearing it I got into
this field quite by accident when I was
being dragged around museums being bored
I never dreamed I would start my own
company designing Interactive’s for
museums and when I did start the company
people said do people need that and I
answer a resounding yes because not only
are we fostering deeper connections with
history to make today makes sense and to
make better decisions for the future but
it reminds us that Humanity is at the
center of everything and what’s most
important right now is to get underneath
the superficial and make that deeper
connection with one another I believe if
you assign these design methods to your
life you’ll find a richer more
meaningful life more meaningful
connections with others and you’ll feel
more unified with others and you’ll
change the world and you’ll make it a
much better place for the rest of us Thank You Andrea Weatherhead pups
more than ever I don’t need to tell you
that we are living in extremely
polarized times and the data on
isolation and loneliness are staggering
it seems like there’s a growing lack of
capacity to really connect and Facebook
and Twitter and Instagram are not
helping they’re actually contributing to
the problem of isolation you might not
think that what I do for a living has
anything remotely to do with solving the
problem of disconnection but I believe
it does and it all started when I was a
kid when I was a kid I hated museums in
hindsight I was really lucky that my
parents dragged us around to museum
after museum and ruin after ruin ruining
our vacation but to me it felt more like
sore feet and overbearing docents and
boredom
you know just I’d rather chase the
pigeon chase the pigeons then stand
there and listen to that guy I’d go on
at Stonehenge one more second it seemed
as though the people that made museums
back then were more concerned about
showing off their intellectual capacity
than they were in connecting with me so
it’s an ironic universe that’s placed me
at the center of the museum industry
you see I design interactive exhibits
for museums the immersive kind that
connect visitors to history makers and
in designing those I also offer
opportunities for visitors to connect
with one another and ultimately to
themselves and I believe we can apply
these design methods to our lives to
forge deeper connections outside the
museum walls my dislike for museums has
made me a very sympathetic person
towards the visitor I have an intuitive
sense of what will engage them and for
me it’s not really a job it’s actually
an opportunity to connect people to one
another and also to a greater story of
their humanity when I’m asked to do a
museum project I have a method where I
ask myself some questions first of all
what can I find that’s emotional in the
history that will connect the visitors
viscerally as opposed to just appeal to
their intellect how can I find something
universally human in the history that
will shorten the distance between the
visitor and the history maker and how
can I inspire empathy in the visitor for
that history maker and lastly how can I
offer opportunities for people to
connect with one another and ultimately
to themselves but actually channeling my
younger self the real first question
that I ask is so what who cares how am I
going to make visitors care about this
topic what can I do to inspire their
curiosity to answer that question we
engage in very rigorous research to find
what is human in the history we use our
intuition a lot because we want to
appeal to your soul not just your
intellect you know a neuroscientist one
time asked me if a tiger is coming at
you baring its teeth and roaring its
brains out at you do you care how many
teeth it has and what type or do you
care more about whether it’s going to
eat you you see in museums were often
presented with facts before we’ve been
motivation motivated emotionally
consequently I want you to feel the
content not just study it sound lab at
experience music project which is now
called mo pup was my very first
experience in designing interactive
experiences for museums it’s a gallery
where people can get a taste of rock and
roll musical instruments and I really
wanted people to connect via the medium
of rock and roll music and you’d think
that the design intention behind sound
lab was learn to be a rock star but
actually it’s to promote critical
listening and collaboration to things
that are essential to being a musician
but even more essential for making
deeper connections to people in life we
created the easiest
entre into making music with one another
by recreating the most primal communal
connection we know of from our ancestors
a drum circle around a fire in a cave
now this is a modern version of that but
visitors can jump in and jam with each
other and with total strangers without
hesitation
and because music is such an emotional
medium we used it to tell the story of
the great Seattle Fire at the Museum of
History and industry we used an
unexpected delivery mechanism of a
Broadway musical star in the artifact
singing the parts to make a visceral
connection to the history kids sing the
fire by heart after a couple of viewings
and this musical predates Hamilton we
were asked to tell the history of the
personal computer at the New Mexico
Museum of Natural History and science
and boy what a technical story that is
and we were trying to find what was
universally human in that story but what
we were given were these beige plastic
boxes with dull screens looking up at us
these are the artifacts of the personal
computer history well you’re never going
to make those interesting people said so
we made them human we inhabited the
artifacts with the voices of the
inventors and in a multimedia
extravaganza we see IBM battling it out
with its competitors in a Star Wars like
scene these are the mega nerds of
computer history bragging about writing
code and their superiority in designing
computers the Apple one has Steve
Wozniak’s voice well not his actual
voice but one that sounds bashful kind
of like he used to sound the Dell
computer has a Texas drawl you know in
Microsoft is there too
as a software box on the sidelines
selling code to everyone and Bill
Gates’s voice is a teenager’s voice that
is just breaking
you see people can understand bragging
it’s universal
but software code isn’t people can
understand hubris but not electrical
engineering but the visitors curiosity
is inspired by the intense characters of
these inventors and their excitement
about the topic we also ask visitors to
be empathetic how do we do that
we put them directly in the shoes of the
history makers themselves when we’re
conducting research on the background of
the history makers we try to find what
were their aspirations what was the
cultural context in which they were
living what what is behind their
decision-making and we can usually
relate to it because even though our
material culture has evolved
tremendously our brains haven’t changed
that much when it comes to actually how
we navigate life in Seattle in the late
forties there was a local version of the
Communist crusade or anti-communist
crusade I should say and it was led by
Senator can well senator can well
brought in people and interrogated them
about their personal choices about the
friends they had the books they read the
societies they belong to and if he deems
they were subversive than they were
condemned tried in the press in fact
quite a few university of washington
professors careers were ruined by
Senator Cantwell’s hearings how do we
get the visitor to experience that we
plunge them directly into the experience
of fear judgment and condemnation
we took the transcripts from the Canwell
hearings and converted them into an
interactive where one verse visitor
interrogate the other and based upon
answers to those personal questions
decides on a judgment and condemns them
we find that teenagers really like this
because they love judging and condemning
their family and their siblings and
their friends but they’re connecting to
one another and they’re connecting to
history and they are feeling up to
because they know what it’s like to be
interrogated and they know what it’s
like to interrogate and they’re looking
within because one might ask why do I
like judging and condemning so much is
there a little bit of senator can well
in me and as I said we can use these
design methods in our lives to make
deeper connections with one another
remember I talked about finding what was
emotional as opposed to just factual
finding what’s Universal to shorten the
distance between each other
inspiring empathy and one another today
we sometimes go to facts first we meet
somebody socially and we say what do you
do or what are you majoring in instead
of something like what are you looking
forward to the latter question will
reveal a much richer response from the
person and you don’t want just facts you
want a more meaningful engagement and
sometimes we look at what people are
doing instead of how they’re doing and
we judge it
my mother was pulled over by a policeman
in England right after our trip to
Stonehenge I think it was cuz I was
being such a brat but she was driving on
the wrong side of the road and rather
than accused the policeman said madam
are you quite all right
what a warm way to find out how she was
doing to explain what she was doing and
empathy and put these hard it’s hard to
get into someone else’s shoes and
experience life from their perspective
and look at what we do right now based
on the most superficial facts we swipe
left we swipe right
we thumbs up we thumbs down imagine that
you’re in the company of someone from
the opposite political persuasion can
you imagine coming from your humanity
instead of your position could you
conduct an exhibit design project in
your mind and pursue a deeper line of
research into what the underlying
motivation of the person is what are
their aspirations where are they coming
from instead of engaging at the surface
level of things you don’t agree with if
you can do that you’ll find something
that resonates emotionally with you
because you’re coming from your humanity
first and empathy means feeling the
answer not just hearing it I got into
this field quite by accident when I was
being dragged around museums being bored
I never dreamed I would start my own
company designing Interactive’s for
museums and when I did start the company
people said do people need that and I
answer a resounding yes because not only
are we fostering deeper connections with
history to make today makes sense and to
make better decisions for the future but
it reminds us that Humanity is at the
center of everything and what’s most
important right now is to get underneath
the superficial and make that deeper
connection with one another I believe if
you assign these design methods to your
life you’ll find a richer more
meaningful life more meaningful
connections with others and you’ll feel
more unified with others and you’ll
change the world and you’ll make it a
much better place for the rest of us Thank You Andrea Weatherhead pups
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