Sat at a Southwest table at breakfast primarily with folks from Houston. We talked quite a bit about next year’s ACM which they will host. They said it will most likely be held at the Hyatt and assured us Starbucks will remain open all day, there would be a shop in the hotel and an all-day restaurant. We also talked about there museum which would be great to see. We were able to tell them it was featured in a recent LA Times Travel article. We hope someone from our library will be able to attend next year.
At the end of the final plenary session, Houston CM presented an O Wow video inviting us all to InterActivity 2011. It was a fun view of the museum and really makes me want to visit. However they stole Jason's toilet paper and leaf blower stunt! Houston produces other O Wow videos for their blog so I'm going to have to search that out.
Renee
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Breakfast Round table – Southwest
ReplyDeleteSaturday, 7:30 am – 9am
At our Southwest table we had a revolving door of guests. Nice folks, they didn’t seem too interested in our project, but were nice – sort of like the popular kids in school. We had a whole crew from Houston eventually arrive (they’re funny and honest – I like them). The first of the crew was Keith, an exhibit designer and program designer from Houston. I saw his Hands on science program yesterday. He’s funny and boisterous. Later Jasmine (?) and Kendolyn (Educator) arrived. Of course, I chatted about how much I love their lucky climber. Apparently Lucky had a booth – we stopped at every booth – and we never saw him! Sad, but it must be fate (since we don’t have a gazillion dollars hanging around right now). I’ll check the website. According to Houston – Boston, Memphis, and possibly Brooklyn have a lucky climber. Kendolyn said Lucky climbers were moving to CA. I’m sounding like a groupie – enough with the Lucky climber.
Kendolyn was quite hilarious and is an educator in their museum. She told Renee and I that they were working on a collaborative project with the San Jose museum and Brooklyn museum. They’ve just developed “kits” for libraries to check out. They were a bit vague – but it seems like program activities (probably a hands on science experiment with all the tools in the bag). Renee asked what type of bag they were using – mesh bags with hard bases to be hung at the libraries. These bags are supposed to be kept at the two museums for check out (I think they’re helping to offer prototype data – and in return they’ll be able to keep the bags and alter the prototypes – that part is not 100% - looks were exchanged). I’m assuming it’s a relatively new project and they’re working out the kinks and probably didn’t want to share too much info. I think the museum field is a bit competitive. While everyone wants to help the kids, everyone needs a piece of the action to keep their museum running so ideas should be kept mum unless collaborating. Houston will have these bags at their local libraries available for check out. So it looks like both Minnesota and Houston are starting to move into the library market.
We also briefly met the Board President (no name) and the sole employee (no name) (i.e. executive director, exhibit designer, educator) from another museum in Dallas. They weren’t interested in us – they really just wanted to focus n Houston. I think Renee might have chatted with them – they were on the far side of the table. They left early on. Keith also left early – they’re presenting at the keynote for the next ACM taking place in Dallas.
We briefly had Mary Ackerman at our table. We all chatted about the weather and how nice Minnesota was. She left early on as well. I’m guessing as the hosting city they were assigned to visit all the tables and make sure to get a feel from the guests.
Nicky, from Minnesota also sat our table some time later (which seems to confirm my theory about being sent to our tables). We chatted about how wonderful the museum was. I got her card so that we can follow up on some interesting things in their museum. They also have special mats that trap the sand/beans/ The sand can be reused after coming off the mat. So now we’ve got the inside scoop! I’ve got her card and she said she can follow up on any questions we might have.