Multimedia Forum

Inviting interns onto your team is a great way to introduce support, generate diverse ideas, and create valuable learning opportunities for all involved. But not all internship programs are created equal. This session explores tools and engagement strategies to provide more meaningful experiences to interns and the museum.

Find out how your local elected officials are doing when it comes to issues affecting museums and other nonprofit organizations and how you can best leverage your influence with them. This session summarizes the congressional delegations of each WMA state, identifies key players on key issues, and discusses local opportunities to engage them. Additional topics include the threats to nonprofits at the state and municipal level and how museum professionals can ensure that their voices are heard.

It’s easy to get excited about social media when you hear some of the numbers: 500,000,000 people on Facebook, millions of followers on Twitter, blogs, podcasts, Instagram, and Pinterest. How do you keep up? Where do you begin? This session shares perspectives on why social media is important for museums, introduces the pros and cons of different social media options, and provides the necessary information to create a basic social media strategy for your museum.

Leadership transition is both a challenge and an opportunity. The board of trustees is responsible for guiding an organization through this delicate process. This panel provides insights and suggestions that trustees, management/administrators, and staff will find valuable during a transition process. The presentation focuses on two different leadership transitions—each one using vastly different methods, and both very successful!

Frustrated by the lack of media coverage for your event or exhibition? Wishing you knew how to make it into the Los Angeles Times or snag the lead story for the six o’clock news for the right reasons rather than the wrong ones? Whether you have $5 million or $5 to spend on marketing and communications, there’s no reason why your museum shouldn’t be covered by the media. Learn from top PR professionals the essential dos and don’ts of earned media and how to develop the right communications plan to fit any size organization with any size budget.