A group of college students from a 'big college' business school will soon be working w/ me on a class project - working on a PR/Marketing Plan for the museum at which I volunteer. None of them are "rail-anything" savvy -- not dumb at all, it is a higher level class for business majors, they just know nothing at all about the focus business.

Any recommendations on how I can educate them quickly and well without spending an incredible amount of time doing it?

Yes, the museum is a 'business' and it should lend itself to all the basic business stuff they have been learning, but our "hobby" and all the knowledge and info it encompasses is a bit more *extreme* than many other 'businesses' in many ways.

Thanks!

rayg

Have you ever been at a gathering, a party, a discussion and mention your railroad hobby, musuem job or project and then look at the blank stares or worse yet when some of the group turns and walks away? Have an answer for this?

They'll probably do a better job if they aren't too railfan-ized. They'll see things exactly as your typical bill- paying visitor sees them, warts and all, and that is what you must focus on to be successful as a museum.

Hopefully they're inquisitive and will grasp the "cool" part of the business, but it's best if they aren't blinded by it.

Let them catch the bug and become railfans after the project is complete!

Steve Hunter
Cardinal, Ontario

"...then look at the blank stares or worse yet when some of the group turns and walks away? "

EXACTLY --- and it sounds like MY family and co-workers!

But how to overcome it quickly and efficiently?


rayg

Don't let it happen. Don't believe there are "extremes."

You capitalize on what your strengths are. Give them a context. Ask how or why of this should matter to a bunch of students. Where's the connection? What does your museum/collection represent? How can they relate?

People can't be "made" to appreciate things -- they have to earn that on their own. Provide the hook -- maybe it's a story, a context, a ride, a feeling...the rest is up to them.

Not knowing enough about your museum or operation, it's hard to say from an armchair quarterback perspective, but the worst place to start is with fuzzy dates and dusty facts. Don't believe the hobby is "extreme" -- it's a self fulfilling prophecy waiting to happen.

If you were to get out of the railroading mindset and work from the POV of the Entertainment Industry it would be more meaningful, have better results, and be easier for the students to identify with. Unless your main business is hauling freight or commuters, you are in the entertainment industry. The fact that you think you are in the railroad museum business as a stand alone points up the extent of the need for this new, broader perspective you can either tap into with them or kill and narrow by forcing them to see it from our POV.

Question: how do we get their butts in our seats instead of the multiplex or Chuck E Cheese down the road? We're competing with them, not with each other.

dave

For many/most people today, the only thing they know about the railroad is that they block them at crossings, or Amtrak/the commuter trains are "always late," that "the government" owns it all............ Do they actually need to understand that coal moves to power plants, that produce moves nationwide, that containers and TOFC take trucks off the roads?

Unfortunately, many a museum curator will tell you that you could have the actual Magna Carta, Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" manuscript, and Priestly's lab equipment used to discover oxygen on display, and the people will still flock to the Royal carriage, Abe Lincoln's hat, Dorothy's ruby slippers, and Washington's "false teeth" instead.

Thus, don't discount a little "side-show" hucksterism, corny or cheesy as it may sound. There's a reason the Smithsonian transported an actual slab of Route 66 for visitors to walk over in the "America on the Move" exhibit.

The hook I've used to get some people interested in the history aspects of railroading is the idea that the railroads did for the people of the 1800s and early 1900s what the Internet is doing today: The railroads and the businesses they fostered (telegraphy, mining, lumber, etc.) changed the way people lived, traveled, interacted with others, communicated, did business, chose what to do for a living, chose where to live, ate....... everything. It was a game-changer wherever it went. If you got a railroad, you thrived and prospered; if the railroad didn't go there, it likely withered or faded away. The only way to not be impacted by the railroad would be to become a hermit.

I understand Dave's point quite well, but I beg to differ. What Dave is describing is a tourist railway, not a museum. A museum needs to hold itself to a higher standard, after all, we have the additional duty to preserve history; to be a resource that illustrates "the way things were", rather than the way people THINK things were. Perception may be reality in many (most) cases, but it is the duty of a museum to not let that happen. In our case, reality should be reality.

An example that comes readily to mind... The entertainment people will tell you that bright colors sell, therefore your equipment should be painted bright, even gaudy, colors. That right there seems to be the hallmark of the tourist railway... That and fake diamond stacks. Has anyone ever done a study that substantiates the claim? Does the public really go to a museum to be taken to fantasy land, or to learn something? Can the learning experience be made every bit as enjoyable without all the fake stuff? Does the public perhaps become wary of the fake stuff, and discount the factual material being presented because of it?

I would say that the problem is not so much getting these folks on board with the railfan culture... That seems to imply that railfans have it right, something I also question. I'd say the problem is getting them in the mindset that they are promoting a museum, not Diseneywood / Dolleyland.

Thanks Dennis, but I think I didn't make the point well enough that given how rich, colorful (in every way) and interesting the legitimate history we interpret is, we don't need to create fantasies to make it interesting to our visitors. We just need not to make it boring by producing our interpretation as dry, academic, technical, static recitations of trivia or books on the wall to stand and read if you want to, or stuff just being there that has little to place it in context, or even worse, a volunteer so imbued with the foaming disease that he can't communicate to the general public about the subject in an understandable way.

The stories we need to tell are stories - which are the basis for every video game, movie, book, TV show, role playing game - but we don't choose to interpret our history by telling it as stories. Stories can be true........and include facts.

When you think about it, the deck is stacked in our favor. We have really impressive massive machinery that moves and interacts with us viscerally through all our senses, and is capable of truly transporting us physically as well as imaginatively, providing we provide meaningful context. Imagine if we had the misfortune of being the Museum of Great British Dentists, French Hygiene, or Modern Accounting Standards and Practices.

So no, not Disney World (but there's certainly a lot to be learned from them).

dave