Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Live Blogging from CAM part 4: The Curse of Knowledge

What happens when you devote your life to a particular topic or discipline? Eventually you become so involved with that topic, so enmeshed and close to it, that you can no longer effectively communicate the ideas behind your topic to those who don't know about it--lay people. This is referred to as"the curse of knowledge," a concept explored by Dan and Chip Heath in their book, "Made to Stick." What can be done to break the curse when trying to convey exhibit concepts to visitors? Make your exhibition development team interdisciplinary: bring in executives, community members, experts from other academic areas and other professions. Also, never forget to include educational principles and practitioners. Remember: you shouldn't be trying to turn your visitors into PhDs during the course of one 40-minute museum visit.

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