Using Co-Option as a Launch point for Deeper Engagement 

Co-Option as Leverage for Engagement - Sound Off!, EMP (Suggested title, SB)

     As noted above, in many cases co-option is already happening in cultural venues.  Some museums take advantage of this fact to recognize, celebrate, and encourage the co-opters, thus forming relationships with engaged users that may lead to deeper connections. For example, in 2009, staff at SFMOMA, noting that some visitors liked to come and sketch the art in the galleries, started hosting informal sketching hours in the lobby. The staff didn't provide drawing instruction or programmatic content during those hours, but they provided approval and social support for the activity, explicitly welcoming and celebrating an activity they hoped to encourage.

     In 2009, I started working with the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum (EMPSFM) in Seattle, WA on a project to enhance teen engagement with the museum. Like the Oakland Museum and the Day of the Dead celebration, EMPSFM has a flagship program which embodies to them the best of their engagement with teen audiences. This program, called Sound Off!, is a battle of the bands for musicians aged 13-21. Each fall, youth bands submit applications for inclusion, and twelve are selected to participate in a series of four concerts in the spring. These twelve bands receive mentoring from industry professionals, lots of press attention, and the opportunity to perform and compete in front of screaming fans at the museum. 

     When I first met with EMPSFM staff, they commented that Sound Off! is an amazing program, but that they felt that the teens who participate and come to spectate really just see the museum as a venue for a cool rock concert. They were concerned that these teens were only coming for Sound Off! and didn't see the museum as a place with other appealing or worthwhile experiences. Staff were interested in finding ways to capitalize on teens' love of Sound Off! to get them more engaged throughout the institution.

     This desire led to an audience engagement process that was fundamentally different from the traditional ways that we plan exhibits or programs.  Rather than designing a program and figuring out how to motivate teens to engage with it, we started from a very clear vision of who the teens are who love Sound Off! and the kinds of other experiences that might appeal to them. Because these teens were co-opting the museum for their own live music experiences during Sound Off!, we had to make sure that whatever we offered the teens was a natural extension of their pre-existing, intrinsic interest in live music. We couldn't sell them something new; instead, we had to demonstrate that other parts of the museum could be useful settings for other kinds of co-option.

     Because their entry point was through live music, we decided to pull that thread through other museum experiences. We set up an online social network for Sound Off! enthusiasts and bands to connect with each other and learn about other live music shows and venues in the Pacific Northwest. In its first month, this online community, The Sound Board, attracted teen artists and enthusiasts, as well as young band managers and promoters who wanted to share their gigs. We worked with teens who were already engaged with Sound Off! as youth advisory board members and former competitors to produce content for and promote the online community. We asked the twelve semi-final bands to create content to embed into components of permanent galleries, so that teens can pursue their interest in these bands into the museum itself. And finally, we drew clearer lines among the different music-making and performance-oriented educational opportunities at the museum, so that teens could more effectively pursue paths to and from the Sound Off! experience. This is a multi-year process with a planned goal to end up with programs that are teen-led and reach a greater number of participants than were engaged in the original top-down program.

     If you want to engage co-opters more deeply in your institution, you have to start from the activity or experience that they already enjoy doing in your venue. If they use your museum as a place to take photos, then ask if they'd consider playing paparazzi at an upcoming event. If they use your museum as a place to work, suggest a quiet spot or an exhibit that's particularly good for inspiration. If they come with friends and give their own well-informed tours, invite them to volunteer with school groups or other visitors. If they make out in a dark exhibit, well, some co-option you might not want to encourage.

(This section does a good job of demonstrating how to leverage a co-option into an engagement with the institution. Helps to focus thinking about why an institution would do this in the first place, beyond being a good community member or citizen. SB)

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