Your Museum Needs a Podcast
Often, it’s the little moments in your life that impact it the most: the ones that at the time, don’t resonate, but stick with you longer. Such is the case with my colleague Hannah Hethmon. I remember being so taken by her energy and enthusiasm, particularly her love for Iceland (and ancient Norse poetry). What I didn’t know then was the extent to which I had met a fellow traveler who so clearly understood (and put into practice) the importance of social and digital media to museums and history organizations. In the brief time I’ve known her, she’s greatly helped me coalesce my own ideas about the possibilities of these mediums for our field. And when she returned to Iceland and launched her podcast, Museums in Strange Places, she added an additional tool to her toolkit. Now she’s helping others do the same with her new book: Your Museum Needs a Podcast. I’m very proud of all of Hannah’s accomplishments and know you’ll enjoy learning more about her work.
Share a bit about your background: your education and career trajectory.
My resume is a bit all over the place, and it’s been a somewhat random journey to museum podcast evangelist. I grew up traveling around the world with my parents; my dad spoke Arabic, so we lived in Saudi Arabia and Egypt growing up.
Back in the greater D.C. area, I was feeling directionless after finishing a BA in English Lit at the University of Maryland College Park and doing marketing for the family home improvement business, so on somewhat of a whim I applied and was accepted to do an MA in Viking and Medieval Norse Studies at the University of Iceland in Reykjavík. That’s really where my professional career began. I thought I would end up going to into academia, but things worked out a little differently than I planned.
Why or how did you end up in the history and museum field?
After two incredible years living in Iceland in Denmark studying Old Icelandic manuscripts and literature, I manage to convince the leadership at the American Association for State and Local History that my degree was relevant enough to public history that I could apply my marketing experience to the field.
I really owe so much to John Dichtl, Cherie Cook, and you for taking a chance on my un-orthodox background. Working at AASLH was basically a crash course in the field, and I just soaked up every bit of information I could, took every AASLH course and webinar I could, and really found myself at home in this field.
I actually didn’t even know that “Public History” was a formal term until after I started the AASLH job, and by the time I figured it out, I had fallen in love with the field. After my first few months at AASLH, I knew I couldn’t ever leave the world of museums and public history.
What’s the best part about the work?
Since my work in the museum and public history world has been primarily at a bird’s eye view, I’ve gotten to participate in a very broad swath of the field and watch changes happening on a national/international level.
It can be dispiriting to see history projects being defunded or underfunded or undervalued in communities or even on a state level, but when you zoom out, you can see passionate people all over the world dedicating themselves to preserving our shared heritage and working hard to make sure the history we practice reflects everyone’s shared heritage, not just a select group. I think just being around the passion and progressive thinking that so many in this field have is incredible.
Do you care to share any of your frustrations?
My biggest pet peeve since entering this field is the fact that so many history and museum pros see marketing as a dirty word. I’ve seen so many institutions putting together incredible exhibits and programs without investing in any time or money into marketing.
It frustrates me to see history organizations avoiding marketing when marketing is simply matching a need with something that fills that need. On a larger scale, marketing allows us as a field to control the narrative about who we are and what role we play in society. On the level of individual institutions, it literally just connects people organizations to people who need or want what they provide.
Talk about your Fulbright Fellowship and the Museums in Strange Places podcast. What was your impetus for starting it?
I really enjoyed working at AASLH and living in Nashville, but the travel bug made me restless, so I took a Fulbright Fellowship to go back to Iceland and study Icelandic language and museum culture. Iceland has something like 150+ museums in a country of only 330,000 people. As a people, Icelanders have this really incredible drive for self-expression and passion for their history, which has resulted in so many amazing little museums in the strangest of places.
This phenomenon led me to start my podcast, Museums in Strange Places. I recorded at 21 museums all over Iceland, mixing in original music from Icelandic bands and field recordings of Icelandic nature. I wanted to paint an auditory portrait of the state of museums in Iceland right now, but along the way, I realized that by letting the people who created and run these museums tell their stories in their own voices, I was also sharing an intimate autobiography of Iceland.
What did you learn?
Museums are packed full of stories, and I’m not just talking about what’s in the exhibit. Since so many of Iceland’s museums are relatively new, I was able to access so many “creation stories.” It takes a certain type of person to start a museum, and I want to share that behind-the-scenes passion with the world. I think if museums opened up that barrier between “what we do” and “why we do” more, it would engender more devotion and support from visitors.
Zooming out a bit, why is podcasting so important for museums?
To quote from my new book:
“I believe podcasting can be a powerful tool for museums, history organizations, and cultural nonprofits to reach their audiences and communicate in ways that are creative, intimate, and meaningful.”
Podcasts are booming now, and it’s a medium that seems tailor-made for museums and history organizations. I just hope enough institutions see that and take advantage of the opportunity now, before it gets harder to stand out from the increasing number of shows.
What makes a good podcast and/or a museum podcast?
Storytelling. Whether it’s an interview or an audio drama or a This American Life-esque piece, a great podcast episode pulls you in and keeps you engaged to the very end by telling compelling, relevant stories.
Because of the intimacy of podcasts (a voice in your ear), stories told this way can be used to evoke strong feelings and generate empathy. I think the best museum podcasts use storytelling to help us think about the world in new ways and better understand our place in it. And just like physical museums, the best museum podcasts get us to slow down and think deeply about something, defying the world’s push to rush through tidbits of information.
One result of that is your new book Your Museum Needs a Podcast: A Step-By-Step Guide to Podcasting on a Budget for Museums, History Organizations, and Cultural Nonprofits.
I’m so proud of this little book. As Museums in Strange Places started getting attention, museum and other professionals in the cultural sectors started reach out to me, asking about my production processes and wanting advice on their own podcast projects.
As I realized when researching podcasting basics for my own show, most of the podcast how-to material out there is profit-driven or just generally ill-suited for the needs of cultural nonprofits. To put it less delicately, there’s a lot of information available if you want to make a “Two Bros Talk Finance” show, but less if you want to craft your oral histories into an audio documentary series.
I’ve heard from so many museum professionals and volunteers who want to start a podcast at their institution but think they don’t know enough or have a big enough budget. I started my podcast with $300 worth of equipment and no prior experience, so I know it can be done well on a lean investment.
Talk about the book a little bit, what can people learn from it, who’s the audience?
I believe I’ve filled this gap in available knowledge with Your Museum Needs a Podcast. The book is a simple, no-frills walk-through of everything you need to know to start a podcast at a cultural institution, from how to choose a concept that will advance your strategic goals to picking the right mics, publishing, and marketing your show.
The title may say “museum,” but I also wrote this book for public history institutions, universities, religious groups, libraries, arts councils, and any other cultural nonprofit that wants to use the power of podcasting to reach new audiences in order to educated, inform, and advance a mission that focused building a better world, not profit.
Every week, I heard about museums and history organizations starting podcasts, and I’m hoping this book will help them succeed in these endeavors. If enough museums and history organizations make great podcasts, the public may start catching on that we are great places to discover amazing stories.
Now that your Fulbright has ended, and you’ve published the book, what is next for you? What projects are you working on?
The book is just the beginning of my new campaign to get every museum podcasting. I realize that there’s also a lack of hands-on training for cultural nonprofits who want to start a podcast, so I’m now offering a suite of services, everything from remote coaching to intensive three-day workshops.
People looking for training should also keep an eye out for my upcoming webinars through the Arts Marketing Association (Nov 30) and the Texas Historical Commission (later 2018) and a half-day workshop at the NCPH 2019 Annual Meeting (Mar 2019).
And I haven’t abandoned my podcast baby. I’m hard at work producing Season 2 of Museums in Strange Places, which will feature the museums of Maryland, my home state. I somehow managed to visit and record at 22 museums in Maryland while I was home for two weeks this July, and I’m really excited to share these episodes with the world this fall.
How can people get in touch with you?
I’m on Twitter and Instagram @hannah_rfh. I’ve got all kind of information on my website, hhethmon.com. And anyone interested in podcasting or other related projects can always reach me with a good old-fashioned email at info@hhethmon.com.
You can listen to Museums in Strange Places for free on any podcast-listening platform you want, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.
You can buy Your Museum Needs a Podcast as an e-book, paperback, or audiobook on Amazon.
Thanks to Hannah for all of her work on behalf of museums and history organizations and for sharing some thoughts with me.
A twenty-year veteran of the nonprofit world, Bob Beatty is founder of The Lyndhurst Group, a history, museum, and nonprofit consulting firm providing community-focused engagement strategies for institutional planning, organizational assessments, and interpretive direction.
