Page 17 - EXPOTIME!Sept2017

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The conference had three different parts, each one had mittees publish a report in English, to keep their mem-
a special header motto as an introduction and two other bers informed.
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headlines to focus. The first day was dedicated to fund-
raising (“Dialogue starts with raising money”) with 10 Compared with the sole front formats during the ICOM
speakers and one interactive exercise with the plenum, conference, the CTM conference had a different and
to answer in small groups distributed questions. “To mixed approach. It focused on pedagogical methods to
build up a transactional philantropical, emotional rela- implement an immediate learning success in the partici-
tionship" was one important key learning by Tanja Roach pants. In the Schlüterhof of the DHM, the special ar-
(WWF Germany), which focuses on the exchange be- rangement with the round table seatings, announced
tween museums and donors/sponsors. “We give you from the beginning special interactive and collaborative
something ‒ you give us something back”. The “Best methods during the workshops in the conference. The
Practice Training" covered digital media and storytelling. participants stayed most of the time together. Regularly
The main CTM conference started on July 13, 2016 in the they were asked to move to another table for an ex-
afternoon. Until Friday midday topics were covered like: change of ideas and to co-create in changing teams on a
social media or classical media for an adequate dialogue, given topic. Each table had its own changing topics.
storytelling, building partnerships, communication strat-
egies and emotional engagement, branding and digital In the programme, the different parts were introduced
media, paradox messages, protest and social engage- with special illustrative titles as appetizers like: “Embrace
ment. The last one and a half days of the CTM confer- the unexpected" or “How to survive in the digital jungle”.
ence ended on Saturday, after the “learning safari" and After each presentation in the front, the plenum or the
the excursions to different “opportunities everywhere”, speakers were asked for the specific key learnings to be
throughout Berlin. kept in mind. Different methods during the workshop like:
writing a story, construct a picture from a given text,
The process of communicating exchange experiences and ideas with changing teams, a
the conference world café with its chocolate gratification at the end,
should stimulate a vivid dialogic atmosphere.
As I had to state in the first part, the communication of
ICOM before and during the conference was rather unpro-
fessional, although ICOM had important topics to be pub-
lished, like the new logo. CTM announced its conference
in the internet since February 2016 regularly in different
media. Journalists received free entrance for the daily
programme (like ICOM) including the visit of the Dom, but
were excluded from two seemingly spectacular invita-
tions in the evening. ICOM excluded the press from the
official excursion day too. There remains one big differ-
ence between the two institutions working with the press:
after the conference, ICOM answered all my questions im-
mediately and detailed. In contrast to ICOM, the last ser-
vice by the Agency Agenda was the publication of the key
learnings together with the power point presentations
after the Berlin conference. No further personal commu-
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nication was offered, even not on request.
CTM Session roundtable at Schlüterhof. Photo: Reiner Zapf
The approach and the key learnings
Conclusion
The topic of the General conference of ICOM: “Museums
and cultural landscapes" was presented for the plenum
and during the excursions. The international committees The topic “museum" as a cultural institution was much
were free to choose their own conference topics. Ways more present in the ICOM conference. Here, a closeness
of presenting the papers were mainly in the traditional to commercial interests could not be avoided always ‒
form of one person speaking and the rest listening. Fol- like in the discussion after the presentation of the artist
lowing discussions were framed by the time table and Christo or in the museums fair ‒ but the cultural impetus
correspondingly, only few possibilities were given for a and typical museum’s work were always in the focus of
discussion with all members attending the plenum. As the General Conference.
far as I know, there is not a common agreement to col-
lect key learnings from the papers and discussions and Although the pedagogical concept of the CTM confer-
there is no accepted obligation, to produce results in a ence was dominating throughout the four days ‒ accord-
written form at the end. Usually, the international com- ing to the motto: what can we learn from it? ‒ the com-
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EXPOTIME!, issue August/September 2017