Jeff Patchen is the Chairman of the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, the world’s biggest museum for children and families, and the largest touristic attraction of the State of Indiana.

With more than 1 million visitors each year, and an annual economic impact of more than 75 million $, the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis generates more economic impacts than the professional sports teams in NBA (Indiana Pacers) and NFL (Indianapolis Colt).

 

Mr. Patchen, what needs to be done to attract families to museums?

Provide relevant content across the sciences, arts and humanities; provide relevant content for adults as well as children and teens; always changing: many and frequent changing exhibitions.

 

What is the role of visual arts in children’s education?

Sadly, in the American public schools the role of visual arts is quickly diminishing, along with music, theatre, dance, creative writing. Therefore, what large museums can/must do is to engage children and their families, and help them to understand why immersing children in the arts and humanities is essential.

 

What is your vision of the “museum of the future”?

The successful museum of the future must take seriously the issue of visitor engagement - measuring, nurturing and improving engagement by visitors with their collections, with their staff, with their website and on-line resources. Museums that are able to do this will be highly attended, valued and supported by the public as well as private sources of contributed revenue. We have a full-time staff employed to lay out an annual evaluation plan for how we measure visitor engagement and family learning – we take it very seriously, and so does our Board of Trustees.

 

At the Florens Forum you will speak in the session on technologies. How can technologies attract people to museums?

Technologies don’t attract people – compelling and engaging content attracts them. “Technology”, in its broadest definition, describes the many ways in which we can help to engage our visitors. Whether is a kiosk with manipulative/interactive user interface in an exhibition gallery, or a highly interactive website, mobile application for directions or feedback related to visitor opinion or customer service, technologies are useful tools to communicate with our visitors.