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2008 Outgoing MSA President's Speech
Lauren Chapin Salazar
Sunday, April 13, 2008 – Tampa, FL
It seems only a short time ago that I was standing before you in Denver as the incoming President. I was excited to be taking on the biggest challenge of my career and the opportunity to lead MSA through the upcoming year. I knew that come April 2008, I wanted to be able to look back and know that we had accomplished something.
And, now here we are in Tampa already. And, boy, have we accomplished something! This past year has been a whirlwind of productivity – the results of which I am confident will have a lasting impact on the future of MSA and our profession.
Being a leader in MSA allows you to be an integral part of shaping the future of the organization. You are engaged with your fellow board members in the process of leading the MSA towards its envisioned future. During my six years on the Board, we’ve tackled many initiatives but being part of our first strategic planning process is one of the things I’m most proud of. We started our work in 2005, adopted our plan in February 2006 and presented it to the membership in Louisville that April.
Putting our plan into action has been our focus for the last two years. One of MSA’s goals is to become the essential source for knowledge and tools to achieve business success and excellence in cultural commerce. We quickly realized that we must identify some basic standards for our field. This work has become known as the Knowledge Standards Project. Throughout this past year, the Knowledge Standards Work Group worked with our facilitator to identify a comprehensive set of knowledge, skills and abilities needed to function in cultural commerce. In February, we finalized these standards into clear and concise language.
And now, we’re delighted to be able to present to you the MSA Knowledge Standards. The Knowledge Standards are summarized in a booklet you will receive right after this meeting; all MSA members will receive a copy of this booklet in the mail. We have also designed this as a membership piece which will be distributed in our exhibit booth at the AAM conference in Denver next week, where we plan to make contact with many museum administrators and directors.
But still more work needs to be done and we will continue it this coming year. The products that are developed from these standards will help you train others, evaluate your own skills, raise awareness of the many skills needed to do our jobs effectively, and help you communicate the important content of your role within your museum. Our Knowledge Standards will be used to create a framework for future educational programming, to develop new member programs and to deliver tools for best business practices.
So what exactly are Knowledge Standards? They are a compendium of what cultural commerce professionals need to know. And, when you really look at it, it’s astonishing how much we need to know.
Why did MSA do this? Our objective is to increase our member’s credibility as cultural commerce professionals within our institutions and the wider community, and to add value to our organizations through increased revenue and quality visitor experiences. You have a tool to validate the work that you do each and every day. And you have a roadmap for your own professional development.
The Knowledge Standards initiative is not a theoretical exercise. On the contrary, MSA will use it to craft new educational opportunities and products for all of us. Please stay tuned for the summer launch of our first such program.
As MSA President, my sincere thanks go to my co-Knowledge Standards Work Group members for their tireless efforts and dogged perseverance on this initiative. They are Gwen Benner, David Duddy, Mary Hele, Laura Murphy, Sallie Stutz, our director, Beverly Barsook, and Mickie Rops, our excellent facilitator. And, you of course – all of you who took the time to participate in the focus groups at the fall chapter meetings and who took the online survey. Your input was crucial in the creation of this document.
Last year we reported to you that we also identified the need to proactively seek to increase the membership, and so our first ever membership campaign was conducted in the fourth quarter of last year. It brought us nearly 200 new members. Our efforts continue this year with a second campaign that launched in mid-February. We also worked to bring back lapsed members to MSA and were successful there as well.
MSA’s first Strategic Plan gave us a roadmap to take us into a future that benefits us all by positioning our retail enterprises as an important part of the visitors’ experience. But our plan is not set in stone – it cannot be something you create and then set on a shelf to admire. To be effective it must be a living document. As the keepers and tenders of the strategic plan, it’s the board’s responsibility to do a periodic review – to think about what’s changed in our environment and what hasn’t (if that were possible).
In February, we invested two days in a review of our strategic plan. Working with our facilitator, we fine-tuned our objectives, identified items that could be deleted and we added some others. It was an intensive two days of work and I’m happy to say that we have a document that will continue to be roadmap for MSA for the next few years.
Overall, we remain focused on the same primary core purpose: “To advance the success of cultural commerce and of the professionals engaged in it.” Our objectives continue to address MSA’s intention to become a trusted source of information for our field, to identify best business practices and high ethical standards, to be valued members of the museum management team, and to be a cohesive, inclusive and dynamic community of organizations engaged in cultural commerce.
This year we have also initiated a major data gathering project. It’s important for us to have current information on the membership. The first of these surveys — on membership needs — was just conducted. The board and staff will be using the results to design programs to meet your current needs. Immediately after this meeting you will receive a post-Conference survey by e-mail. We always need to assess the Conference results to inform our future planning. And later this summer you will be receiving a magazine readership survey to help us continue to make Museum Store magazine the best publication in the field. I know how busy everyone is and we are all extremely grateful for your participation in these surveys. Without your voice, it would be very difficult to plan effectively. We will be reporting on survey results periodically on the Web site and in the magazine.
Everything we accomplished this past year has been a group effort and there are many individuals to thank. First, I’d like to thank all those serving on committees and work groups. Thank you to Jan Berling, Mary Christensen, John Lemke and Deborah Tibbel for serving on the Program Resource Group. Their hard work went into shaping the educational content of this meeting. They utilized the results of the post-Conference survey to identify specific areas to address in the Tampa program.
Thanks to the Sam Greenberg Committee, which has the delightful task of giving out scholarship money: Gwen Benner, David Duddy and Andrew Uchin. The Committee awarded nine scholarships to Tampa this year.
Speaking of finding new voices and fresh perspectives, it’s the work of the Nominating Committee to identify potential leaders in our community and to bring them to the board. Naturally, the future of the organization depends on this. We will always have a need for strong and committed leaders. I’d like to thank Jennifer Morehead, Carol Norcross, Gloria Rosenau-Stern and Jan Berling for serving on this very important committee.
At this time I’d like to thank the members of my board: Gwen Benner, Meta Devine, Terry Tarnow, Susan DeLand, Beth Ricker and Amanda Rutland. Thank you for volunteering your time, for your commitment and your enthusiasm. It has been an honor to serve with you. I’d also like to thank Darlene Dunham, who resigned from the board when she retired from her museum. She also served with great dedication.
And a special thank you to the MSA staff. I could not have done my job as president without the help of Beverly Barsook and her tremendously capable staff. Beverly’s institutional memory and foresight are invaluable. And the MSA staff is unfailingly cheerful and helpful. We all owe them a thank you for their hard work and dedication – the board creates the plan but the MSA staff carries it out.
Finally, I would like to thank all of you for allowing me to be your leader this past year. It has been my pleasure and my honor to serve as your president. Thank you.
And, now it’s my pleasure to introduce your new board president, Gwen Benner, whose name you’ve heard maybe once or twice today. I first became aware of Gwen at the Milwaukee Conference. She impressed me then and she impresses me even more now. Gwen is a person who really cares about this organization, and has said "yes" whenever she’s been asked to serve on a committee or work group. She is a hard worker, always cheerful, with a wonderful sense of humor. Gwen always puts the needs of MSA first. I know I’m leaving you in good hands.
Lauren Chapin Salazar
MSA Board President, 2007 – 2008
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