Yes, if… Productions

Digging around for a weekend expedition I decided to look closer to home and scuttle over for my first visit to Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Atlanta’s center for science and discovery full of cultural exhibits, interactive mind-bending illusions and dinosaurs! I have lived in Atlanta for 20 years, so this trip was long overdue.

I experienced the museum from the bottom to the top, starting at the foot of the giant dinosaurs in the great hall and winding my way up. I thought I had a handle on Fernbank as a whole, that is until I hit the last exhibit on the top floor—NatureQuest. Many of the displays I had seen earlier were of an older style and had a few people milling around, but Nature Quest, a spectacular immersive environment that takes guests from land to beach to undersea adventure, was simply crawling with people.

I spoke with a very cool girl working there who proudly told me about this newest area in the museum. While design practicalities fell to a design firm (which I later learned was Thinkwell), the concept was very much kept in house. The museum had pulled together a group of people from various departments to design an interactive area that was sure to serve their favorite people: their guests.

Fernbank’s literature says, “Explore the great indoors in the new permanent children’s exhibition,” but oddly enough there were just as many adults playing in the space as there were kids. You might say, “Well sure, parents have to watch their kids,” but what I mean to emphasize is not just adults but adults playing. I saw a man in a tree getting ready to cross a rope bridge, a woman on the floor putting together a puzzle that formed a piece of pottery and another poking at dinosaur bones. Parents weren’t worried about their kids (just like the kids were’t worried about their parents), they were just playing.

As I spoke with the girl working there her enthusiasm for Fernbank grew. The team there had created an environment that engaged kids and adults alike and they were beginning to turn their attention to other exhibits with the same sort of passion. I thought it was very cool for the museum to have found someone like that—a true believer—working the exhibits and interacting with guests. It wasn’t until several days later that I realized where this positive energy came from. I called the museum asking to speak with someone about the NatureQuest exhibit, perhaps a designer or someone in guest experience, but to my surprise I was immediately connected with someone very high up the chain. She was just as enthusiastic as the girl in the exhibit, perhaps more so, and it was clear that this kind of passion had worked its way out through the organization in a fantastic way.

I took the building from bottom to top, but seeing how enthusiasm comes from the top down I realized how fitting it was that the newest addition to Fernbank was at the highest point. The spirit of passion and collaboration that lead to NatureQuest will likely spill down into the rest of the exhibits just like the enthusiasm of the people who work there.

I always keep my eye on organizations that do things the right way and as a designer I would love to get my hands on Fernbank. Passionate people fueling change is inspiring. My brain refuses to shut off so of course I had, “huh, I wonder what would happen if…” and “ooo, wouldn’t it be spectacular if…” going through my mind, and now I know what got my wheels turning. They have developed a culture of change from within and you can feel it. Fernbank Museum of Natural History is trending and that’s the kind of thing that gets someone like me very excited.