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Subject:
From:
Jeff Courtman <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informal Science Education Network <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 14 Dec 2009 11:39:47 -0600
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ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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Brian:

One of the best things I can recommend is to keep a pad by you for a  
week, or a month, and use it to record anything you can think of that  
you wish you had been included when you received a traveling  
exhibit.  Its sort of an exercise in "Remember when.....".

One of the things I would most recommend adding to your bag of tricks  
is an online project management site like  
"Basecamp"  ( 37signals.com).  We use it as sort of an online water  
cooler where distant partners (in-house or outside) can  
communicate....We have found it to be a very effective tool for many  
reasons, not the least of which is collecting the history of a  
project, from inception to completion, in one place.  Imagine two  
years into the project, someone asks a question that has been  
answered in the past.  Rather than remembering the particulars - who  
answered, with what email stream, or which folder the document might  
be buried in, you have a searchable record.  Or imagine one site  
having discovered the best way to deal with an unexpected problem -  
again, you can simply go into Basecamp and make the appropriate  
notation, whether in a pdf file, a milestone, a checklist, whatever.

Here's another feature: I hate meetings anyway, particularly when the  
problem at hand doesn't involve me or won't affect what I'm doing for  
a long time.  How great to have a place where only the appropriate  
parties need be involved with the nitty gritty, saving valuable  
meeting time, yet whatever decisions/solutions ensue become part of  
the record.

Most important, we have found that something like Basecamp helps us  
manage expectations - when in doubt, it gets posted.  It may take a  
little discipline to get everyone to use it regularly (I would say it  
took us about three months), but once it becomes habit, it is  
invaluable.....

As someone who is not the best at keeping up my files, and someone  
who is not the best note-taker in the world,  - Basecamp makes life  
way better....
	




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