workshops work Podcast

314 - Connection Before Content: A New Approach to Museum Learning with Claire Bown

workshops work Podcast

Show Notes

A pair of flimsy plastic headphones, a voice in your ears bombarding you with dates, names and historical periods, and a momentary pause at each work of art as you side-step the seemingly disinterested guided tour. If this sounds familiar, then museum facilitator and author Claire Bown is here to bring the museum alive for you! She reimagines the experience by making space for curiosity, conversation and participant-led interaction, turning passive presentations and fleeting glances into a tr...

More from workshops work Podcast

Oct 1, 2026

What if being professional is sometimes the very thing that gets in the way of good facilitation? In this conversation, Myriam and Rob Evans explore what happens when we take off the professional armour and bring more of ourselves into the room. Rob shares how humour, warmth and genuine curiosity helped him win over a room of Lufthansa engineers — not because he had performed professionalism perfectly, but because he was the only consultant who seemed to be having any fun. From there, the con...

Jul 20, 2026

Sometimes the best decisions only reveal themselves after we’ve made them. Six months ago, I merged my new podcast, Unprofessionalism, with the existing Workshops Work feed. It felt like the right move at the time. But the download statistics told a different story. Many listeners searching for Workshops Work kept finding only the episode titled “The Final Episode of Workshops Work” and understandably assumed the podcast had disappeared. In this short episode, I share why I decided to separat...

Dec 30, 2025

And that’s a wrap, folks! After 355 brilliant, beautiful, mind-opening conversations about facilitation, life, and everything in between, I can now confidently say that I have found the magic ingredients that make workshops work. Join me, myself, and I for a final farewell episode of Workshops Work, before I retire this guise of the podcast from the airwaves. I reflect on the beautiful journey of almost 7 years, where my curiosity has led me, and why it’s now time for the start of something n...

Dec 24, 2025

Brave work is messy work. It’s an invitation into the dōjō – to be humbled, to get vulnerable, and leave behind what you thought you knew. Life-long learner, executive coach, culture consultant and facilitator, Dr. Dauv Evans joins me this week to journey beyond safety into the brave space arena. Together, we explore what it takes to build these spaces: the intentionality, the rules of engagement, and the assumptions we must leave at the door to have courageous conversations. From power imbal...

Dec 16, 2025

Take a moment to tune into your body. Do your muscles feel tense, is your heartbeat slow and steady, is your jaw clamped tight? Embodiment coach and one-week-old facilitator, my fiancée Mirjam Leunissen joins me this week for a podcast first! As a scientist in a past life, Mirjam spent her days distilling data points – and she continues to do so under a new guise, now recognising patterns in the body, in emotions, and how people show up. We explore how embodiment can be a gateway to changing ...

See all episodes →