Videos Archives - Paul Orselli

Just One Thing about Exhibits!

Paul Orselli Talks Museum Exhibit FAQs TOO!

More Museum Conversations on the POW! YouTube Channel! October 30, 2025
Over the past few years, I've been fortunate to chat with museum professionals from all over the world on my POW! YouTube channel.Click on over to YouTube to find videos about topics such as "The Definition of Done" with Christian Greer and "Protototyping (With A Twist!)" with Adriana Magni.There is a growing library of over […]
POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)
Quick Museum/Exhibit/Design Inspiration: OpenWebcamDB October 21, 2025
OpenWebcamDB is a fun website that gathers and coordinates hundreds of connections to open/public live webcams worldwide.Whether you are watching pandas frolic on the iPanda feed from China or getting hypnotized by the ballet of mechanical movements of robotic containers in a shipping warehouse, OpenWebcamDB can inspire your next program, exhibition, or even artwork!Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks […]
POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)
The Solo Exhibit Designer's Survival Guide October 13, 2025
Let's set the scene: You're the "exhibit team." Not part of the team—you ARE the team. Content research, design concept, fabrication planning, vendor coordination, installation supervision, and probably writing the press release, too. Your business cards should just say "Department of Everything."Sound familiar? Welcome to the reality of small museums, where "we need a new […]
POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)
How Do You Design One Space That Works for All Ages? October 4, 2025
Here's a question that keeps exhibit designers up at night: How do you create a single museum experience that genuinely engages a curious five-year-old, their design-savvy parent, and their retired grandparent—all at the same time, without patronizing any of them?The answer isn't "dumb it down for kids" or "add a separate kids' corner." The secret […]
POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)
The Room(s) Where It Happened ... September 24, 2025
Here's something that museums can give you that Artificial Intelligence or Virtual Reality can't touch -- the literal "room where it happened."As someone who was born and raised in Detroit, it was incredibly powerful to stand inside "Studio A" at the Motown Museum, where amazing musicians like Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, and Marvin Gaye created […]
POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)
Museum Work as (Quiet) Resistance September 11, 2025
You know that moment when a board member suggests you "tone down" that civil rights exhibition? Or when a donor hints that your climate science display might be "too political"? Or when local politicians start making noise about your programming choices?Welcome to the front lines of cultural resistance.Guess what? Our work is inherently political. Every object we choose to […]
POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)
The Secret Sauce of High-Quality Museums: Internal Capacity August 29, 2025
Here's something I've learned after years in the trenches of exhibit design and development: all truly high-quality museums share one critical characteristic. It's not their flashy architecture, their famous collections, or even their generous budgets. It's something far more fundamental.High-quality museums have strong internal capacity.Now, I'm not saying these museums create everything internally—that would be […]
POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.)

More Museum Conversations on the POW! YouTube Channel!

Over the past few years, I've been fortunate to chat with museum professionals from all over the wor...

Quick Museum/Exhibit/Design Inspiration: OpenWebcamDB

OpenWebcamDB is a fun website that gathers and coordinates hundreds of connections to open/public li...

The Solo Exhibit Designer's Survival Guide

Let's set the scene: You're the "exhibit team." Not part of the team—you ARE the team. Content res...

How Do You Design One Space That Works for All Ages?

Here's a question that keeps exhibit designers up at night: How do you create a single museum experi...

The Room(s) Where It Happened ...

Here's something that museums can give you that Artificial Intelligence or Virtual Reality can't tou...