I drink a lot of tea…way more than any other drink by far. Therefore, I think it is pretty hilarious that I co-founded a company that just happens to have the acronym TEA. Career paths are full of strange little coincidences like this, as well as bumps in the road, missed turns, and some moments that just feel absolutely right. I love telling stories, so let me explain how I got here.
After a 22-year career designing unique museum experiences, I never thought I would leave the field. However, my hand was forced when I was laid off in June 2020 after nine years at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM). To be honest, I didn’t have a strong interest in museums after I got my MA in art history in the late 1990s. I wanted to teach so I enrolled in the Ph.D. program at the University of Delaware to study American painting, but I decided to defer entry for a year because the job market just looked awful. Luckily, I loved museum work and the rest is history! You could say that early on I never expected to have a museum career and most recently I never expected to be without one…but here I am.
I’ve had the privilege of working with some incredible people over the years and my new partners Annie Lundsten and Ed Rodley are certainly two of the very best and brightest.
I met Annie when she was hired by PEM in September 2012. I can’t remember any of the specifics about our introduction, but I do recall a conversation a few years later when she reflected on one of our first team meetings. She remembered thinking “who the hell is this media guy interjecting himself into conversations like he is on the curatorial team.” She didn’t mean it negatively, it was more of a surprise that I was moving slightly outside the normal lanes of the often-siloed museum superhighway. Annie was doing the same thing, just in slightly different ways. I remember how impressed I was that she took control of her project teams upon arrival…she meant business. Annie united people to form great working teams, made sure everyone got their work done, and brought a wonderful levity and joy to the work. We collaborated on a number of award-winning projects and in 2016 she left PEM to start her own consulting firm and of course continued to thrive in the field.
It was sad to see Annie go, I lost a true collaborator and a consummate professional who always made my work so much easier. She was the glue that kept projects together, orchestrating a sometimes chaotic but productive dance among members of our core exhibition teams, institutional leadership, artists, and external partners. We worked together for over four years and became great friends with a common interest in the power of music. We continued to trade music recommendations regularly and we got to experience some amazing concerts together over the years. Every once in a while, when I expressed my frustrations with projects or museums in general, she would subtly hint about teaming up at some point in the future to create our own firm.
Before working together, Ed and I knew each other from the conference circuit. It was ironic that we both lived in the Boston area, but we really only saw each other when traveling. I joined PEM in June of 2011, signing on as the Director of Integrated Media. After a little more than a year into the job I had the opportunity to grow the department. While I conducted a national search to fill the position, I knew who I wanted to join me in the PEM sandbox, but I wasn’t sure if he was open to new opportunities. Ed had built a very successful career at The Museum of Science and I didn’t know if I could lure him away. With a newly written job description in hand, I began the recruitment process. I invited Ed for a drink at Lord Hobo in Cambridge because they had one of the best beer menus in the area and Ed lived close by. I brought along a copy of the job description and after catching up and some small talk, I slid it across the bar to him and coyly said “I brought this just in case you know anyone that might be interested in this position.” Ed later admitted that he didn’t fully realize until the next morning that “duh…he was asking me if I wanted to apply for the job.”
PEM was at the beginning stages of a major expansion and we had the opportunity to do some really innovative work. During the interview process, I remember describing The Impressionists on the Water and the Nathaniel Gould exhibitions to him and that each of those teams was open to creating rich, immersive, and meaningful visitor experiences.
I knew immediately by the look on his face that the hook was set. Ed accepted the position in April of 2013. While Ed and I had some shared expertise, we each had individual strengths that complemented one another. I structured our work relationship as a partnership more than anything else. Ed, with our incredible media and interpretation teams, delivered absolutely groundbreaking experiences for both of those early shows. During our time at PEM, Annie, Ed, and I, along with our team of collaborators, developed a reputation for making some of the best immersive museum experiences in the field.
Over the last few years Annie and Ed joined forces on a number of successful consulting projects. While doing so, they continued to think about the state of the field and how to explore new models for success.
In mid-April 2020 Annie organized the first of several brainstorming sessions with a diverse range of experience makers. We came together every few weeks to reflect on the state of museums and cultural organizations during the Covid-19 pandemic, to think about new models for creating immersive experiences, and to try to imagine what the field would look like when we finally came out on the other side. We knew that things would never go back to “normal” for cultural organizations and that we had an opportunity to find new and more innovative approaches to our work. I could feel where this was going. Each time we met, Annie’s previously subtle allusions about starting our own firm became more and more solidified and real. I could tell she was very serious about making this happen.
Then, in a surprising turn of events in mid-June, PEM laid off Ed and me. After taking a few weeks to get over the initial shock of the dismissal to process these dramatic changes and to evaluate our options, Ed and I re-joined Annie and we never looked back. We increased the cadence of our meetings and reached out to some of the best minds in the field. Before we knew it, we were in the midst of a design sprint to create a company that was going to be a new model for experience design. We kept moving forward through the fall, refining our vision, and sharing our thoughts with colleagues. No one told us that our idea was crazy, in fact we got nothing but encouragement that we were really onto something and that his new model made so much sense.
We knew that the key to our success would be building a team of creative partners that could uniquely serve clients’ needs. We wanted to form the perfect dream team for every project and that required a diverse range of talent. Virtually everyone we asked to become a creative partner gave us an enthusiastic yes and this was the best evidence yet that this was going to work!
With the help of some amazing friends over the last few months, we refined our business plan, laid out a marketing strategy, staged a photoshoot, designed a logo, and built a website. The pieces are in place and we are ready to make some magic!
Over the years Ed, Annie, and I have created some amazing work together, won a number of awards, and built a strong reputation for excellence, but most importantly, we have always tried to have fun and learn something new along the way. Nothing excites us more than being in a room of creative people and developing empathy inducing and emotive experiences that have a deep and lasting impact on people. We would love to tell you more about our goals and vision and we of course would love to help you bring your dream project to life. We invite you to join us for a cup of TEA and a conversation about making magic with us. We are The Experience Alchemists. Creation. Magic. Transformation.