What if the skills you’re learning in museums could take you somewhere you haven’t even thought of yet?

Nancy Harmon went to museum studies school thinking she wanted to develop exhibitions. She interned at the Field Museum, worked on visitor research around museum apps, and later found herself experimenting with mobile technology during an internship at the Neanderthal Museum.

Then she went to a hackathon.

She couldn’t code. She didn’t have a software background. She was working retail while finishing graduate school.

She had an idea.

That idea eventually became Encurate, a museum technology company that works with museums and cultural destinations to create mobile visitor experiences.

In this episode, Nancy joins Elin and Alli to talk about:

• Her museum origin story (including a sixth-grade Ancient Egypt exhibition)
• What she learned from realizing her dream museum internship wasn’t quite what she expected
• How visitor research introduced her to museum technology
• Walking into a hackathon as the only museum person in a room full of tech and marketing people
• Building a tech company without being a software engineer
• The museum skills that turned out to be incredibly valuable in business and technology
• Why the ability to “figure it out with little to no resources” is a legitimate professional skill
• How museum work develops research, problem-solving, attention to detail, visitor experience, and communication skills
• Why leaving a traditional museum role doesn’t mean losing your museum identity
• Nancy’s work with museum studies students
• How early-career professionals can parallel plan by building museum experience and transferable skills at the same time

Nancy’s advice to emerging museum professionals is simple: stay curious, meet people outside your immediate field, learn the vocabulary other industries use, and go to the thing.

Museum people may use different language, but many of the underlying skills are the same.

And maybe most importantly: pursuing museums doesn’t require making museums your only possible future.

You have options. You already have skills. You may just need to learn where else they can take you.