There is a built-in dissonance in the working relationship between the entrepreneurs who establish centers, and the content and production companies that plan and carry out the actual establishment. Sometimes it works better, and sometimes less.
When did I realize that the market needed the function of a content consultant - a projector for the client?
About 8 years ago, I entered a visitor center (it doesn't matter which denomination :)) in Jerusalem with a dear friend - Amir Hasfari - a content person, one of the best I've ever met in my life. The center was reasonable +, I mean it was reasonably interesting, but the execution was not completely professional and there were various problems of content, which was not accurate or exciting enough, and of the use of media. What is meant by improper use of media? When the performing company puts in video projectors in places that do not 'advance the plot' or when technically there is a choice of video projectors that do not fit the size of the space or the required power.
Escorting and supervising a visitor center is different from supervising a construction project, however complex it may be. The title is similar but the role is different.
When the developer of the project, or in other words the client, told me how much he paid for it - Amir and I were shocked!! - Four million NIS!! We looked at each other and we both knew that if we had charged him half of what he paid for the establishment of the center, we would still have made a good living from the story.
We are not talking about many exhibition spaces or a large space, we are talking about only one exhibition space that needs to tell a clear story.
This is the point where I began to understand that there is a problem in this market. On one side is the client, who does not necessarily understand or have experience in professional production processes, and on the other side is the execution company that tries - and rightly so - to maximize profits.
In every construction project of a visitor center, the implementing companies exist from one milestone to the next. This is how the market works - at each milestone or milestone of completing a significant task, the company issues an invoice for payment. The goal of the execution company is for the client to approve the concept / program / detailed scripts and plans as quickly as possible, and this is natural and clear.
On the other side of the equation is a client who is under pressure from the construction company to confirm the current stage of the work, and even if he feels that something is unclear or incomplete, he does not always know how to define and put his finger in the right place.
No one imagines building a new building without hiring a construction supervisor who understands the professional tasks of the contractor and knows the language of construction, but there are still clients or entrepreneurs who enter into a project to build a visitor center without using a content consultant who specializes and understands not only the combination of content and media and technology, but also knows how to ask essential questions that directs the project more precisely towards the realization of the entrepreneur's overarching goals.
Overseeing the planning and execution of a visitor center is not only making sure that the plans are carried out properly, but also analyzing the products in motion, to make sure that at the end of the process, the visitors' experience will bring the entrepreneurs to the maximum realization of the vision and dreams with which they set out.