You might have the best designed and built car in the race, but if you can’t get the plugs to spark, it’s no more functional than your living room coffee table.
WHAT WE DO
STRATEGY
Establishing good leadership and enabling great followership is at the heart of every successful organization. TDG has access to tested non-profit CEO survivors, mid-level managers, even shop foremen. Collectively, we can tap nearly a century of experience in strategic planning and brand management.
-- Audience assessment
-- Brand development & positioning
-- Media Relations & public relations
-- Community relations & support
CONTENT
No one knows more than you and your team about the subject matter you deal with. But communication isn't accomplished in a vacuum. Your content is part of a story, a continuum. Your visitor, student, guest, or audience needs context. And if we learn something new every day, then every day is a day at school and every environment a classroom. Does your program teach, preach, or fail to reach? We can help you find out.
-- Science, art, space, exploration, history content evaluation
-- Writing and storytelling
-- Educational programming
ADMINISTRATIVE
Efficient administration is mostly about the skills and motivations of the people on your team, but those employees and volunteers need the right organizational structure: to clarify authority, unclog communications, lower overhead costs, and empower. Boards of directors and directorates within an organization should be right-sized, not oversized or understaffed; flexible; and prepared. Is yours?
-- Organizational structure and skills evaluation
-- Disaster preparedness & planning
EXHIBITS & COLLECTIONS
If you're a museum, your exhibits and collections define you. They are what make you unique, your "unique selling proposition," or USP. But their value to your organization is set by the guest, not your insurance company. While you may have paid a gazillion dollars for that artifact, if your visitor thinks it's just a nice use of canvas or just another bone, your future leverage or ROI of that item is proportionally diminished. Presentation, story, history: TDG can help with all of that.
-- Permanent and traveling exhibits, collections, and archives
VIRTUAL
In today's instant messaging environment, you're organization is either social, or it's nothing. More specifically, drowned in the noise of everything else, you simply don't exist. And it won't go back to the way it was: the paradigm has shifted, forever. Either you're riding the front wave of the tsunami or you're floating debris being carried back out to sea. Don't be flotsam!
-- Social media tools assessment
-- Websites
DEVELOPMENT
TDG has access to successful grant writers, and experience with fundraising. We can evaluate what you're doing and advise, but development is always a top-down effort, starting with a Board that takes responsibility for it, and a community of donors who see the value in your organization's vision. The best people to know the best sources of funding and talent for your success probably are right in plain sight. We can help you see the trees for the forest!
-- Development, grants, and fundraising (limited)
BUSINESS MODEL
OUR TEAM
JOHN
FORMER DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC INITIATIVES
John served as the director, Strategic Initiatives, of a medium-sized science museum. He retired from NASA after 25 years, mostly managing a multi-million dollar a year traveling exhibits program. In that position, he served for almost ten years as liaison to the board of directors of a nearby space museum and official NASA visitor center. Prior and consecutive to NASA, John served in increasing positions of responsibility in Air Force and Air Force Reserve public relations, communications and disaster response, retiring after 30 years.
CHRIS
SPECIALIST (MARKETING & CONTENT STRATEGY)
Chris currently is a digital marketing strategist for a small, innovative company in Texas. He’s worked in digital marketing almost since the function became a business necessity. Before that, he was a music producer and owned a music production studio in Nashville, TN, then branched out into digital sales and web design.
JESSICA
SPECIALIST (BRANDING & GRAPHIC DESIGN)
Jess is a writer’s best friend: an editor, proofreader, and publication strategist. She has designed and managed web pages and social media for a number of national (and a few not-so-national) recording artists and businesses. She is a professional photographer and graphics designer for both print and digital media.
MICHAEL
SPECIALIST (ENGINEERING & MANAGEMENT)
Mike is a recently retired CEO who led contractor support to the Federal Government at a major research laboratory in the San Francisco area. An engineer by training, he has worked as a senior manager in a number of capacities at chemical manufacturing facilities in Texas, Ohio, and Delaware and nuclear material recycling facilities in South Carolina, Colorado, and Washington State. He brings scientific, technical and engineering knowledge and managerial experience into the TDG mix.
ALYSSA
SPECIALIST (EXHIBITS)
Alyssa is a problem-solver, helping the team visualize and actualize real world roadblocks. A former NASA contract program manager, she first came to TDG’s attention as a shop foreman and lead designer supporting NASA’s leading traveling exhibit operation. She designed and oversaw the building and operation of a number of NASA’s signature outdoor mobile and indoor traveling exhibits.
CHARLES
SPECIALIST (SCIENCE)
Dr. Chuck has built a reputation as an inventor and innovator in medical science & technology. He currently runs a research lab for a world-class children’s hospital but prior to that, he worked for more than 25 years in academia and industry conducting MRI research and designing applications. With more than 100 patents to his name and the author of several papers in science journals, he is one of DGI’s go-to experts on the scientific process, technology, and science, especially chemistry.
ABOUT TDG
OUR PURPOSE
TDG is a talent-based operation, established in 2013 by John Dumoulin when he realized that three decades of working with and within museums, educational and Federal institutions, military units, exhibit houses and vendors, publishers, and others had produced a network of contacts who wanted to give back. His wife, four siblings, both children and their spouses also had professional talents and experiences to tap. Past supervisors, managers, co-workers, and professional colleagues had skills and insights they were gladly willing to share. All were happy to give up some of their free time but few were or are able to donate their services or absorb the cost of helping out, even for the most worthy causes.In a sense, TDG is a virtual organization, more of a network than a place. A network of candid but confidential second opinions, the gentle stranger on the park bench with little to lose by sharing some friendly observations and advice.