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Editor’s Note: After the editorial “In Defense of America” was posted to ExhibitorOnline.com, my editor in chief received a response from Adam Minter. In his e-mail, Minter explained that while he was impressed by the ambassadors staffing the USA Pavilion, he remains critical of the pavilion in general. In fairness, I agreed to post Minter’s response to our site. Below is his e-mail, along with the response I sent him on November 18, 2010.
Dear Mr. Knight:
I am referenced in Travis Stanton's "Expo Editorial: In Defense of America." I write because Stanton's piece suggests that, after being highly critical of the USA Pavilion at Expo 2010, I "came around — at least in part," and "ate crow" in regard to the structure.
It is, in fact, the case that I became a very big fan of the student ambassadors who staffed the pavilion programming. However, I feel obligated to clarify that, even after my very positive first encounter with the student ambassadors, I remained highly critical of the pavilion structure and programming.
In fact, I continue to stand by what I told National Public Radio's Rob Schmitz for a report that was broadcast on the August 24, 2010 Marketplace show:
"On one level, you can just say it’s terrible and a national embarrassment. On the second level, you can say it's the perfect embodiment of where American public diplomacy is today. It's largely been outsourced to people who have a financial interest in promoting their own agenda over the U.S. agenda."
A common response to the type of criticism that I’ve leveled against the pavilion is to suggest that the pavilion space was designed for Chinese audiences, not foreign ones, and in the former respect it was quite successful. I disagree, and though it’s difficult to provide quantitative proof of either side of this argument, I do feel that my side finds a degree of factual support from Shanghai's Jiaotong University, which released a poll (reported in Shanghai Daily on November 3), pointing to the USAP as the Expo's "most disappointing" pavilion. The Shanghai Daily story summarized it well, I think:
"In the recent survey, many respondents said the pavilion had a poor design as it looked like a shopping mall. They added its exhibits were vague and empty, said Liu Kang, dean of the university's Institute of Arts and Humanities and leader of the survey. The pavilion was also seen as having weak high-tech exhibits and eco-friendly concepts, Liu said."
Mr. Stanton’s editorial cites my specific blog post praising the US ambassadors to suggest that I might have come around to the pavilion. Though I cannot deny Mr. Stanton’s quite correct claim that the student ambassadors helped to change my perception of the pavilion, I do feel obligated to note that the student ambassador program dates back decades, to other Expos and other USA pavilions. It was always going to be a part of the 2010 event, and it was always independent of what I consider the abysmal design and execution of the 2010 pavilion. Indeed, the terrific programs executed by the student ambassadors were drawn up – in some cases, impromptu – by the student ambassadors themselves. The designers of the pavilion had nothing to do with them.
That noted, I covered Expo 2010 from some of its earliest stages, and I think that one of the most gratifying aspects of that experience was personally encountering the very strong feelings that the USAP — like it or not — generated among Americans who came into contact with it. We might disagree, but it was particularly gratifying — as an American — to find so many people, from so many different kinds of American backgrounds, caring so passionately about how our country was represented at this seminal event. Mr. Stanton and I may disagree on the 2010 USA pavilion, but we are 100% aligned in our belief that it was important to get right. All things considered, that’s a good starting point for US participation at future Expos.
Sincerely,
Adam Minter
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Dear Mr. Minter:
I will be posting your response to my editorial in the next few days, but before I do so I want to clarify a few points. First, I apologize if you feel you were mischaracterized in the piece. I have read and re-read the specific blog post referenced in the story, and I hope you can understand how it appears to indicate a slight change of heart. You discuss how you “raved” to your companion, who was shocked given your previous criticism of the pavilion. Those two references in particular implied, at least to me, that you were pleasantly surprised by this element of the pavilion and that it had, at least in part, improved your perception of it.
Coming from the exhibit industry, I tend to place equal value on the personal, face-to-face experiences inside a pavilion or exhibit as I do the structure itself. From a purely exhibit-industry perspective, the USA Pavilion far outshined the much-praised United Kingdom Pavilion, for instance. During my visit to the UK Pavilion, I never encountered a single non-Chinese staffer, was never greeted or welcomed to the pavilion, and walked away with little to no impression of the UK or its people. Was I mesmerized by the structure? Absolutely. Was the pavilion successful from a staffing perspective? Not so much. I suppose it’s this weighted criteria that contributed to my perception that, while you loathed the USA Pavilion’s structure, you were highly impressed by the staffers inside.
And while I am aware that the Student Ambassador program has been in place for several Expos, you weren’t applauding the program but rather the people themselves. That is, your blog post wasn’t praising the concept of inviting students to staff the pavilion, but was specifically in response to the actual students, their personalities, the way they engaged visitors, their fluency in Chinese, etc. To say those people had nothing to do with the pavilion is like saying that your experience at a restaurant has nothing to do with the servers and employees you encounter. Aside from the Australia Pavilion, the USA Pavilion had the best group of staffers at Expo — compared to dozens of pavilions with rude, pushy (or bored, complacent) staffers. And, at least in my experience (and that of my senior writer), the quality of a pavilion’s staff had a direct impact on our perception of and experience inside each pavilion.
Regarding the Jiaotong University poll… I’m not going to get into a debate on this one, as I haven’t reviewed the methodology of the survey (other than to find it had a sample size of 1,500 people). After touring more than 200 pavilions at Expo, I think it’s ridiculous that anyone would cite the USA Pavilion as the “Most Disappointing,” but I’m not sure how the question was phrased, how many pavilions the respondents saw on average, or how many of them actually entered the USA Pavilion. I believe the rough estimate is that about 9 percent of Expo attendees went inside the USA Pavilion. If 9 percent of the survey respondents went inside, the results wouldn’t surprise me. I have never claimed that the exterior of the pavilion was on par with the likes of the UAE or the UK. And while I have read criticism of the Fudan University study, which implies the USA Pavilion improved Chinese visitors’ perceptions of America, I feel it’s a more applicable survey — especially given the “don’t judge a book by its cover” message of my editorial — as the respondents actually went through the pavilion before responding to the survey questions.
But the bottom line is that we’ll have to agree to disagree on a few things. That said, it seems we both agree the exterior was uninspired to say the least. We also seem to agree to that student ambassadors were excellent representatives of our country. My opinions were based solely on my personal experiences inside the pavilion. During my visit to the USA Pavilion, the mostly Chinese audience responded more favorably to that pavilion’s presentations than they did inside any of the other 200+ pavilions we visited (including the Australia Pavilion, the Oil and Gas Pavilion, the State Grid Pavilion, the Saudi Arabia Pavilion, and the UAE Pavilion to name a few — all of which had far superior high-tech presentation theaters). But perhaps our visit was unique in that regard. I toured the Germany Pavilion twice. The first time through, the audience seemed bored — and that attitude skewed my own perception of the experience and its resonance with the Chinese. The second time through, the audience was more enthusiastic, more engaged, and I walked away with a far more positive view of the pavilion and its impact on visitors as a result.
Anyway, I digress. I do apologize if you felt mischaracterized by my piece. That was not my intent.
Respectfully,
Travis Stanton
| Editor’s Note: Since our initial exchange, Minter and I have cordially agreed to disagree on the USA Pavilion. We both anxiously await Expo 2015 in Milan, Italy, where we plan to share dinner — his treat — inside the USA Pavilion. |
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