2016 – Page 15 – American Alliance of Museums

Happiness: Because you get what you measure

By Elizabeth Merritt

“The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play.” —Robert F. Kennedy Humans are driven to succeed, so we mold our behavior to fit our definition of …
Labor 3.0: new jobs, or a jobless future?

By Elizabeth Merritt

“The issue is jobs. You can’t get away from it: jobs. Having a buck or two in your pocket, and feeling like somebody.”—Studs Terkel In the last two centuries, labor pivoted from the farm and workshop to the factory and the office. Now, as …
More Than Human: extending the spectrum of ability

By Elizabeth Merritt

“If I could snap my fingers and be nonautistic, I would not. Autism is part of who I am.”—Temple Grandin The year 2015 marked the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which banned discrimination against people …
Me/We/Here/There: museums and the matrix of place-based augmented devices

By Elizabeth Merritt

“It turns out that the killer application for virtual reality is other human beings. Build a world that people want to inhabit, and the inhabitants will come.” —Charles Stross Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are portals to …
Capture the Flag: the Struggle Over Representation and Identity

By Elizabeth Merritt

This article originally appeared in the May/June 2016 issue of Museum magazine. Exploring the social justice role of museums in the preservation and presentation of history and culture. “Take down the flag. Take it down now. Put it in a …
Why VR?: Enhancing IRL (In Real Life) Experiences for visitors to the British Museum

By Elizabeth Merritt

2016 is clearly a break-out year for Virtual Reality (VR) technologies, with numerous companies releasing relatively affordable, consumer-ready devices. Still, when I was writing TrendsWatch 2016 last fall, I found relatively few museums …
My Recap from a Workplace Inclusion Forum

By Elizabeth Merritt

Today’s guest post is by the Alliance’s president & CEO, Laura Lott.She’s been on the hunt for resources to help AAM become a more inclusive workplace, and that search took her to Minneapolis for what turned out to be …
MOOC: Behind the Museum

By Elizabeth Merritt

<!—->Having started my museum career in a very, very small museum (that no longer exists), I am hypersensitive to the needs of people working in organizations with miniscule resources. Professional development is particularly …
Why Create & Use Open Source Software? Reflections from an imaging nonprofit

By Elizabeth Merritt

Doubtless your news-feed, like mine, is flooded with stories about the “open” economy: the rise of open data, open software, open government. (For an introduction to the trend, revisit the related chapter in TrendsWatch 2015.) …
Monday Musing: Combating Bias by Redesigning the Interview Process

By Elizabeth Merritt

This week’s musing isn’t even going to take me the usual 15 minutes. Here, read this: How to Take the Bias Out of Interviews.I’ve written about challenge-based hiring and blind auditions as techniques to reduce hiring …