Peering into Percentages: A Q&A with Susie Wilkening
Spend enough time reading or talking about museums, and you will inevitably come across statistics that convey the vibrancy or challenges of our field. For every percentage point, there is a person behind that figure, working hard to …
Catching the Data Bug: A Q&A with Colleen Dilenschneider
I’m not sure how I first came across Colleen Dilenschneider—whether it was hearing her speak at a conference or reading one of her articles on the Know Your Own Bone blog, where she shares critical market research from IMPACTS Experience …
What Works for Building Audiences? Let’s Review the Data.
One of the biggest issues museums face right now is diminished attendance. Years after most pandemic-induced closures have lifted, the majority of institutions have still seen only a partial return of their visitors—an average of 71 …
External Pressures on Museum-Going: A 2023 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Story
This visual Data Story is based on findings from the 2023 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, a national survey of American museum visitors from AAM and Wilkening Consulting. Every year, the survey partners with individual museums to research …
Leisure-Time Shifts in a (Mostly) Post-Pandemic World: A 2023 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Story
There have been a lot of changes in how people live their lives over the past five years, largely (but not exclusively) due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While some of these shifts may benefit museums, others mean museums have more competition …
Museum Visitation—Frequency vs. Incidence Gaps: A 2023 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Story
When we plot out certain demographic characteristics, we find that who visits museums frequently (and the gaps we discover) can be very different than who visits museums at all (the incidence). Understanding these gaps (and where gaps …
Museum Visitation: A 2023 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Story
It's been 3.5 years since the COVID-19 pandemic devastated museum visitation. For some museums, visitation is back to normal. For others, well,…
A Toolkit to Measure Your Museum’s Social Impact
While social and community impact is increasingly viewed as central to museums’ missions as acknowledged in the Alliance’s most recent strategic framework, the issue of measuring that impact with a reliable and valid tool has been a …
The Six Tools for Effective Digital Design
In 2020, after a fifteen-year run working in museums on digital engagement projects, I decided to start my own consultancy. In the process of building it, I often heard from people familiar with my projects, whether from my blog, social …
Empathy Interviews: A Tool for Museums to Understand the Feelings and Experiences of Others
Imagine sitting down with local community members and hearing stories about the places they feel they can show up as their most authentic selves, or where and how they have learned something interesting in the past, or what drives them to …
