How Museums are Like Bellybuttons and What That Tells Us
I think it’s time to share my omphalic classification scheme for museums. I started using this metaphor while I was directing AAM’s excellence programs (MAP, Accreditation) to capture my observations about major differences about museums’ …
Report from #FutrChat
Last Thursday eighty-three futurists and museumers participated in #futrchat on Twitter, co-hosted by the Association of Professional Futurists (APF) and CFM. The tweets flew fast and furious (over 600 of them!) as our sectors exchanged …
Collections and Storage Handling on a Shoestring
Watch this recorded webinar discussing practical solutions to collections storage issues and ways to effectively care for collections using available materials, resources, and your own needs-based…
Making the Most of What We Have: Museums & Collaboration
Yesterday, at the orientation for Museums AdvocacyDay, deputy director Cora Marrett of the National Science Foundation predicted that, in a future of increased resource constraints, museums will need to collaborate on competitive funding …
The Future of Funding
Everyone wants to know what the next business model for museums may be. Will they morph into hybrid nonprofit/for-profit social benefit corporations? Lose tax exempt status entirely? In today’s post Carl Hamm, immediate past chair of the …
Steampunk, Crowdfunding and the Power of Social Media
Or, How One Exhibit Company Pulled A Brass Elephant Out Of A Hat This week’s guest post is by Peter Overstreet. Pete and his wife, Cat Taylor, founded the exhibit and event design company Aeronaut Productions LLC. Pete was a full-time …
Museums Innovating in Businesslike Ways
Many people tell us that, in the future, museums need to be more entrepreneurial. It’s hard to find written case studies, however, of museums innovating in businesslike ways. Today’s guest post helps fill that gap, as Karen Coltrane, …
The Backward ABC’s of Museum Data
This week’s blog post comes from Philip M. Katz, assistant director for research at AAM. This was going to be an essay about the power of museum financial and operating data—robust, reliable numbers that can help museums plan for the …
The Transformative Power of Innovation
This guest post is by Richard Evans, president, EmcArts Inc. AAM is partnering with EmcArts, with the generous support of MetLife Foundation, to offer Innovation Lab for Museums. The Request for Proposals for the Lab has just been …
Don’t Just Stir It, Shake It!
Today’s guest post is by Richard V. Piacentini, executive director of Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. Richard previews one of the themes we will explore next month at Feeding the Spirit: Museums, Food & Community—how …
