Center for the Future of Museums Blog

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Emerging Issues in Legislation

By Elizabeth Merritt

Forgive me for being biased, but I think Museums Advocacy Day is one of The Best Museum Events in the US every year. What’s not to like about hundreds of people descending on the Capitol to tell their representatives about the …
A Short Rant About Quiet Quitting (or, Why Heroism Can Be Toxic)

By Elizabeth Merritt

One of the things that fell to the cutting room floor as I edited this year’s TrendsWatch was a short rant about the phrase “quiet quitting.” In the published version of the essay on workplace trends,* I merely noted that “confusingly [the …
Designing a Collaborative, Distributed National Museum of Mental Health

By Alexandra Orlandi & Paul Piwko

While I’m compiling my fantasy guest blog list to build out the themes of CFM’s newest report, TrendsWatch: Building the Post-pandemic World, generous people from inside and outside our sector continue to share work related to …
Chatting About Museums with ChatGPT

By Elizabeth Merritt

Two months ago, the research and development lab OpenAI released ChatGPT, an interactive “chatbot” powered by artificial intelligence. Chatbots aren’t new (I’ve been writing about museums and chatbots for at least five years now, and …
Forecasting 2023

By Elizabeth Merritt

In 2023, we, as individuals and organizations, are faced with choices that will determine what the post-pandemic future will look like. Will we try to rebuild a version of 2019, in so far as we are able, or will we use disruption as an …
An Example of Strategic Foresight in Museum Planning

By Ann Fortescue

In March, the Alliance released my major pandemic project: The AAM Strategic Foresight Toolkit, a comprehensive guide to applying the skills of futures thinking to museum practice. Over 300 people have purchased the Toolkit, and I have …
What is Mastodon and Why Should You Care?

By Elizabeth Merritt

I joined Twitter in 2009, soon after the launch of CFM. That was the first social media account associated with AAM, and trying out this new realm was part of CFM’s work exploring emerging digital tools and their significance for museums. …
Improving Access to Employment for People with Disabilities

By Dana Spencer Winfield

The museum sector is working to increase the diversity of our workforce through a variety of ways: for example, how we craft position requirements, word job announcements, and conduct interviews. That is helping museums make some progress …
Art, Wellness, and Mental Health

By Elizabeth Merritt

I met Ashley Witherspoon while researching CFM’s current TrendsWatch report—one of the topics we examine is how museums can help foster mental health for all. Ashley is the founder and CEO of Hand Made Dreams, a mental health platform …
Museums Can Help Transform Education

By Katherine Prince

Last week I spent an inspiring afternoon in a Zoom workshop dedicated to envisioning “liberatory futures” for P-12 education. How can we collectively create an educational future that is rooted in equity, self-determination, and the right …