Introducing the 2022 Edition of TrendsWatch
As a child, I fell in love with museums for the good they did for me: providing a place of wonder, exploration, refuge, and, as I aged into teen-dom, an opportunity for meaningful work as a volunteer. As an adult, I fell in love with …
Introducing Your Do-It-Yourself Toolkit for Strategic Foresight
Check it out. I made something for you ↑ I’ve been teaching strategic foresight to museum people for fourteen years now, travelling around the country to give talks and lead workshops, brainstorming, and team-building exercises at museums …
NFTs, Cryptocurrency, and Museum Practice
I am going to break a long silence to weigh in on the current conversation around NFTs, addressing four issues that have come up repeatedly in my conversations with people inside and outside the museum sector. These questions are (loosely …
What Does it Mean to Trust a Museum?
Last September, AAM released Museums and Trust 2021, a survey that measured how museums were performing during a time of record public distrust in a wide range of institutions, from news outlets to the government. As with any good …
The Future of Museum Labor: Exploring the Latest COVID Impact Data
Last week the Alliance released the results of our most recent snapshot of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on US museums. We launched this series of surveys in June 2020, a little over 3 months after the World Health Organization …
STEAMing into Solvency: Integrating a Museum into the Public School System
The pandemic was an economic tsunami for museums, particularly those already experiencing financial stress. Relatively new museums, still getting their feet under themselves, were at particular risk. Today on the blog, Karen Ackerman …
Hiring into Pathways for Advancement
What if every entry level museum job was designed to be the first rung in a career ladder for anyone who desires to climb? How could that change who wants to work in a museum, and whether they are willing to commit to the long-term? How …
In the Pandemic a New Museum Charter School is Born
Over the past two years, the pandemic has prompted museums to experiment with new products and services to meet the needs of their communities. Some of these experiments have turned out to be, in effect, pilot projects for financially …
Forecasting 2022, Part 3: Build Your Own Adventure
When I sat down to write the third entry in CFM’s scenario set for 2022, I struggled over what kind of story would most usefully round out the collection. Scenario one (A Third Year of Waves) explores a depressing but entirely possible …
The Long-awaited Tail
“With our imagination, the future is a place where anything, or one hundred things, or everything, can be different—even things that seem impossible to change today.” –Dr. Jane McGonigal, futurist and games designer I want to start …
