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The Portable Museum: or, how is the Corcoran different from a hockey team?
Great headline: Dallas, Arlington pursuing College Football Hall of Fame, but Indiana museum say it’s staying put. Apparently two municipalities are rivals in courting the College Football HoF, each offering premium sites (in Dallas, … -
Materials of the Future Museum–Vote Now!
Classic scene: Ben Braddock is being grilled by Mrs. Robinson’s posse about what he is going to do with his future, his life when Mr. McGuire spirits him outside to the dark quiet by the suburban pool. “I just wanna say one word to … -
The Resurrection of the Amateur Expert
Of all the conversations instigated by CFM so far, the one arousing the greatest passion is about the changing role of authority. The CFM report Museums & Society 2034 highlights a cultural shift in which people want museums to … -
Beyond the Talking Heads: an experiment in format at the AAM annual meeting
You may have noticed, when submitting session proposals for conferences, that everyone seems to be encouraging something more creative and interactive than the usual “talking head” panel format. My favorite responses to this challenge are … -
“MyCulture”: the salvation of museums or the end of excellence as we know it?
As promised, I have posted a summary of the discussions about the “myCulture” trend from the Crowdsourcing the Future game I led at the Museums in Conversation (MIC) conference in Tarrytown, NY earlier this month. “MyCulture” is the term … -
Crowdsourcing the Future of Museums
Crowdsourcing (n): the process of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor and outsourcing it to a large group of people or community in the form of an open call for input. Earlier this month I enlisted the help … -
The Future of Carbon-based Conferences
As the AAM staff races to get ready for our annual meeting in Philadelphia at the end of the month, I am thinking a lot about the carbon footprint of such conferences and, more broadly, the environmental impact of the museum field. I think … -
The Lost Generation
I am contemplating two trends that, taken together, are pretty grim. The first is our aging population. This trend by itself is not alarming. In fact, as a member of the baby boom expecting a welcome letter from the AARP within the year, I … -
Questioning Assumptions
Earlier this month I participated in a very interesting scenario planning exercise at the Smithsonian. The session was led by Peter Schwartz, a board member from the Long Now Foundation, an organization whose mission is “to creatively … -
Killing Buddha
The Accreditation Commission is meeting this week here at the AAM offices in Washington, D.C. Each time I walk past the big glass walls of the board room I see the huge binders scattered across the conference table, and the long, long list …
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Center for the Future of Museums Blog
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Advocacy Alert
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AAM Statement on the Independence of the Smithsonian and America’s Museums
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Press Release
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