Center for the Future of Museums Blog

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Introducing our Aroha Fellow for Museums & Creative Aging

By Bill Tramposch

I am pleased to announce that, with support from Aroha Philanthropies, the Alliance is launching an initiative to explore how museums can engage with the rapidly-growing field of creative aging. Our new Aroha Fellow for Museums and …
Backcasting: Or, how to apply 20:20 hindsight to museum planning

By Elizabeth Merritt

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,’ says the White Queen to Alice.” ― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass In today’s post, I’m going to introduce you to backcasting, a planning method that helps people …
What Museums Can Learn from Amanda Palmer

By Elizabeth Merritt

On the way to New Zealand in the spring of 2016, I started reading Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking. I thought of it as “me time” reading, and as such it was relegated to snippets of time before bed. When I finished the book, though, I …
Your Guide to the Future at AAM 2019

By Elizabeth Merritt

With the Early Bird Registration deadline approaching quickly (Monday, March 4) I’m sharing my futurist picks for the Alliance’s 2019 annual meeting. Save some $$ by snagging the early bird rate, and use this post to jump start your …
Introducing our 2019 CFM Foresight Scholar

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’m pleased to announce that our inaugural foresight scholarship has been awarded to Terrance Hunter, program manager at the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida. Since receiving his B.A. in Educational Studies from …
Stone Soup

By Elizabeth Merritt

We’ve reached another milestone in the celebration of the Center for the Future of Museum’s first decade of work: the 10th anniversary of the CFM Blog. I think that the first post on the blog (published February 11, 2009) has …
Futuring in New Orleans: Registration Now Open!

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’ll be giving a workshop at the AAM annual meeting in New Orleans where I’ll share some foresight activities you can use to enliven your own institutional planning. The workshop will run from 1 to 4 pm on the final day of the …
Announcing the Alliance Scholarship for Strategic Foresight

By Elizabeth Merritt

The first item on my wish list for the second decade of the Center for the Future of Museums is: “more museum futurists.” By which I mean, people who appreciate the importance of strategic foresight, and have whatever formal training they …
Decolonisation: we aren’t going to save you

By Puawai Cairns

In today’s guest post, Head of Mātauranga Māori (Head of the taonga Māori collection) at Te Papa, Puawai Cairns (Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāti Pūkenga) reflects on what decolonisation means to the museum sector and what it …
Introducing TrendsWatch2018: The Scenario Edition

By Elizabeth Merritt

“The human species thinks in metaphors and learns through stories.” —Mary Catherine Bateson TrendsWatch 2018: The Scenario Edition has been released into the wild! This installment of the Alliance’s annual forecasting report …