Center for the Future of Museums Blog

The Center for the Future of Museums Blog shares musings on the future of museums and society.

Read Dispatches from the Future of Museums online!

Get more resources from the Center for the Future of Museums.

Explore all Publications from the Alliance.

Explore the AAM Resource Library by topic, and further filter by subtopic or resource types to find what matters most to you!

Improving the Future of Hiring

By Elizabeth Merritt

Last week I blogged about the “unbiased hiring” process that we used to fill a recent CFM position here at AAM.Today I wanted to follow up with a few related thoughts sparked by conversations at the Labor 3.0 encounters that CFM …
Futurist Friday: The Eyes Have It

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’ve been writing and thinking a lot lately about very serious topics: gender bias in the workplace; the way assistive technology can increase the “the digital divide;” the barriers to welcoming people who are not …
Rethinking Hiring: Walking the Walk

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’m a fan of leading by doing. Which is to say, when I suggest to museums (as I do in every section of TrendsWatch), “you might want to…” I always ask myself, and the Alliance, if we might “want to” as well. Since one major focus of AAM’s …
On the Power of Words

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’m still catching up with sessions I was unable to attend at the AAM conference in May. (Recordings are available here, and attendees were emailed a code that can be used for free downloads.) One session that received a lot of buzz was …
Futurist Friday: Deep Brain Stimulation and Memory Implants

By Elizabeth Merritt

Are you a cyborg? Before you reply with a reflexive “no,” consider this list of technologies many people welcome into their bodies: Contact lenses Pacemakers Insulin pumps Artificial heart valves Replacement joints (hip, knee) …
The Future of Museums (According to One Woman)

By Elizabeth Merritt

I was delighted to be interviewed for an issue of MISC Journal devoted to The Future According to Women. As the introduction notes, “The future we read about is made up of recycled bits of interviews curated from the minds of a few great …
Design Briefs: Art Museum as Innovation Incubator

By Elizabeth Merritt

One of the themes explored in Trendswatch 2014 is the rise of social entrepreneurship—the practice of linking profitable business models with socially beneficial outcomes. In the report, I pointed to the New Museum’s incubator space as an …
Futurist Friday: Author Author

By Elizabeth Merritt

Turing Test: Museum edition. Could a computer program write an exhibit label or an exhibit catalog that made visitors believe a human museum worker penned the text?There’s a lot of controversy right now over how many jobs, and which …
Speaking with the Next Generation of Museum Workers

By Elizabeth Merritt

Did you create a museum in your room when you were a kid? Did you—like the Field Museum’s Bill Stanley—have a #butterflymoment when you realized working in a museum could be a real job? The more I wrestle with the challenge of building …
Some Reflections on Museums and Labor at the Annual Meeting

By Elizabeth Merritt

Hi, Nicole here! This year’s CFM demo in the MuseumExpo during the AAM 2016 Annual Meeting was jam-packed with tough thinking and rich engagement on the issues of museums and labor. During the course of the programming from May 26-28, we …