The Museum of 20??
One great thing about having a growing circle of future-oriented peeps is that we swap and share opportunities to engage in future-think. This past spring I had to turn down an invitation to join a fabulous group of people to discuss my …
Monday Musing: Museums and “the Flag”
I’ve been following the chorus calling for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from…well, everywhere. The Alabama and South Carolina Capitols, the physical shelves of Walmart and the virtual shelves of Amazon and eBay, even games in …
Futurist Friday: The Flood Next Time
Bjarke Ingels BIG architects in Copenhagen, won a federal competition to design storm protection for New York City. In this article he speaks about how his work in geoengineering is inspired by science fiction–specifically Kim …
Meet Emma, the Docent Dog
I’m having a great time following the many and various discussions on Museum Junction—the Alliance’s conversation forum for members and non-members alike. One recent thread explored service dogs in museums—their role, the regulations that …
Handy Bionics
#robotics #prosthetics #disability Follow the link in the photo caption to the associated story. You can find more glimpses of the future (and links) on CFM’s Pintere…
Tapping into TransAtlantic Research on Diversity & Inequality
In a couple of weeks I’ll be in London, representing the Alliance at the “Diversity, (In)equality and Differences” workshop organized by the Trans-Atlantic Platform for Social Sciences and Humanities. Around twenty researchers and scholars …
Futurist Friday: De-extinction. Conservation’s Fallback Plan?
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” –William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun If some scientists and visionaries have their way, Faulkner’s pronouncement may …
On the hard work of building the future
Currently I’m watching the birth of two movements in our field. #MuseumsRespondtoFerguson and #MuseumWorkersSpeak are both grappling with issues of what museums can do, should do, and should be expected to do in response to issues of …
Toward Lean Collections with Greater Impact
In around 2000, the Accreditation Commission took a long, hard look at their tabling decisions—this is when they pause their review to give a museum time to take corrective action. They were troubled to find that over a quarter of these …
Monday Musing: On Failure
I was a dinner a couple months ago, when people started dissing buzzwords. One that came in for a hit was “failure.” “I hate it when people start touting the importance of failure” one diner declared (I’m paraphrasing here). The …
