Monday Musing: On Small Dead Things
15 minutes of top-of-my-head thoughts on a story featured in last week’s Dispatches from theFuture of Museums e-newsletter. One of the things that drove me out of graduate school (besides the dismal ROI of remaining for a PhD.) was the …
Transitions: The Next Era of CFM
You’ve probably heard that the Alliance’s president, Ford Bell, is stepping down after the upcoming annual meeting. While CFM was conceived under our last president, Ed Able, it launched under Ford and (as I write in the next issue of …
Your Guide to the Future at the Annual Meeting 2015
This is your futurist’s guide to our upcoming conference. There are loads of great sessions, so you will have to make some ruthless choices. Here are a few of my picks, tagged both for their connection to themes I’ve explored in the …
Monday Musing: Scholarship and Copyright
I’m recommitting to my Monday “musings”–which started as a self-assignment to take no more than 15 minutes to share my thoughts on something I read in the past week. Over time, the musings grew to the length of a …
Building the Internet of Museum Plushies
Meet Badger. She represents the zoo spokes-animal of the future: wi-fi enabled, web-connected, capable of understanding spoken language and powered by a Siri-like artificial intelligence. Also cute and fluffy. Plush Badger From World …
Slowing Down to Focus on the Art
I cited the international Slow Art Day in TrendsWatch2015 as one effort to encourage people to bring leisurely attention to bear on the museum. As Slow Art Day 2015 is fast approaching—it’s on April 11—I tracked down two museums that have …
Monday Musing: Millennial Anti-Materialism
I read an article in the Washington Post last Friday that resonated with some nascent thoughts on the role of museums shaped by audiences born between 1980 and 2000. The story, by Jura Konclus, looks at the “seismic shift of stuff” …
On Morning Coffee & Museum Activism
Last weekend, Starbucks announced it will stop putting the slogan “Race Together” on coffee cups. Their spokesperson said this was a previously scheduled move, but to many it looked like a response to the flak the company has been taking …
What Do Ethical Consumers Expect of Museums?
An open letter released today calls on natural history and science museums to “cut all ties with the fossil fuel industry and funders of climate change obfuscation.” The letter, signed by scientists and by one former museum trustee & …
Crowdsourced Resources on Open Data
A lot of great folks joined me for last Friday’s Tweet chat on open data. Here’s a compilation of the resources, recommendations and questions shared by participants, to help you Find me on Twitter@futureofmuseums with your exploration of …
