Monday Musing: Quantifying the Sacrifice Measure
I’ve been sitting on this figure for awhile. Steven Lubar (@lubar) from Brown University lobbed the associated NPR story at me on Twitter in response to one of my posts on museum economics and professional salaries. NPR staff had …
Futurist Friday: Building the City of the Future
Eugène Hénard, ‘The Cities of The Future’, published in American City, January 1911. I just downloaded a report that looks like a fascinating futurist read. “A Visual History of the Future” looks at how past …
Throwback Thursday: Revisiting Trust
In this Tuesday’s post on trust–who trusts museums, and why–I mentioned a post I wrote almost exactly two years ago that touched on that issue. Choosing Roles: Facilitator or Advocate?” explored two options, either …
Trust Me, I’m a Museum
Back in 2001 AAM sponsored a survey which showed that 87% of respondents viewed museums as “one of the most trustworthy sources of objective information.” We cited that figure a lot in the following decade. commissioned by the …
Starting with the Future in Mind
The start of a new calendar year is also the time when we as Museum Administrators are thinking in a more focused way about our organization’s future. It is a time of planning and reflection as we begin new tax or fiscal years, launch new …
The Multi-dimensional Museum
I was delighted to hear this story over the weekend on NPR, on how the Pacific Science Center opens early, one Saturday each month, to provide an environment tailored to the needs of visitors with autism. For this time, they turn down the …
Scouting SOTUs
Someday I hope to hear a president of the U.S. stand up in the chamber of the House of Representatives in the Capitol and give a great big shout out to America’s museums. (Perhaps citing them as critical infrastructure–on a par with …
Lost Pleasures
“If you resolve to give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don’t actually live longer; it just seems longer.” –Clement Freud There was an interesting bit of math tucked into the calorie count regulations released by the FDA late …
On Cuba
While I spend a lot of my time reporting to you about trends—things that change quickly or slowly over time, in a traceable direction—disruptive events are equally important drivers of change. Disruptive events come to our attention as …
2015–a Year for Reflection and Renewal
The theme across the museum blog-o-sphere this month is reflection and renewal. Jeff Inscho’s intentions for the coming year include making more things with his hands and “valuing tactile media and relationships over their virtual/digital …
