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!

  • The Class System of the Future

    In creating their scanning frameworks, many of the “test pilots” in the first flight of CFM’s Digital Badging Projects identified “wealth inequality,” “wealth gap” and other variations on these terms as being issues worth monitoring as …
  • Who is the Development Staff of the Future? Look in the Mirror

    /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-priority:99;mso-style-parent:””;mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt …
  • Ethics Smackdown: For the Resolution

    This is the fourth and (for now) final installment of our report on the debate held at the Alliance in May regarding the future of museum ethics. In today’s post, James Bradburne, director of the Palazzo Strozzi in Firenze, Italy, makes …
  • Do You Want to Live Forever?

    Phil and I read far more broadly than we can travel, so when Rohit Talwar of Fast Future was kind enough to arrange a complimentary registration to the Global Futures 2045 conference in New York City earlier this month, we tapped Paul …
  • Ethics Smackdown: Against the Resolution

    This is the third installment in our report from the Ethics Smackdown at the Alliance annual meeting, debating whether museums should loosen the ethics restrictions governing the use of funds resulting from the sale of deaccessioned …
  • A Case Study in Survival from the Sacred Realm

    Museums can learn a lot by looking at how other sectors—for-profit and nonprofit—are responding to the same trends and events that shape our operating environment. Religious communities, for example, are challenged by changing …
  • Futurist Friday: The Great Inversion

    Here’s a good medium-length read on the rise of the city (one of our feature topics in TrendsWatch 2013): an article by Edward Luce in the Chicago Tribune on The Future of the American City, documenting the revitalization of the urban core …
  • Ethics Smackdown: Preamble

    Last week I wrote about the Ethics Smackdown that took place at the Alliance annual meeting last month. This week, Sally Yerkovich, director of the Institute of Museum Ethics at Seton Hall University and moderator of the debate, sets the …
  • The (Ever) Changing Shape of Giving

    At the rate the world changes, CFM will never run out of work. It’s only four months since we released TrendsWatch 2013, and already my co-author, Phil, and I are scrambling to assemble updates. This post shares some of the material we’ve …
  • Futurist Friday: Interview with Garry Golden

    Garry Golden is a professional futurist. (Yes, it is a profession. I myself am a proud member of the Association of Professional Futurists.) I met Garry through our shared academic lineage–he is a full fledged graduate of the …

Latest Stories from AAM

How to respond to new threats to nonprofits

Category: Center for the Future of Museums Blog
Last week, I learned that the IRS is planning to propose regulations that would give it …

Take Action to Protect the Independence of the Smithsonian Institution and America’s Museums

Category: Advocacy Alert
Advocacy Alert – July 20, 2026 AAM statement on the independence of the Smithsonian …

AAM Statement on the Independence of the Smithsonian and America’s Museums

Category: Press Release
The American Alliance of Museums condemns the Administration’s continued attacks on the …

AAM Member-Only Content

AAM Members get exclusive access to premium digital content including:

  • Featured articles from Museum magazine
  • Access to more than 1,500 resource listings from the Resource Center
  • Tools, reports, and templates for equipping your work in museums
Log In

We're Sorry

Your current membership level does not allow you to access this content.

Upgrade Your Membership

Subscribe to our Newsletter!

Our weekly newsletter is packed with stories, resources, and information for museum people. Once you've completed the form below, confirm your subscription in the email sent to you.

If you are a current AAM member, please sign-up using the email address associated with your account.

Are you a museum professional?

Are you a current AAM member?

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription, and please add communications@aam-us.org to your safe sender list.