Designing a Collaborative, Distributed National Museum of Mental Health
While I’m compiling my fantasy guest blog list to build out the themes of CFM’s newest report, TrendsWatch: Building the Post-pandemic World, generous people from inside and outside our sector continue to share work related to …
Chatting About Museums with ChatGPT
Two months ago, the research and development lab OpenAI released ChatGPT, an interactive “chatbot” powered by artificial intelligence. Chatbots aren’t new (I’ve been writing about museums and chatbots for at least five years now, and …
Forecasting 2023
In 2023, we, as individuals and organizations, are faced with choices that will determine what the post-pandemic future will look like. Will we try to rebuild a version of 2019, in so far as we are able, or will we use disruption as an …
An Example of Strategic Foresight in Museum Planning
In March, the Alliance released my major pandemic project: The AAM Strategic Foresight Toolkit, a comprehensive guide to applying the skills of futures thinking to museum practice. Over 300 people have purchased the Toolkit, and I have …
What is Mastodon and Why Should You Care?
I joined Twitter in 2009, soon after the launch of CFM. That was the first social media account associated with AAM, and trying out this new realm was part of CFM’s work exploring emerging digital tools and their significance for museums. …
Improving Access to Employment for People with Disabilities
The museum sector is working to increase the diversity of our workforce through a variety of ways: for example, how we craft position requirements, word job announcements, and conduct interviews. That is helping museums make some progress …
Art, Wellness, and Mental Health
I met Ashley Witherspoon while researching CFM’s current TrendsWatch report—one of the topics we examine is how museums can help foster mental health for all. Ashley is the founder and CEO of Hand Made Dreams, a mental health platform …
Museums Can Help Transform Education
Last week I spent an inspiring afternoon in a Zoom workshop dedicated to envisioning “liberatory futures” for P-12 education. How can we collectively create an educational future that is rooted in equity, self-determination, and the right …
A House Museum Built for the Digital Age
The museum sector went into the pandemic ill-prepared to use digital strategies to keep themselves afloat, but many museums that had begun to experiment with how digital could enhance or replace existing practices found themselves at an …
Planning for a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous Future
Why is foresight an essential skill for museum people in coming decades? Last week I had the pleasure of making that case at the ICOM 2022 Triennial Conference, and today I’m happy to share the presentation with you. It’s a 7 minute …
