• Museum Design 2034: Perpetual Beta

    I blogged last week about how futurists write stories of the future based on trends we can observe now. This helps people explore what their lives, and their organizations, might look like in these potential futures, which in turn helps …
  • Save Museums, Save the World?

    I’m cynic when it comes to slogans and tag lines. I basically agree with Ivan Levinson, who wrote that at best tag lines are “like a Japanese haiku – a highly concentrated form of expression that attempts to communicate an essence, a …
  • Report from the Future: The Cultural Museum 2.0

    It’s a good thing about the future is unequally distributed (cf William Gibson)–that way your museum can learn from pioneer organizations that are adapting to trends that will affect you in five, ten or twenty years. Where do you …
  • Playing with Shiny Objects: Tech Trends and Innovations

    I’m sometimes reminded by readers of this blog that the future is not all about technology (despite the way futurism is depicted in the popular media.) But you have to admit, the tech realm offers bright shiny objects that stimulate our …
  • Mapping the Future

    The Institute for the Future and Business for Social Responsibility have released their Sustainability Outlook Map charting four potential stories of the future. The map explores ways of approaching challenges to the environmental, social …
  • What’s Innovation Look Like? And How Do You Measure It?

    A few weeks ago, we used this spaceto invite museums to participate in the Nonprofit Listening Post Project at Johns Hopkins University. Reminder: the LP Project is a national research initiative designed to identify the challenges facing …
  • Dialogue Centres—Wave of the Future?

    This week’s CFM guest blogger is Robert Janes, editor-in-chief of Museum Management and Curatorship, Chair of the Biosphere Institute of the Bow Valley and former president and CEO of the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Canada. (Hence the …
  • Tomorrow’s News, Today: Museums without Walls

    One of the assumptions that CFM questioned early on is that museums are necessarily tied to a particular place. I’ve speculated about whether and when a museum might want to migrate to a new city or community. On a more local scale, why …
  • Goin’ Mobile?

    According to some predictions, “by 2020, mobile devices will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world.” And a forward guard of museums is already adapting to this coming reality, according to a new …
  • Oh Brave New Virtual World!—Explorers Wanted

    Museum practitioners are energized, perturbed, or both by the prospect of a future in which people spend more and more of their time immersed in virtual worlds. After all, the virtual is the enemy of the real, right? Some counter that a …

Latest Stories from AAM

Teaching with Museum Collections in the Age of AI

Category: Center for the Future of Museums Blog
I started writing about artificial intelligence and the implications for museums back in …

From the President: If We Build It

Category: Museum Magazine
Educate. Inspire. Engage. Enrich. Stimulate. Nearly every museum, park, garden, zoo, …

Reflecting Our Communities: Programming for engagement with the Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block

Category: Museum Magazine
Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block has taken a community-based approach to …

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 Field Notes!

Packed with stories and insights for museum people, Field Notes is delivered to your inbox every Monday. 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.