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The Future of the Museum Store

This post was originally published in 2014 and is republished with updates. Read more about how to get involved in Museum Store Sunday taking place November 26, 2023! I had the pleasure of …

What Museums Can Learn from Amanda Palmer

On the way to New Zealand in the spring of 2016, I started reading Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking. I thought of it as “me time” reading, and as such it was relegated to snippets of time …

Stone Soup

We’ve reached another milestone in the celebration of the Center for the Future of Museum’s first decade of work: the 10th anniversary of the CFM Blog. I think that the first …

Futurist Friday: Chatting about Art with IBM Watson

Museum chatbots are a bit of an obsession of mine right now, as is artificial intelligence, so finding a project that combines these two technologies made my week.  This story in AdWeek …

Wordless Wednesday: Micro Mollusk Museum

@TheMicroMuseums #PopUpMuseum #ScienceEdu Follow the link in the photo caption to the associated story. You can find more glimpses of the future (and links) on CFM’s Pinter…

Are Museums the Rightful Home for Confederate Monuments?

In a chapter titled “Capture the Flag: the struggle over representation and identity,” CFM’s TrendsWatch 2016 explored the growing pressure for museums to play a role in the detoxification …

Engaging the System: Museums Working in the Incarceration System

  Today’s preview of a session that will take place at #AAM2018 is contributed by Tramia Jackson, Program Associate, Methodology and Practice, International Coalition of Sites of …

Futurist Friday: urban delivery drones

This video from industrial design studio PriestmanGoode shows its vision for a fleet of urban delivery drones.  As the designers point out, this solution to the “last mile” of …

Tweetchat alert! Building on Museum 2040

I’m writing to invite you to contribute to our ongoing exploration of this future in a CFM tweetchat next Thursday, March 29, from 3 – 4 pm ET, hashtag #Museum2040. CFM’s most recent …

Made Any Great Mistakes Lately?

Today’s preview of a session at the upcoming AAM annual meeting is offered by Kathy Gustafson-Hilton, Creative Thinking Facilitator, Hands On! Studio. Made any mistakes lately? I know I …

Futurist Friday: Sea-Level Report Cards

The Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) launched a project to create “report cards” projecting sea-level rise in 32 US localities through the year 2050. They plan to …

Leading Forward: engaging with complex and controversial topics

I’m using the 10th anniversary of CFM, and the ninth year of this blog, as an occasion to revisit some of our most widely read posts. Today I’m re-posting an essay by Sean …
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Consensual Curation and Our Common Future

Category: Center for the Future Of Museums Blog
The best thinking about potential futures explores the full span of the Cone of Plausibility. By expanding our understanding of what is possible, we expand our choices regarding what is …

Supporting Staff Well-being in a Partisan Time

Category: On-Demand Programs: Human Resources
Growing partisan tensions and increasing public tendencies to engage in hostility and rudeness are adding to the stress faced by museums’ frontline staff. How can museums protect …

The Longevity Strategy Designing Sustainable Digital Content

Category: On-Demand Programs: Digital Programming
Museums often create great digital content that lasts only until the funding runs out or the point person moves on. How can we create digital platforms and programs that will last? This …

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