Posts
Eyebrow: Center for the Future of Museums Blog
Finding the Future at #AAM2023
I’m taking a short break from prepping my materials for #AAM2023 to share a preview of what The Future will be up to in Denver. For me the conference starts on Thursday, May 18, with the …
Virgil Ortiz Revolt 1680/2180: Runners + Gliders
Today on the blog, Pueblo artist Virgil Ortiz tells us about his use of futures-inflected storytelling to illuminate the past, as embodied in his latest project, Revolt 1680/2180: Runners + …
Emerging Issues in Legislation
Forgive me for being biased, but I think Museums Advocacy Day is one of The Best Museum Events in the US every year. What’s not to like about hundreds of people descending on the …
A Short Rant About Quiet Quitting (or, Why Heroism Can Be Toxic)
One of the things that fell to the cutting room floor as I edited this year’s TrendsWatch was a short rant about the phrase “quiet quitting.” In the published version of the essay on …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …