Demographics – Page 2 – American Alliance of Museums

Monday Musing: When Free is Not Enough

By Elizabeth Merritt

Monday musings are my way of sharing brief, off-the-cuff thoughts about something I have read recently, both to help clarify my thinking an in the hopes of generating discussion and response. I give myself 15 minutes or so to jot down a …
Monday Musing: Millennial Anti-Materialism

By Elizabeth Merritt

I read an article in the Washington Post last Friday that resonated with some nascent thoughts on the role of museums shaped by audiences born between 1980 and 2000. The story, by Jura Konclus, looks at the “seismic shift of stuff” …
Unaccompanied Children at our Borders: Can Museums Help?

By Elizabeth Merritt

The theme of the Alliance 2015 conference is Museums and Social Value. Leading up to that meeting in Atlanta, CFM will be hosting a number of guest bloggers addressing various aspects of museums and social justice. Last month, Robert …
The Coming Dementia Epidemic

By Elizabeth Merritt

Demographics are among the most stable of trends. Absent a change in immigration laws or a fatal pandemic, we can forecast the composition of the US population with a pretty high degree of accuracy. Working out the consequences of those …
How to Staff the Future

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’ve been spouting off for years about how museums need to change the way they recruit, select and train staff. Why? Because Museums say they want a more diverse workforce, but the major pipeline for future professional staff—museum …
Students in the Museum: From Inside the Ivy Covered Walls

By Elizabeth Merritt

We’ve featured a series of posts on this blog that explore the Campus Art Museums in the 21st Centuryreport issued last year by the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago. Looking back, I realize that we have heard from …
It’s Up 2 You!

By Elizabeth Merritt

The best way to get your message out is through whatever format your audience is already attuned to. This is not always (big shock) a 200 word exhibit text panel. The most effective medium might be video, a blog, a game, or a graphic …
The Workforce of the Future Starts Now

By Elizabeth Merritt

We get a lot of questions about who will be working, or should be working, in the museum of the future, and how museums should be finding, recruiting and training these future staff members. Any exploration of the future of the museum …
Questioning Assumptions: Is Inspiration More Important than Knowledge?

By Elizabeth Merritt

Today’s guest post is by Conny C. Graft, a consultant in research and evaluation based in Williamsburg, Virginia. Her keynote on the future of museum audiences, delivered at the Small Museums Association Conference this past spring …
Practical Futurism: a Case Study

By Elizabeth Merritt

This week’s guest blogger is Bill Martin, director of the Valentine Richmond History Center in Virginia. Bill was one of our panelists on the session “Practical Futurism” at the AAM annual meeting in Houston last week, and shares how his …