Guest Post – Page 8 – American Alliance of Museums

Museums Innovating in Businesslike Ways

By Elizabeth Merritt

Many people tell us that, in the future, museums need to be more entrepreneurial. It’s hard to find written case studies, however, of museums innovating in businesslike ways. Today’s guest post helps fill that gap, as Karen Coltrane, …
Civic Duty Calls

By Elizabeth Merritt

In this blog post, AAM Director of Government Relations and Advocacy Gail Ravnitzky Silberglied explores why advocacy—like voting, jury service, and paying taxes—is a civic duty that furthers our nation’s democracy and prepares us and our …
Building a Better Fishing Pole: how technology-focused organizations can help their museum community

By Elizabeth Merritt

Many museums are struggling to navigate the expanding universes of social media and digital content with the slim resources available to them in constrained budgets. Fortunately, some entrepreneurial museums are breaking trail—pooling …
Feeding the Spirit Symposium: A Fresh Frame of Reference for Museums-Community-Food

By Elizabeth Merritt

This guest post is by David R. Curry, a member of the CFM Council. As someone who has refined a set of strategies to survive symposiums and conferences (which all too often seem like they could be half as long and twice as substantive) I …
The Backward ABC’s of Museum Data

By Elizabeth Merritt

This week’s blog post comes from Philip M. Katz, assistant director for research at AAM. This was going to be an essay about the power of museum financial and operating data—robust, reliable numbers that can help museums plan for the …
SmartSteps at the Senator John Heinz History Center

By Elizabeth Merritt

Today’s guest post is from Lisa Dundon, manager of multimedia communications at the Senator John Heinz History Center. Lisa introduces a new video showcasing the History Center’s SmartSteps exhibit, demonstrating yet another way museums …
Can Museums Step Up?

By Elizabeth Merritt

Today’s guest post is by Jesse Moyer, manager of organizational learning and innovation at KnowledgeWorks. KnowledgeWorks is dedicated to “transforming education in the U.S. from a world of schooling to a world of learning.” As a nonprofit …
Museums Can Change the World: Improving the Nation’s Health

By Elizabeth Merritt

A projection for the U.S., by 2030: Obesity prevalence will rise to ~50% in men between 45% and 52% in women. There will be: 7.8 million extra cases of diabetes; 6.8 million more cases of coronary heart disease and stroke; 539,000 …
Do Museums Need to Care about Foodies?

By Elizabeth Merritt

This guest post is by Susie Wilkening, senior consultant and curator of museum audiences, Reach Advisors. We’ve been blogging a lot about food, leading up to the symposium Feeding the Spirit: Museums, Food & Community in Pittsburgh …
The Transformative Power of Innovation

By Elizabeth Merritt

This guest post is by Richard Evans, president, EmcArts Inc. AAM is partnering with EmcArts, with the generous support of MetLife Foundation, to offer Innovation Lab for Museums. The Request for Proposals for the Lab has just been …