Scenarios – Page 4 – American Alliance of Museums

Fuel Your Futurist Imagination: 6 Artistic Visions of the Future

By Elizabeth Merritt

The BBC is running a contest, encouraging people to enter stills or video/animation depicting their personal visions of the future. They kicked off the “What If?” project by inviting six artists from around the world to seed …
Futurist Friday: Apocalypse for One

By Elizabeth Merritt

Yesterday Stuart Candy, on his Skeptical Futuryst Blog, drew readers’ attention to a dark, elaborate scenario that played out on UK television last year. “Derren Brown: Apocalypse” is a two-part special that Candy …
A Few Optimistic Futures

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’m working on a couple scenarios on the future of education to share during Museums Advocacy Day training next Monday. This exercise reminded me yet again how easy it is to “go dark” when imagining potential futures. Maybe I’m just a …
Picturing the Future

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’ve shared a number of scenarios on this blog, mostly in the form of short stories envisioning potential futures. But written scenarios have their limitations. Words are specific—the reader can only build out the story, explore the …
The Reluctant Optimist on the Difficulty of Writing Bright Futures

By Elizabeth Merritt

I recently taught a forecasting workshop at the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections’ 27th annual meeting in New Haven, Conn. To seed our conversations, I recruited a few twisted brilliant collections managers to …
Navigating Conservation Futures

By Elizabeth Merritt

I’m often bemused when I compare the answers to two questions I frequently ask museums: One of the key functions identified in your mission is preserving collections. What’s your goal? How long do you want them to be around? What timeframe …
Futurist Friday: BioPunk Fiction

By Elizabeth Merritt

“The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it.”—Frank HerbertMe, authoritative voice, telling you, museum professional: Read More Science FictionI know, it may look and feel like wasting …
Mark Your Calenders: Twitter Chat About the Future of Museum Ethics

By Elizabeth Merritt

As we explained in our last post, to kick off the project of forecasting the future of museum ethics we will be hosting a Twitter chat on June 15 at 4 p.m. (ET). Join the voice behind @futureofmuseums, Elizabeth Merritt to contribute ideas …
Forecasting the Future of Museum Ethics

By Elizabeth Merritt

It’s a beautiful spring morning in 2036. Sitting down to breakfast, you gesture at your interactive e-tabletop, bringing up your international museum newsfeed. The lead headline grabs your attention, but you have trouble focusing on the …
Free Webinar on Forecasting the Future of Vulnerable Populations

By Elizabeth Merritt

I blogged a couple of months ago about a wonderful set of scenarios commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on the future of vulnerable populations. Now the RWJ is offering a free webinar to enable readers to explore these …