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Museums in the Future: A View from Across the Pond
I was originally going to feature the report “Museums in a Digital Age” from Arups’ Foresight + Research + Innovation thinktank in a Futurist Friday post, but I try to confine the recommendations in that series to short bites of reading or … -
The Fourth Sector
The second flight of “Test Pilots” is winging their way through the CFM Digital Badging project. Besides helping the Alliance test the potential of this form of microcredentialing to serve our members, and providing some training on … -
Futurist Friday: Artifacts of the Future
What artifacts will history museums of the future collect, and how will we interpret them? Scenarios—fictional stories of potential futures—can help us imagine how we would adapt to alternative outcomes. Often scenarios can be found in … -
Fuel Your Futurist Imagination: 6 Artistic Visions of the Future
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
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
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
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
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
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 …