-
Straight Up or with a Twist: Two Examples of how to Envision the Future
The biggest challenge in preparing for the future is imagining what it will be like. One of the most important roles of futures studies is to help people write stories of the future that, like all good fiction, tell the truth about … -
An Alternate Future for Museums: Part II
Global brand strategist Jonathan Salem Baskin contributes part two in his series of visions about the future of museums. You can read part one here. Museums in 2020: When Communities Got Real The siren call of Facebook and other social … -
The Pinky Show Cats’ Report on the Future
“We, three cats from the Pinky Show, went to the future. We brought back notes & stuff.” Read the report . Those of you who attended the AAM annual meeting this spring may have stumbled upon a curious exhibit in MuseumExpo—a set of … -
Museum Design 2034: Perpetual Beta
I blogged last week about how futurists write stories of the future based on trends we can observe now. This helps people explore what their lives, and their organizations, might look like in these potential futures, which in turn helps … -
Museum Design 2034: The Distributed Museum
Museum practitioners are pre-adapted to be futurists. Why? Because futurism is, basically, the process of telling compelling stories about things that haven’t happened yet. These stories help people explore what alternate futures … -
Mapping the Future
The Institute for the Future and Business for Social Responsibility have released their Sustainability Outlook Map charting four potential stories of the future. The map explores ways of approaching challenges to the environmental, social … -
Building a Self-Study Course in Futurism
One of CFM’s major goals is to encourage museum practitioners to think and plan for a longer time frame (longer, that is, than the usual one to three-year plan.) In our rapidly changing, uber-connected world a plan that looks good in the … -
Questioning Assumptions: the Future of Education
The recent CFM posts about museum studies (here and here) have spun off in all sorts of interesting directions, including discussions at New Curator and MJ Writes. People propose that graduate programs should guarantee jobs for graduates, … -
Questioning Assumptions
Earlier this month I participated in a very interesting scenario planning exercise at the Smithsonian. The session was led by Peter Schwartz, a board member from the Long Now Foundation, an organization whose mission is “to creatively …
Tag: Scenarios
Latest Stories from AAM
Supporting JANM and Unlocking the Future
It is a truth universally acknowledged that it is easier to raise capital for …
Social Experiences and Museums, Part One: A 2025 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers Data Story
Category:
Alliance Blog
This visual Data Story is based on findings from the 2025 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers, …
The Promise and Peril of AI: A Q&A with Marion Carré
Category:
Alliance Blog
In 2023, I found myself on a list of museum “influencers”—thank you, …