Sharing Economy – American Alliance of Museums

Futurist Friday: Marie Kondo, meet Brad the Toaster

By Elizabeth Merritt

I just listened to an NPR interview with Japanese decluttering guru Marie Kondo, talking about her new book “Spark Joy.” Her approach to simplifying and organizing life has taken the US by storm. (How popular is she? Her video …
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” …
The Multi-dimensional Museum

By Elizabeth Merritt

I was delighted to hear this story over the weekend on NPR, on how the Pacific Science Center opens early, one Saturday each month, to provide an environment tailored to the needs of visitors with autism. For this time, they turn down the …
Museum Hack: We Love People Who Don’t Like Museums

By Elizabeth Merritt

The peer-to-peer economy is great at uncovering unmet consumer demand and unused aspects of institutional resources. For this reason, I recently tracked down a young entrepreneur who has found, and filled, an empty niche in the ecology of …
Keeping Up with the 2014 Trends: What’s Mine is Yours

By Elizabeth Merritt

This is the third summer update on TrendsWatch 2014: you can catch up recent developments in Social Entrepreneurship and Big Data in previous posts. Overall Arc of the Trend Up, rapidly, with notable speed bumps. Image from Center for …
What’s Mine Is Yours: The economy of collaborative consumption

By Elizabeth Merritt

Nature abhors a vacuum, and both environmentalists and capitalists hate waste. That empty room in your house—why not rent it out? You only drive your car on weekends—why leave it sitting at the curb the rest of the week? You have a couple …