Coming Soon – the future

By James Chung, Susie Wilkening and Sally Johnstone

James Chung is president, and Susie Wilkening and Sally Johnstone are senior consultants at Reach Advisors, a research firm that conducts audience and market research for community-driven enterprises. This article has been condensed from its original form (Museums & Society 2034: Trends and Potential Futures), which appears at www.futureofmuseums.org. Chung and Wilkening’s new book Life Stages of the Museum Visitor: Building Engagement Over a Lifetime is available now through the AAM Bookstore.

Oracle bones, Ouija boards, Tarot, crystal balls, tea leaves, Magic 8-Balls—humanity has always been obsessed with predicting the future. Putting aside such gimmicks, the goal of 21st-century futurism is to take a thoughtful look at what might happen and the attendant consequences. What trends are most likely to change U.S. society and museums during the next 25 years? How much can we really anticipate about the world of 2034?

AAM’s Center for the Future of Museums (CFM) asked Reach Advisors to identify and analyze the emerging structural changes that will reshape society and are highly likely to affect museums. An awareness of potential futures enables us to choose which future we most want to live in and figure out how to bring it into being.

To assess how a variety of trends—demographic, geopolitical, economic, technological and cultural—might shape the future, we start by stepping back 25 years to 1984 to identify some of the emerging structural shifts that shape what we see today. With the full benefit of hindsight, it becomes clearer which of today’s emerging trends are most likely to shape the world of 2034.

THE CHANGING FACE OF AMERICA
The demographics of America have been changing since 1984, with Baby Boomers aging, the minority population rising and the gender gap shrinking. Each of these demographic trends will continue to shape American society by 2034.

What does this mean for museums? As Baby Boomers enter retirement, museums could position themselves as employers of choice for post-career bridge jobs. Museums might need to reinvent the role of the retirement volunteer, simply because this is a generation that has rarely followed in lock-step with the preceding generations.

Simultaneously, if museums want to remain relevant to their increasingly multi-ethnic communities, the museum audience will have to look dramatically different as well, particularly in the western and southern U.S. and in most of the larger cities across the country. If, as our research suggests, 5 to 9 is the critical age range for converting children into lifelong museum-goers and advocates, how can museums attract minority children between these ages whose support they want in 2034? Are museums cultivating relationships with minority community organizers, political staffers and local school board officials? It’s a safe bet that a number of those individuals will be voting on local, state and federal museum funding 25 years from now.

Finally, women’s educational attainment is expanding, their income potential is on the rise and the average age at which women marry and have children will likely continue to rise, at least among those who earn college degrees. If that trend continues, women could constitute the majority of museum visitors, and the mothers visiting with young children will be even more likely to be in their 30s and 40s, rather than their 20s—affecting museum programming. With more couples working full time and splitting childcare duties, who will have the time and inclination to become museum volunteers?

A SMALLER, FLATTER WORLD
Major economic and geopolitical trends that shape the world we live in today were already evident in 1984. Energy prices rose and dipped, ushering in an era of volatility. The U.S. economy experienced a period of rapid globalization, and American wealth became more concentrated in the hands of its richest citizens and foreign investors. Compounding all these trends is the current recession. As we look forward to 2034, these structural shifts provide clues for how the next 25 years will influence museums.

Turbulent energy prices will have a major effect on museum operating budgets, heightening the tension between conservation and historic preservation standards and energy use. It could play a larger role in decisions about museum expansion. It will also have a major effect on consumer behavior, as travel costs become an ever more important factor in Americans’ decisions about how to spend their leisure time and dollars. Museums that require significant gasoline consumption and are not major tourist destinations will face enormous pressure. If gasoline prices continue to rise, museums in suburban and exurban locations will often find that their almost uniformly Caucasian community has turned significantly minority, due in part to the home construction bubble and the aftermath of fuel price increases.

The growing U.S. trade deficit and the rise of a global economy will spur an increasing percentage of profits flowing overseas from the United States. For museums, the increasing pace of globalization could continue to erode the current base of corporate philanthropic support. At the same time, larger museums will see opportunities to ride the tide by going global themselves, opening more outposts in rapidly developing countries with an appetite for museums. The increase of wealth abroad (and among émigrés) may create new sources of funding for exhibits and programs about cultures growing in global prominence.

The increasingly uneven distribution of wealth in the U.S. will have an impact on museums. A growing segment of society with relatively less money could result in fewer discretionary purchases like museum admissions, reinforcing the perception that museums exist only to serve the elite. Concentration of wealth also affects the potential size of the donor base. The recent wave of museum expansion was funded, in large part, by the accumulation of wealth among the highest earners rather than an increase in the number of wealthy Americans. Museums may have to reconsider their funding models no matter how this trend evolves—relying more on donations from the economic elite if wealth continues to concentrate, or on earned income and a wide base of donor support if the concentration of wealth reverses.

And what about the current economic crisis? A recession extending well beyond a decade would turn everything upside down. Admissions revenue would be at risk if museums aren’t able to provide greater value amid declining household budgets. Donations, pledges, endowments and government support would be in jeopardy as well. School field trips are already being eliminated in states hit hard by the current fiscal crisis, and this could become the norm rather than a temporary round of budget cutting.

PERMANENT REVOLUTION IN COMMUNICATIONS
By 1984, the first signs of a technological revolution were already evident with structural changes that continue to shape how we communicate and engage with others. With the decline of newspapers and the rise of cable television, the common knowledge of Americans has become much less universal and much more fragmented. And as traditional mass communications have shifted, a new form of information management has emerged. America has entered the golden quarter-century of personal computing, and the Internet has flourished. As we examine the generation of young adults that grew up knowing nothing other than a connected world, we see major structural shifts under way that will reshape the expectations and behaviors of the American adult population in 2034.

The public, particularly those same young adults, now expects anything that can be digitized to be digital—and free. It is highly probable that this structural shift will change expectations for museum engagement as well. Already, Google, YouTube and Flickr have morphed into museums of the digital world and are redefining the idea of curating content. Who knows what emerging entities will encroach even further on the traditional (and future) functions of museums? The rate of remote visits to museums is also likely to rise, with the content shifting from basic information gathering to more complicated forms of engagement. Museums and exhibit planners already confront questions about whether some aspects of the museum experience should be delivered entirely in digital format, if only to reach different audiences. These questions will not go away.

With the advance of technology across the media landscape, Americans today consume a personalized entertainment diet. While accessible information has skyrocketed, the long-standing role of the expert is quickly eroding and has been supplanted in many fields—sometimes by a network of peers (Facebook instead of newspapers), sometimes by the digital masses (Yelp instead of Zagat), sometimes by a new set of collective experts (Wikipedia instead of Encyclopaedia Britannica). It becomes increasingly difficult for average users to assess the credibility of information accessed via the Web. Due to self-selection of sources of information, people rarely engage with those who hold opposing views. This further polarizes society and makes it more difficult to achieve political consensus regarding crucial policies.

The decline of the expert is already being played out in museums with multiple challenges to the authority of the curator. As sole determiners of content, will curators become irrelevant, like print journalists supplanted by bloggers? Or can museums rethink how they curate and interpret their collections, how they make those collections more accessible and how they involve diverse audiences in the meaningful work of museums?

myCULTURE
We are seeing the emergence of a cultural shift that may prove to be a full-blown creative renaissance. The current generation of young adults grew up with a broad palette of digital tools and creative resources; as a result, they are demonstrating an extraordinarily high level of creative output and consumption. Museums have traditionally served as incubators and repositories of creative expression, and this shift will allow them to flourish as facilitators of this burgeoning creativity.

For these Americans under 30, there’s also an emerging structural shift in which consumers increasingly drive narrative—a trend largely influenced by the latest video games in which the user is the protagonist. Moving one step younger, Scholastic has been shifting many of its new series of books in the direction of enabling the reader to serve as the protagonist through websites and games that extend the experience. It’s likely that this shift in narrative structure and expectation will drive much of how the next generation of adults engages with the world.

Over time, museum audiences are likely to expect to be part of the narrative experience at museums. While the overall story might not change, how it is presented may transform to allow visitors to take on the role of protagonist. While this is a dramatic departure from how some museums structure narrative, it provides an opportunity to create deeper, more immersive experiences for visitors. For a glimpse of the future, an intriguing example of the emerging you-as-the-protagonist concept already exists in Conner Prairie Living History Museum’s “Follow the North Star” program, in which participants play the role of a fugitive slave on the Underground Railroad over the course of a mile of rough terrain at night, constantly confronted by friend or foe. We project that this kind of immersive, interactive programming will be more of the norm than the exception as the generation coming of age brings its own children to museums.

The meteoric rise of modern technology, of course, comes with a price. Our lives will almost certainly become increasingly hectic and noisy. While technological progress has brought much value to society, one byproduct of these emergent structural shifts is almost certainly going to be a world with fewer places where the public can find respite. Our consumer research is already finding indications of a longing for a retreat, particularly among women over 50 years old, a sentiment that we expect to expand as technology advances. The challenge will be the balancing act of positioning museums as exciting and engaging places to visit while providing a special spot to disengage from the day-to-day.

SHAPING THE NEXT 25 YEARS

With a better understanding of emerging trends that are shaping society, museums can do a better job of preparing for the impact of these trends on their own institutions. Responding to them may call for actions that seem tangential to or even divorced from the missions of many museums. It would be dangerous, however, for museums to focus on narrowly defined missions and trust that someone else will grapple with the challenges facing society. Whether a museum is in an urban core or a rural area, if its community is struggling, the museum is not going to be able to reach its full potential. A museum’s viability is tied to its community’s health. The good news is that quite often there are actions that are central to museums’ purposes, draw on their unique resources and can help society deal with seismic shifts in demographics, the economy, technology and culture. l

Sidebar 1
Exhibit labels have bigger print and museums are easier to navigate with a walker or wheelchair. Universal design is a given in even the smallest museums. Museums are at the forefront of the “brain exercise” movement, helping to maintain the cognitive powers of an older population. Museums play an important role in addressing the increased demand for all services for the aging and are increasingly a desired partner for existing senior service organizations, which are under pressure to serve a larger and more active senior population. And just as 2008 witnessed a presidential campaign that reinvented civic involvement for a new generation of young adults, museums will take the lead in reshaping civic involvement for a new generation of aging citizens.
More museums will be places of cultural exchange in their communities; they won’t have any other choice. Museums will be primary sites for civic dialogue about community interests and the policies that affect communities. They will be one of the most powerful agents in helping children understand the future and ensuring they are prepared to take leadership roles in various sectors.
Museums have developed many new strategies to attract both men and women as visitors. With educational attainment becoming a more visible tool of social mobility, museums provide more opportunities than ever for girls and boys from less-educated families to gain exposure to topics that drive academic interest and carry them to college. As the percentage of two-income families continues to increase, museums meet the demand for a more robust network of community support for the young children of mid-career parents. With more women serving as primary breadwinners, museums provide convenient, welcoming venues where families have rich experiences during their increasingly scarce time together. As important players in the formal and informal education system, museums work hard to meet the rising expectations that highly educated moms have for their children.

Sidebar 2
Museums educate the public on how past societies coped and adapted to tectonic shifts in resources. They help society learn from history as we cope with a new era of more expensive energy, lower consumption, carbon constraint and climate change. Museums have uniformly adopted green design as a mark of excellence, leading by example and integrating green practices into operations. Some museums operate joint storage facilities designed to minimize energy costs while providing appropriate climate control. More museums establish satellite locations to serve outlying communities, reducing their audiences’ need to travel.
Museums play an important role in helping communities with job losses reinvent themselves in the new knowledge-based economy. Responding to society’s need for greater global awareness, museums increase their efforts to promote dialogue and understanding about other cultures and our place in the global economy. Some museums serve as ambassadors not just through overseas outposts but through traveling exhibits and a more directed Web presence, helping to interpret U.S. culture to countries of growing influence.
Museums are among the few institutions that bring together people of all economic classes. They are increasingly valued for their ability to redistribute wealth in the form of access to scientific, cultural and artistic resources, mitigating the culture gap that arises from income disparities. Museums promote global education for the nation’s children and global perspectives for all Americans. In the process, museums literally enrich America, because income is correlated with education and the ability to profit from economic globalization.
Museums are stable oases in the midst of turmoil. Building on their tradition of offering low-cost or free access and programming, museums play an even greater role in sustaining the well-being of their communities during a prolonged downturn. Whether for the retiree managing a lower income than anticipated or for schools with fewer enrichment opportunities for students, museums are there for communities—even in periods when financial support from the community wanes.

Sidebar 3
Museums confront many decisions about the collection, presentation and preservation of new forms of virtual objects. Meanwhile, as the world continues to go digital (and progressively virtual)—and as the cost of storage, distribution and processing energy continues to rise—people find themselves further divorced from the real. Yet the fundamental human condition responds to a variant of Newton’s Third Law of Motion: The prevalence of the digital, virtual world raises public awareness of the increasingly rare world of non-digital assets that help tell the story of how humans got where we are. Museums play a more critical role than ever as purveyors of the authentic, addressing a human desire for the real as the wonders of technology march us down the opposite path.
The collective experience is more fragmented than ever. But museums provide common experiences for diverse audiences, serving as safe public spaces for civic dialogue. As one of the most trusted sources of information, museums help people navigate the vast new world of information by filtering and validating credible content.

Sidebar 4
Museums play a vital role in nurturing, documenting, organizing, interpreting and making accessible the new realm of creative output. They play an even greater role as economic engines in their communities, helping harness the value generated by the emerging wave of creative-driven commerce and exchange. They are repositories of knowledge about traditional craft, sources of inspiration for new designs and processes, and validators of new artists and art forms.
While some educators still decry the impact of video gaming on academic development, museums provide unique opportunities for today’s youth to exercise their gaming skills and satisfy their expectations for immersive narrative. This increases not only their engagement with museums but with the community and the world, providing levels of social and global awareness they might not otherwise absorb while sitting in front of a screen.
In an increasingly digitized world, people still have a core desire for human engagement and authenticity. Museums will be oases of the real in an increasingly virtual world. Along with the outdoors and places of worship, museums represent the best opportunities for getting away from it all.