Unleash the Power of Twitter to Tackle the Diversity Challenge!

Posted on Feb 8, 2011

On Feb. 24, 2–3 p.m. (ET), CFM will host the Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums twebevent, and you’re invited.

Have you ever attended a twebevent? Me neither, but that isn’t stopping me from throwing one! AAM released the trends report Demographic Transformation & the Future of Museums last spring. The report documents that despite museums’ dedication to serving a diverse public, the field as a whole is losing ground. The U.S. population is shifting rapidly and within four decades the group that has historically constituted the core audience for museums—non-Hispanic whites—will be a minority of the population. This forecast paints a troubling picture of the “probable future”—a future in which, if trends continue in the current grooves, museum audiences are radically less diverse than the American public, and museums serve an ever-shrinking fragment of society.

So what are we going to do to create a better future, one in which museum audiences reflect the American public? Well, this twebevent is an opportunity to hash that out with author Betty Farrell, as well as Cecilia Garibay and Lisa Sasaki, who joined Betty at the AAM annual meeting last spring in a session exploring the implications of her report. Neil deGrasse Tyson eloquently argued in a recent post on his personal philosophy of Twitter, 140 characters is plenty of space to exchange thoughts of substance. How do we plan to use the medium in this event? We will give you a platform to:

Lob questions at Betty about the report and her recommendations
Ask Cecilia and Lisa about their experiences grappling with issues of diversifying museum audiences
Share links, resources and references about how your museum (or others) are answering AAM’s call to action to get to know your communities better and serve their needs

Haven’t tweeted before? Not a problem—our brave twebpanelists (Betty Farrell) are new to Twitter as well. If they are willing to dive in and start tweeting, you can to! We’ll provide instructions and encouragement.