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Center for the Future of Museums Blog
The Center for the Future of Museums Blog shares musings on the future of museums and society.
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Improving Access to Employment for People with Disabilities
The museum sector is working to increase the diversity of our workforce through a variety of ways: for example, how we craft position requirements, word job announcements, and conduct …
Art, Wellness, and Mental Health
I met Ashley Witherspoon while researching CFM’s current TrendsWatch report—one of the topics we examine is how museums can help foster mental health for all. Ashley is the founder and CEO …
Museums Can Help Transform Education
Last week I spent an inspiring afternoon in a Zoom workshop dedicated to envisioning “liberatory futures” for P-12 education. How can we collectively create an educational future that is …
A House Museum Built for the Digital Age
The museum sector went into the pandemic ill-prepared to use digital strategies to keep themselves afloat, but many museums that had begun to experiment with how digital could enhance or …
Planning for a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous Future
Why is foresight an essential skill for museum people in coming decades? Last week I had the pleasure of making that case at the ICOM 2022 Triennial Conference, and today I’m happy to …
Museums and the Living Wage: How Filoli Developed a Bold Pay Equity Initiative
Each year CFM’s TrendsWatch brings attention to bear on critical issues for museums, challenging our sector to think about how we might adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Examining a …
A New Site of Conscience: Sing Sing Prison Museum
Five years ago, CFM’s TrendsWatch report examined how museums are helping society confront the need for criminal justice reform. Historic sites play an important role in this work, with …
Historic Houses in the Shifting Landscape of Climate Change
In combating climate change, we can look to Indigenous and historic practices for models of sustainable architectural solutions to extreme heat, cold, and humidity. Structures built in …
Museums Discover Impact Investing
CFM first flagged impact investing as a trend of significance to museums in 2013, inspired by a talk Seth Miller gave at SXSW in which he declared that “every time you spend a dollar, you …
NFTs: Museums Can Build Other, Better Digital Stuff
“When I was a congressional aide, we had an expression, ‘No idea was too stupid to say out loud,’ so here it is, hear me out. Instead of buying these ships? Don’t buy …
Your Self-care Prescription: News Positivity
Reporters at Axios recently summarized data documenting a steep drop-off in news consumption in the past six months. Evidently, the relentless thunder of traumatic events is driving more …
In Praise of Mission Creep
My focus this year is on exploring the ways museums serve as essential infrastructure for their communities: improving education for our children, creating livable communities for our …