Crowdsourcing the Future at the AAM 2009 Annual Meeting

Crowdsourcing the Future

At the 2009 AAM Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, CFM held a session which involved playing the game “Crowdsourcing the Future.”

Here is a quick explanation of how the “Crowdsourcing” game works. (The format is adapted from Jane McGonigal’s recent project Signtific.) After absorbing some trend data (in this case taken from the CFM report Museums & Society 2034:Trends and Potential Futures), players take a few minutes to create a “mini-forecast” of something they think will be true of museums in the future, in light of this trend. They write this on a big colored sticky note, slap it on top of a “game card” (an 8 ½ x 14 piece of paper), and pass it to the person on their left. That person responds by playing one of four response stickies:

Challenge, explaining why they disagree with the forecast
Support, agreeing and building on the idea
Adapt, envisioning what this forecast would look like for themselves or their institution
Question, asking for clarification

Here are just a few examples of these forecasts broken down into four categories:

Interested in running this game at your institution? Here are some simple instructions for you.

Changing Audience

Forecast

As minority to majority ratios change, national (federal) sites that have a lower than average rate of visitation by minority visitors will see declines in visitation.

Challenge Sites will have to re-orient all their programs	Support We need to find ways to connect our museums' strengths and themes to relevant minority interests and themes. Absolutely true. But why don't they change now?
Adapt Some sites will close, consolidate or be turned over to locals. New culturally relevant sites will emerge. Historic sites will become increasingly narrow and irrelevant unless they interpret universal themes. Will sponsor out of state tours.	Investigate Does museum need to re-examine mission/purpose if not serving the current public? Is this factual rather than a trend?

Forecast

Money is short. Extra effort is placed on attracting other audiences to museums whilst diminishing effort on younger visitors.
Older = Value added
Younger = Costs museums more in engagement activities.

Challenge Older baby boomers will be looking for different non-museum things to do with their leisure time which will be less than the previous seniors generations because they won't be able to retire as early.	Support Yes, but this allocation in resources won't be a good long-term strategy Yes, there will be more older visitors + they will be more actively interested in informative museum experiences.
Adapt Museums will take programming to elder hostels and cruise ships. Museum cruise ships will be built.	Investigate What would be possibility of integrated projects?

Forecast

In 2034, I believe that school group visits as we know them will no longer exist because there will be fewer kids, gas will be very expensive, and resources scarcer.

Challenge I think we will trend through this but will come back to on-site visits because people will crave authentic, real experiences. Cutbacks in school curriculum will expand educational opportunities in some areas: art, geology, etc.	Support "Remote technology-driven visits will be common as the expense of field trips become too great for schools to include in their budget I agree because technology will advance so far that it will be able to mimic authentic experiences and make them more broadly accessible.
Adapt "On the Road Museums" will be very common - taking the "museum" to the schools and youth centers.	Investigate Will most kids even be attending schools or will learning me more distributed - at home, networked?

Forecast

Museums will experience a drop in their kids and young family audiences and will struggle to appeal to aging audiences trying to hire older individuals, partnering with recreational cruises and other for-profits to add an educational outreach component.

Challenge I disagree - We will always have kids and parents wanting to give them all advantages offered! In the future, even more so.	Support Yes, and these programs must be accessible both intellectually and for an aging audience with vision/hearing/mobility challenges.
Adapt Young adults don't seem to come after they had the family experience focus on them.	Investigate Finding partners will become a growth industry for museums (if it isn't already).

Forecast

In 2034, adult museum audiences will continue to be largely college-educated (or to some degree) but the escalated cost of higher education will result in diminished audiences.

Challenge I think web-based learning will make knowledge more universally accessible so audiences will increase. There are lots of activities that can be done now to ensure we diversify our audiences now and reverse this.	Support Much of the higher education will be internet based.
Adapt Museums will limit or reduce their admission costs.	Investigate Will these educated people become hyper curators? Will they be revered? valued? or highly exclusive? How can new museums tap their expertise?

Staff/volunteers - Effect of aging, changing gender roles

Forecast

The future environment for museums and cultural institutions will be run by women who are part-time volunteers.
- Role of government will be much less
- Major volunteering measures

Challenge More women will have professional careers and will work longer and volunteer less Fewer and fewer volunteers will be available to "run" institutions - they will instead want to do highly satisfying non-administrative, fun volunteer activities as part of their non-work leisure time.	Support I agree and it will hurt museums.
Adapt Maybe...or maybe women will be majority of management with men who are highly skilled/educated become highly valued.	Investigate Won't museums be too complex for part-time administrators. (Women will do a great job!) Can part-timers effectively "run" increasingly complex institutions?

Forecast

Museums will no longer be able to depend upon older women as volunteers and docents, and so will need to focus more on the interests men may have in volunteering/being docents.

Challenge In 2034, a new "leisure class" of part-time and occasional workers derived from a contracted economy will provide new volunteers of all ages/genders Trend changes to men approaching museums with ideas! No need to attract	Support Men's availability to serve will be well matched by an evolution of museums' base programs to align in their interests and availability.
Adapt Changes in demographics and behaviors e.g. Baby Boomers choosing different leisure activities than those traditionally selected by seniors. mean that institutions will need to pull volunteer docents from all age groups and both sexes.	Investigate This has been true `&mdash don't reinvent the wheel &mdash see how others have coped`

Forecast

In 2034, museums will host radically designed volunteer programs that appeal to the large aging population in ways our current docent programs don't. Redesigning these volunteer programs will be vital to museums' success with their older and more diverse populations.

Challenge Will this older population be able to volunteer &mdash they'll be working! By 2034, aging populations might have lost earlier interest in volunteering and programs may need to be tailored instead to teenagers who must volunteer for their educational programs to earn credits.	Support Aging populations will love these opportunities.
Adapt Training must change to ensure they (the older volunteers) are current with updated museum practices. Older generations telling oral histories.	Investigate What will this mean for staff resources devoted to volunteering? Will an older volunteer base require more or less assistance?

Economics

Forecast

In the future, governmental and private sources of museum funding will open financial barriers to individuals access to museums reducing, or limiting, admission costs.

Challenge Cost is not the only barrier. In a dream world.	Support Government support will become a more common model.
Adapt My museum will be part of a new "Experience Corp," a program for volunteers to work full-time in the museums, reducing museum costs and building community engagement.	Investigate Will free access allow you to reach the public you want? Will it solve your financial problems?

Forecast

In 2034, the primary make up of private foundations and major individual donors will be female.

Challenge	Support I agree &mdash and women are donors who care much more about how their money is used ... much more accountability and impact results demanded.
Adapt We will have to focus on programming (more social) to lure their interest. Our museum will change its development strategy/case statement to appeal to women.	Investigate Women's historic control of health.

Changing role of collections/ programs

Forecast

In 2034, museums emerge as critical, quality providers of early childhood education driven by the rise of women's education attainment and education.

Challenge Government will not provide funds for children to go to museums. Funding will have to come from the community. No &mdash I think it is off mission.	Support Yes! Women change the face of education away from being heavy in standards. Museum expands its education services by adding a child minding service and chair onl
Adapt My niche museum doesn't have a collection or story that matches well with young children.	Investigate For-profit early education providers proliferate, so how do museums position themselves as "best" provider and "compete" to serve these mothers and children?

Forecast

Many museums have closed and my museum is actually an online community center where people come to view all the virtual collections. They also get to touch virtual versions of some of the items in the collections.

Challenge

The population will long for "authentic," "real life" experiences, and museum attendance will increase until more people attend museums annually than sporting events, concerts, and movies combined.
By 2034, virtual visitors may be skeptical about authenticity and/or collections care, plus the technology may appear dated.
Wow! I hope not! As life becomes more crowded and complex by 2034, free time will be even more important than it is now and we have an opportunity to be that quality free time.

Support

Although a "first hand" experience will still be important, this will be an excellent way for organizations that can't afford the overhead (building, staffing to accommodate visitors, etc.) to get their collections out to the community.
Some museums may find themselves as a virtual presence only, but probably not all museums.
Yes, and we will have to "share" those object that they fall in love with ... they'll come to see their objects.

Adapt

Staff or docents may need to be trained to respond to questions about "their" online version of your collection.

Investigate

Does this mean that this museum does not own physical collections but only virtual ones?

Forecast

In 2034, collections in museums will represent the variety of the population. Repatriation of artifacts to different organizations/communities will reflect the need to recognize how objects and knowledge is passed on in very different ways.

Challenge I think this could be if the diversity of the staff and board mimic the community.	Support I expect more community curation and ownership of collections objects.
Adapt Repatriation ceremonies could be celebrated as special events.	Investigate How much time/energy/resources can government organizations put into repatriation in a time of stretched resources?

Forecast

Because of population growth and strengthening international governments and global shifts in economic strength, current museum collections will be widely dispersed in the world.

Challenge

Repatriation means more consolidation in country of origin. All learning and exploration of other cultures will have to happen virtually/digitally because traveling to see all in place of origin is too difficult.
No. The reverse will be true. In the face of scare resources it will all be about consolidation.
There will be more interest in global examples that relate to museum specific themes.

Support

I think you are "on" to something &mdash especially considering the cultural repatriation movement.

Adapt

Collections are repatriated to original sources, strengthening unique cultures.

Investigate

What about organic circulation collections?