CFM at AAM 2010 Annual Meeting
On Monday, May 24, we debuted the new AAM forecasting report "Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums" at a great session featuring lead author Betty Farrell, of the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago. Lisa Sasaki, from the Japanese American National Museum, and Cecilia Garibay, of the Garibay Group, dug deeper into the issues raised by this exploration of race, ethnicity and generational change, and how museums can remain relevant in a rapidly changing cultural landscape. In the coming months, we will feature commentary on the report on the CFM Blog, as well as profiling museums in the vanguard of efforts to diversify their staff and audiences.
This year, CFM invited The Pinky Show to join us in the AAM Showcase in MuseumExpo. (Pinky and his friend Kim are responsible for the brilliant video "We Love Museums: Do Museums Love Us Back?") In Los Angeles, the cats created an installation illustrating their vision of the future of museums. (Pinky wrote about this before the meeting on the CFM Blog.) After constucting a small time machine, the cats made 6 trips to the future. In 2062 they visited the Capitalism Memorial Museum in Beverly Hills. This extremely accessible museum is open 24/7, 365 days a year and has numerous swimming pools for public use (the museum itself originated as the expropriated homes of the rich & famous.) A web version of the exhibit will go up on the Pinky Show site, so stay tuned.
Pinky and Kim also conducted interviews with meeting attendees, inviting them to share their views on the future of museums. We'll be posting extracts from those interviews over the summer on CFM's nonprofit YouTube channel, And (turn about is fair play) Willamarie Moore of MuseumEd interviewed Human Representative 03 of Pinky Show, as HR03 staffed the interview booth.
On Tuesday, May 25, CFM collaborated with the California Association of Museums to run the working session Forecasting the Future of California Museums. Garry Golden, of Oliver Kaizen, joined CFM director Elizabeth Merritt in leading 38 participants in a day-long exploration of the plausible futures that may arise from the trends shaping the state and the nation. The results of this session were reported in a session the next morning, and CAM and CFM will use the ideas generated from the forecasting exercise to create “Museums as Community Catalysts: Shaping the Future of California”—a resource guide to help museums understand the trends shaping the state in coming decades and explore the opportunities and challenges. Stay tuned for more information and an invitation to participate in the resulting conversation. The project is supported in part by The James Irvine Foundation, The Ahmanson Foundation, Gaylord Brothers, and the California Council for the Humanities.
Didn't make the meeting, or want to hear some of the many sessions you had to miss? Session recordings, an associated PPT presentations, are available here. Here is the "Guide to the Future at the AAM Annual Meeting" that was provided to attendees, highlighting select sessions, and here is a full list of the sessions we tagged as being futures-related:
We are very excited that the theme for the 2011 annual meeting in Houston is "The Museum of Tomorrow," and foresee many great futurist-events leading up to and during the program! You can follow developments about the meeting on the CFM website and at the local host committee's blog.
Sunday, May 23
- Museums: Catalysts for Civic Renewal
This session will articulate new opportunities and a growing imperative for museums to become catalysts and partners in strengthening and revitalizing their communities, focusing on principles and processes for integrating diverse voices, artistic strengths and collaborative learning. Speakers will examine the theoretical bases for leading through cultural expression and will share provocative examples of the processes at work.
- Social Tagging and Museum Practice: A Survey
The session will provide an overview of social tagging—the practice of soliciting user-generated descriptions of collection objects to enhance finding, engage users and provide museum professionals with new insights into how their collections are perceived by visitors. Members of Steve: The Museum Social Tagging Project will describe their current research and tools and present case studies for tagging projects now underway.
- Learning from Hollywood: How Lessons from the Entertainment Industry Can Help Us Connect Emotionally With Our Audience
Learn how film and entertainment storytelling techniques can be used in the museum context. A forum discussion with audience participation will help define and evaluate specific approaches.
- To Form a More Perfect Union: Creative Partnerships with Immigrant Communities
This session explores how and why museums are addressing immigration through creative partnerships. Identify your regional issues, potential program partners and solutions.
- Dissolving Walls: Interpreting Outdoor Spaces
Designed for professionals at any level, this session will use curatorial, technological and educational perspectives to inspire creative thinking about the interpretive opportunities and challenges outdoor spaces offer. Learn 21st-century solutions that overcome physical walls and geographical distance between museum and visitor.
- The New Normal after a Black Swan* Event *Low-Probability, High-Impact Event
After a worldwide financial meltdown—a black swan, or low-probability, high-impact event—some museums have found a new equilibrium, seen new perspectives, reached astonishing conclusions and grappled with many core issues. A diverse group of leaders will host focused roundtables discussing ideas, trends and issues related to museums reaction to the global economic crisis.
- On-site Insight: Passing It Forward: Using History to Inspire Civic Engagement
$15.00
Join colleagues from the Japanese American National Museum and the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience for a practical look at how to engage young people in discussion, debate and action around sensitive historical and contemporary issues. The program will include: a tour of the "Fighting for Democracy" exhibit, which focuses on seven ordinary citizens whose lives and communities were forever changed by World War II; participation in a dialogue program looking at stereotypes, designed for high school audiences; and discussion on strategies for implementing programs to encourage visitor action.
- On-site Insights: The Chinese American Museum: Creating and Sustaining a Community-Based Museum $15.00
Located in the late 19th-century Garnier Building once at the core of L.A.'s original Chinatown and in the city's birthplace, the Chinese American Museum serves a diverse Chinese American and multi ethnic community. Founding CAM Director Suellen Cheng, Executive Director Pauline Wong and exhibit developers THINK Jacobson & Roth will describe developing CAM's inaugural permanent exhibits using a phased implementation plan and creating, planning and sustaining future exhibits and programs addressing contemporary issues of identity and origins.
Monday, May 24 - The Future of Museums, Libraries, and Archives
Panelists will focus on the discussion guide that emerged from a 2008 National Academy of Sciences meeting (supported by IMLS) on the future of libraries and museums, including topics such as technology and power development, and the 21st-century museum and library workforce. Representatives of the museum, archive and library communities will address the discussion guide topics.
- The Next Generation of Visitors: Creating Experiences for Millennials
What does the next generation of potential museum audiences look like, and how can we create experiences that meet their motivations, expectations and needs? Session attendees can learn about recent research on the Millennial Generation (those born roughly between 1980 and 2000), consider new strategies of translating research into successful museum experiences, and pose questions to a panel of Millennials from outside of the museum field.
- Demographic Transformation and the Future of Museums: Trends and Implications
This session premiers the most recent forecasting report from the Center for the Future of Museums, exploring demographic trends in American society and their implications for museums. The presentation will explore barriers discouraging some populations from museum visits and support, and how museums can change their practices to attract new audiences.
This session will present techniques for visitors to share their voices and co-create experiences in your museum in accordance with your institutional values and design goals. Panelists will share examples and frameworks for visitor contribution in exhibits and educational programs.
- Training the Next Generation of Museum Professionals
The panel will explore the museum as a workplace in an increasingly complex world, addressing the challenges of training the next generation of museum professionals for traditional tasks and for those requiring skills grounded in new technologies.
Tuesday, May 25 Learn about IDEO's human-centered design process and how it connects and applies successfully to any situation, question, or problem. Explore examples across industries, from worldwide-impacting projects to deep personal explorations, and discover how museums may best use this approach to shape the future.
- A Collection Without Borders: What Would you Choose?
In this game of selection and elimination, choose an object to represent humankind and defend it to a panel, exploring the possibility of creating a collection that transcends cultural, geographic and racial boundaries. What do our choices say about us and the future of museums in a transcultural world?
- Beyond Boundaries in a Globalized World
This double session is for global thinkers who want to move their museums beyond internal boundaries (such as discipline, gender, race and passivity) and beyond international boundaries toward more creativity and connectivity with the world. International museum planner Gail Dexter Lord will facilitate the panel.
- Think Like an EcoSystem—Collaborating Across Arts, Science, and Other Disciplines
Learn how to collaborate across neighborhoods, disciplines and organizations, focusing on themes of climate change and sustainability while attracting new audiences, media attention and funding.
- Emerging Digital Trends in Museums
This follow-up to the 2009 AAM conference session, The Emerging Digital Museum, will investigate how digital learning and communications are changing museum-goers and how our understanding of these changes influences the design of museum experiences. Prospective attendees can visit and contribute to a
blog prior to the conference.
Wednesday, May 26 - Don't Just Survive: Thrive
A panel of fund-raising and financial professionals will discuss how decisions ranging from making cuts to building can determine your organization's course for the future. They will share views, cite examples and demonstrate different scenarios.
- Forecasting the Future of Museums: California as a Case Study
This session provides a forecast for the museums of California, which faces challenges—increasing minority populations, water shortages, shifts in industry and finance—potentially affecting many areas of the country in coming decades. Sponsored by The James Irvine Foundation, The Ahmanson Foundation and the California Council for the Humanities.
- Sticky! Using Game Elements to Keep Online Visitors Coming Back for More
Learn how the stickiness of games—compelling players to return and play again and again—can be applied to a broader variety of museums websites and to on-site interactives.
- Beyond the Turnstile: Making the Case for Museums and Sustainable Values
This forum will present value-based, qualitative indicators designed to liberate our ever-changing museum field from the dominance of metrics-based indicators.
- Beyond the Shiny Object: Mission-Driven Museum Technology Development
Leading museum technologists will share their unique development processes for implementing technology in intuitive, mission-driven, metaphorical and distributed ways across institutions. Attendees will leave with executable strategies for integrating technology more holistically into institutional goals and projects.
- Telling the Tough Stuff: The Role of Museums in Exploring Issues of Controversy and Complexity
Professionals from museums in Alaska, Hawaii and Massachusetts will share how they addressed difficult topics such as native stereotyping, sovereignty, the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and contemporary whaling. Panelists will discuss approaches, challenges, successes, and public relations and marketing implications.
- Workshop: Sites of Conscience: Dialogue Across Differences on Global Immigration Issues $25.00
At a time of rising concern over social exclusion, migration, xenophobia, and discrimination throughout the world, museums can play an integral role in public dialogue around immigration, addressing questions of citizenship, human rights and reconciliation. Drawing on program models from the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience's network this workshop will share current examples of civic engagement programs from the United States, South Africa, and Europe around today's global immigration issues and how museums have worked with diverse communities to develop their programs. Participants will experience model programs, role playing exercises and planning sessions to learn practical tools on designing and implementing dialogue programs including how to create experiences to hear visitor's perspectives around potentially sensitive issues.