As we embark on this exploration of the
future, we thought it
might be worth sharing a bit
about the process behind how some of these
projections came to be, and why
myCulture emerged
as a topic of focus.
One of the early steps of this project was a
comprehensive
literature review of nearly a
thousand articles, data sets, interviews and
discussion forums to identify trends
most likely
to change U.S. society and
museums during the
next 25 years. But the
cost of information overload was
immense. That process provided a
ton of areas
of potential inquiry, but
no means to prioritize
relevance or likelihood for the trends
paper.
The organizing breakthrough happened when we
sat back and asked,
what would we have
nailed and what would we have missed, if we'd
been asked in 1984 to project what would
happen in 2009. As we
looked back, most of
the biggest shifts that took place in that time
period
were clustered in three areas: Technology
and
communications, population
dynamics, and the
economic and geopolitical landscape.
Given that hindsight is a lot easier process
than foresight, a
key
theme emerged from that
exercise: When we look at those three categories, almost all
of the biggest changes that impact our lives in
2009 had roots in emerging
undercurrents from 25
years ago. Not that we would have predicted
2009
perfectly, but we suspect that a
detailed
exploration in 1984 would
have identified a number
of the emerging undercurrents likely
to affect
how things would play out (if not
always
predictably) in 2009. (One
massive shift
we’re
pretty sure we would have missed was the
Internet. Almost no-one at the time
could fathom the potential
impact of the
couple
of hundred computers connected to the ARPANET, a Defense
Advanced Research Projects Administration project
to create an interconnected
computer network that
could survive a nuclear attack.)
So we at Reach Advisors ended up focusing this
paper work
on topics with emerging
undercurrents in 2009 that have high odds of
reshaping our lives (and as a result,
our museums)
25 years from now.
While this approach means
missing the occasional “Black Swans” that
emerge from nowhere, looking for the
emerging
undercurrents sure did help
provide focus for an
examination of how things are likely to change.
(One other thing to note is that focusing on
an absorbable
number
of topics for each point
means that a lot never
made it into the trends
paper.
For example, in the editing process,
we only
shared one example
of how likely
technology advances are likely to impact our lives
in
2034. If anyone wants to hear more emerging
undercurrents in technology
that will shape how we
live, but might not have merited inclusion in this
version of the trends paper, we’re more than happy
to share more of what we
uncovered.)
Now, back to the world of myCulture: This
is a fascinating
topic
driven by how the
combination of technology and
communications
advancements has wired
the expectations and
behaviors of a generation
fundamentally different
from the majority of us who will read this trends
paper. Profound shifts are
already evident,
but it’s more than just
looking at how young
adults are behaving in 2009. The fun starts
when we
think about what happens when their
expectations
drive how the world will
operate 25 years from
now.
By the way, thanks to the folks at the Center
for the Future of
Museums team for coining the
term ‘myCulture’ to describe this shift rather
aptly. We hope that this concept,
and this
entire process, sparks
thoughts and provides a new
lens to think about how museums continue to
increase their relevance in a changing
world. We’d
love to hear your comments
and thoughts that can
spark further discussion and shape what additional
information we present at the upcoming AAM
conference in Philadelphia.
Enjoy!