Research Roundup
December 7, 2009

Tools for the future
The near future
Social trends, etc.
Other articles, essays, and recent items of interest
Refresh and reflect


Tools for the future:
  1. A bibliography of "core futures books" from the Institute for the Future at Anne Arundel Community College and the World Future Society.  
  2. This We Know: Explore U.S. Government Data About Your Community (http://www.thisweknow.org/) — "Their mission is to present the information the U.S. government collects about every community. By publishing this data in an easy to understand and consistent manner, they seek to empower citizens to act on what's known." Description courtesy of Marcus P. Zillman, whose indispensable blog contains a wealth of resources for making sense of online data tools and data sources.
  3. The Top 50 Marketing Blogs To Watch in 2010. Includes listings for trends logs, social networking logs, and many more.

The near future:
  1. On December 19, the Graphic Design Museum in Amsterdam hosts a conference on "quality in an age of visual overload." The organizers write that "While museums are developing strategies to digitalise their collections, online cultural production is growing steadily, with hundreds of thousands of new images posted each day. A lot of potentially interesting work is being produced online, which never reaches the physical world. The distribution of this high quality work is increasingly decentralised, leaving museums, foundations and professional magazines at a loss on how to redefine their role as gatekeepers. On the other hand, the time spent daily behind the computer on internet networking is pushing the demand for a physical experience of our fleeting culture. Designers, artists, mediators and policy makers need to redefine their position, because new technologies define to a large extent today's possibilities and means of presentation and archiving. The search is for new quality criteria, new frames of references, and alternative methods for enabling connections between the virtual and the physical space of today's culture."
  2. From Honda, The Power of Dreams, a series of short documentary films, most of which features "visionaries" of one kind or another. The film on "Mobility" includes interviews with "some of the great thinkers of our generation [on] how people will get around in 80 years."  

Social trends, etc.:
  1. The Census Bureau has released its Income and Poverty Estimates for All School Districts and Counties, based on data from 2008 (i.e., just before the current recession kicked into high gear). Museums can use the data tools at http://www.census.gov/did/www/saipe/ to identify the poverty rates in their own districts. 
  2. BigThink has a special series of interviews devoted to The Problem With Men, starting with "Why Men Die Young." Education Week also addresses a "boys' crisis" that may soon become a "men's crisis" in Do Men Deserve A Break in College Admissions?: "It's not news that girls have been edging out boys on a number of educational indicators. They outscore boys in reading and writing on the NAEP and on international tests. They graduate from high school more often. And more girls than boys enroll in and graduate from college. Like most issues that generate a lot of media attention, this "boys' crisis" isn't without its dissenters. But it's still a worrisome topic, and not one that seems to be hovering on the brink of a solution."
  3. Open Doors 2009 (http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/), published annually by the Institute of International Education, reports on Americans studying abroad and international students in the U.S. The key trends are that more foreign students are coming to the United States than ever before while more American students are studying abroad.   
  4. A long video interview with social networking guru Stowe Boyd on The Web And The Post-Everything Economy. Provocative.
  5. An Overview of the Nonprofit and Charitable Sector from the Congressional Research Service. As the summary notes, A number of policy issues have direct or indirect consequences for the nonprofit and charitable sector, including the establishment of a social innovation initiative, changes in the tax treatment of charitable donations, responses to the economic downturn, and health care reform. The nonprofit and charitable sector represents a significant portion of the U.S. economy. The sector is also highly diverse. Having a greater understanding of the nonprofit and charitable sector as a whole may help policymakers evaluate proposals that may impact the sector." Among the many facts in this report: non-profits employ nearly 10% of all American workers and generate more than 5% of the gross domestic product.
  6. A summary of consumer spending habits in the United States from 1984-2008, presented in a splashy, interactive data visualization.

Other articles, essays, and recent items of interest:
  1. Impact Philanthropy: Arts & Culture (Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta, October 2009). An overview of Atlanta area arts and cultural organizations, demonstrating the various ways that targeted giving can enhance youth engagement, community development, support for underserved populations, etc. The lessons are applicable to other cities.
  2. European Cultural Institutions Increasingly Look to Private Donations. "A growing number of European cultural institutions are following the lead of their American counterparts and relying more on private donations to help fund special projects and their day-to-day operations," says the Wall Street Journal (as summarized by the Philanthropy News Digest).    
  3. A rousing defense of the Humanities in a Time of Crisis from Steven Knapp, president of George Washington University. Most of the essay focuses on higher education, but Knapp also points to the important connection between museums and the academy: "No one really doubts that American society is better off with a vital awareness of its intellectual, cultural, and historical past than it would be if it were locked in a permanent, stultifying amnesia.  And no one will doubt, on reflection, that even local museums are better able to preserve that awareness if they are informed by the best available sources of expertise regarding whatever part of our collective past they are dedicated to keeping alive. But the experts themselves are mostly hidden from public view, sequestered in the academy, precisely as they must be if they are to have the time and the exposure to teachers, colleagues, and students that they need to become experts in the first place and then to keep their expertise alive." (Of course, not everyone will agree with this view of expertise or how museums gather expertise.)

Refresh and reflect:
  1. Ah, robot! Just in time for Hanukkah, a Jewish Japanese robot (at least, we think he's making latkes). Also, photos from the International Robot Exhibition (via Popular Science magazine) and a collection of vintage books about personal robots. 
  2. Visit the "Museum of Lost Wonders" at http://curiousexpeditions.org/?p=838.
  3. Admire The GalaxyDress, centerpiece of the "Fast Forward: Inventing the Future" exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

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