Addendum to Crowdsourcing the Future, Part I: Museums Confront the Rising Cost of Energy
This is a summary of content generated by attendees at the Museums in Conversation luncheon on March 30th, 2009 in Tarrytown, NY as they played the game “Crowdsourcing the Future.”
Here is 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
As the game cards are passed around the table, each player comments and expands on the mini-forecasts, building the physical equivalent of an on-line discussion thread. The ground rules are that all forecasts can be shared in forums such as this blog, unless they are marked “Private,” and that if people want to be credited they identify themselves on their forecast.
Having read about 180 of the forecasts, here is a summary of some of the forecasts related to trend data about the dramatic rise of the cost of oil in the coming decades, grouped by some common themes that emerged.
Energy conservation/green practices
The real vs. the virtual (museums and collections)
The changing role of the museums
Energy conservation/green practices
Many forecasters envision museums leading the way in green practices and green design, setting a good example by their practices and teaching their audiences. But a cynic challenges “shouldn’t we be doing this NOW? If we aren’t, then why would we be doing so in the future?”
Just to demonstrate that every crisis is an opportunity for someone, one crowdsourcer gleefully points out that exploring the history of energy use fits beautifully with their institution’s mission, and therefore an energy crisis will create a “relevance windfall” for them.
Another forecaster envisions a program under which businesses buy goodwill and credibility with the public by donating carbon credits to museums, foregoing some of their own energy consumption to underwrite museums’ energy needs, or donating carbon offsets to mitigate warming caused my museum energy use.
Many forecasters explored the effect of energy on transportation and therefore on museums. Some predict museums will be increasingly local institutions, reached by walking, and bicycles. Others see museums positioning themselves as, or at, transportation hubs, making a stop at the museum a natural part of people’s bus/train/subway commute. Several commentators worry that museums located in rural, hard to reach areas will see dramatic decreases in attendance, and perhaps fail for that reason. Liz Callahan, executive director of the Hanford Mills Museum tied together a number of these threads, envisioning her museum in 2034 benefiting from a successful collaborative effort in the rural region linking over 100 miles of rail-trails—carbon-neutral routes tying together rural communities via foot/bike/horse/ski power and mini-public transit. (Though, as one challenger points out—how far can you practically expect people to go via self-powered devices?)
Mergers/spinoffs
This group of forecasters seem evenly split between the prediction that rising energy costs will encourage museums to merge into fewer, large institutions (which, as one commentator notes, may then be considered “too large to fail”), and conversely, that the rising cost of transportation will impel museums to split, creating multiple, smaller locations to serve local audiences. Here are some specific predictions:
Mergers
- “In the year 2034, museums will find it far too difficult to operate, given the astronomical rise in fuel costs and the general impoverishment of society. Of the artifacts that manage to survive, the majority will be absorbed by the handful of mega-museums that will broker the world’s culture.” Supporting this mini-forecast, one commentator writes “A sad future, but very possible. If the histories of retail and agriculture have shown us anything, conglomerating corporations gain power. What makes us think that cultural organizations have a brighter future?”
Splitting into smaller, localized institutions
- “Can museums service with only local audiences?” one person asked. “Yes” came the response, “but [to do so] museums will have to provide more services than we already do: office space, food, social services.” “Our museum will need to develop ways to generate repeat visitation from a local audience” writes another.
Consolidation
- One writer sees museums clustering together in “shopping mall”-like destination. Building on this idea, another person points out that museums grouped in this way can save on costs by providing shared common amenities (food service, gift stores, etc.)
The real vs. the virtual (museums and collections)
This is a very hot topic, generating many, many comments exploring the future of museums as a physical experience, given the rising costs of running a building, caring for collections and traveling to visit them.
This forecast typifies the most optimistic end of the spectrum: “Due to rising fuel costs, museums begin to utilize and further virtual reality research to create virtual visits and experiences at museums. While this drastically changes the museum field, museums enter a new era of unprecedented accessibility and utility.” Contrast this with my favorite cynical forecast: “Museums hold on to their veneration of the “actual” and, despite minimal and dwindling attendance, continue to be funded. Curators are discovered to be robots, so as all other [real people] have perished they continue to care for collections long after the world has imploded from the economic collapse resulting from the lack of oil.”
About virtual museums—some forecasters envision that museums as physical destinations will come cease to exist. They predict the audience experience will be virtual, and the real-world museum will function only to house the collections. But as one person points out “will people still value and fund preservation if the public experience is primarily virtual?” Other forecasters see museums becoming more exclusive, with access to real collections as a hobby/prerogative of the super-rich, who pay fewer museums vast sums to support exhibits. Erin Crissman, curator at the Farmers’ Museum of Cooperstown, NY goes further, envisioning museums as purely virtual entities that organize information and present exhibits in a digital environment.
A number of crowdsourcers fret about the effect rising energy costs on collections storage, which will become ever more expensive to maintain. Perhaps there are alternatives to the traditional model. “Museums will let visitors “adopt” collections and keep them @ home” suggests Erin.
Another forecaster agrees that information will go digital, but thinks that what will impel actual physical visitation is the opportunity to see real objects, and then to make real things—(like boats, or machinery) at the museum. Riffing on this topic, several forecasters predict the emergence of technology that will enable us to replicate collections objects at a reasonable cost, on demand. (Chris Norris discusses in his Voices of the Future interview how this is already possible to some extent.) Possible uses suggested for such technology include: lending the data for objects that are then recreated on site, rather than shipping the objects themselves; enabling visitors to create replicas of their favorite objects and take them home; and encouraging remote users to create their own physical museums at home, populated by copies of museum objects.
The changing role of the museum
One forecaster sees the challenges to society being so great, in a future of limited power, that museums’ role shifts from being largely leisure amenities to being vital tutors of lost traditional skills applicable to the challenges of the future.
Another writes “As fuel costs drive up the costs of the production and transportation of food, museums with land to spare are compelled to assist their communities with food production. Living history museums, in particular, have great opportunities to teach people about home production of food, power and other resources.”