
Collection Sharing: A Life Lesson for Art Museums
Art museums’ futures will depend on their ability to share: their platforms, their authority, and, perhaps most tangibly, their collections. While in kindergarten we were all taught to share, many museums still consider their collections to be exclusive, “protecting” their art in deep storage.
There is now, however, a rethinking this out-of-date attitude. One museum, the Institute and Museum of California Art, sees collection sharing as a core to its operation and mission. It is pursuing a technological, logistical, and collaborative platform for sharing across academic, municipal, and private museum collections – and for radically shifting how scholars, peers, and publics can approach art.

Goldilocks Data
There’s big data, there’s your own organization’s internal data (aka hyper-local data), and, increasingly, there’s Goldilocks data—the “just right” blend of timely information, relevant context, and affordability. All three types can improve resource utilization and operational outcomes. Acquiring the data that serves you best, however, is challenging. What follows is a glimpse at the kind of data you might want and the hurdles to acquiring it.

The Campus Art Museum and a Better “Next Normal”
Campus-based art museums have long been compelling and differentiating aspects of Higher Education. They can now also become key allies as colleges and universities work to reestablish their relevance and attractiveness in the post-pandemic “next normal.” Museums can help rebalance relationships with students and regional communities, countering some of the pandemic’s undermining of the campus as a desirable destination. What follows is a guide administrators and museum leaders can use to strengthen their mutual post-pandemic recovery model.

Moderator’s Observations on “Teaching with Museum Exhibitions”
Three observations as moderator of a directors' panel at a Teaching with Museum Exhibitions conference: 1. The academy, including many museum professionals, often (incorrectly) perceives that "expertise" and "collaboration" are in opposition. 2. Students embrace collaboration as an attitude, not as a tool. 3. Academic museums are the most accessible and partner-ready collaborators on campus.

10 Enlivening Ideas (Commercial Appropriations)
Posted in the American Alliance of Museums Center for the Future of Museums blog
Admit it: every once in a while it annoys you that commercial offerings often out-rank your museum on the public’s To-Do list. In my interactions with dozens of museum leaders, this lament comes up all the time. We’re all too aware of the many reasons for this, including the fact that alternatives to museums—movies, sporting events, shopping, hanging at the coffee house, and so forth—are “easy” for the consumer to understand and use. Retailers and popular entertainment cater to audiences’ desires and devote large marketing budgets to influencing consumer expectations. This habituates their audiences, and hence yours, to certain rules for enjoying consumer-focused offerings.
Admit it: every once in a while it annoys you that commercial offerings often out-rank your museum on the public’s To-Do list. In my interactions with dozens of museum leaders, this lament comes up all the time. We’re all too aware of the many reasons for this, including the fact that alternatives to museums—movies, sporting events, shopping, hanging at the coffee house, and so forth—are “easy” for the consumer to understand and use. Retailers and popular entertainment cater to audiences’ desires and devote large marketing budgets to influencing consumer expectations. This habituates their audiences, and hence yours, to certain rules for enjoying consumer-focused offerings.

Campus Art Museums in the 21st Century: A Conversation
Authored in conjunction with Peter Linett and The University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center Distributed via the AAM’s Center for the Future of Museums and the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries
Like other kinds of cultural organizations in these early years of the twenty-first century, art museums on college and university campuses are facing the challenges both of adapting to and influencing a new and still-shifting cultural landscape. Longstanding assumptions about the roles, aims, activities, and audiences of cultural institutions are being reconsidered, even as audience interests, expectations, and behaviors are rapidly evolving.
Like other kinds of cultural organizations in these early years of the twenty-first century, art museums on college and university campuses are facing the challenges both of adapting to and influencing a new and still-shifting cultural landscape. Longstanding assumptions about the roles, aims, activities, and audiences of cultural institutions are being reconsidered, even as audience interests, expectations, and behaviors are rapidly evolving.

Measuring success: Why Museums Can’t Fail
Failure is not an option if you can’t define success
Even before the 2008 credit and business meltdown, in the ten years from 1998 to 2007 at least 10% of the companies on the Forbes 150 list have closed, been acquired or otherwise faded away. This includes notable giants such as Bankers Trust, Compaq, DEC, and Enron (ignore more recent casualties of Lehman Brothers, Wachovia, Bear Sterns, etc.). We know this is normal business activity and are always only slightly surprised, but not shocked, when any given company collapses, is merged, or is pared down and sold for scrap.
Even before the 2008 credit and business meltdown, in the ten years from 1998 to 2007 at least 10% of the companies on the Forbes 150 list have closed, been acquired or otherwise faded away. This includes notable giants such as Bankers Trust, Compaq, DEC, and Enron (ignore more recent casualties of Lehman Brothers, Wachovia, Bear Sterns, etc.). We know this is normal business activity and are always only slightly surprised, but not shocked, when any given company collapses, is merged, or is pared down and sold for scrap.

There is an alternative to closure or selling off collections: Sharing
Published in The Art Newspaper April 2009
The near-death experiences of Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, among other more recent tales of woe, provide graphic evidence of the financial stresses bearing down on museums. These events highlight the need for solutions that are healthier than closing down, selling a collection, or being subsumed by a larger enterprise. Fortunately, better options exist. The one I recommend has the advantage of employing assets that museums already have in place. All that is required is embracing that quintessential childhood behaviour: sharing.
The near-death experiences of Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, among other more recent tales of woe, provide graphic evidence of the financial stresses bearing down on museums. These events highlight the need for solutions that are healthier than closing down, selling a collection, or being subsumed by a larger enterprise. Fortunately, better options exist. The one I recommend has the advantage of employing assets that museums already have in place. All that is required is embracing that quintessential childhood behaviour: sharing.

Oppenheimer and museums; a review of Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens
Published in Curator - The Museum Journal July 2010
In this unsettling world, to whom should museums look for a much-needed does of optimism? Believe it or not, I suggest we look to Frank Oppenheimer, one of the handful of men responsible for building the only atom bombs ever used in war. Curiously, a man who helped develop weapons of mass destruction also contributed a rubric for building an exemplary museum. (The rubric is summarized in this article.)
In this unsettling world, to whom should museums look for a much-needed does of optimism? Believe it or not, I suggest we look to Frank Oppenheimer, one of the handful of men responsible for building the only atom bombs ever used in war. Curiously, a man who helped develop weapons of mass destruction also contributed a rubric for building an exemplary museum. (The rubric is summarized in this article.)

TEDx Midwest: A few thoughts
Guest Blogger - Slover Linett Strategies November 2010
“Our colleague and collaborator Tom Shapiro, a partner at Cultural Strategy Partners, was one of the lucky few (okay, lucky 350) who attended Chicago’s homegrown TED a few weeks ago. The conference took place at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago on October 14 and 15. I asked Tom to share a few thoughts about the gathering with our readers. Here’s Tom’s take.” – Peter Linett
I found TEDx Midwest immensely enjoyable and often engrossing. It was fascinating to witness both the “TED-ness” of the event—a communal, anticipatory giddiness of being privy to something “important”—and the speaker’s talks themselves. While listening in the darkened theater, I observed three themes, not about the content, but about the conference as a whole.
“Our colleague and collaborator Tom Shapiro, a partner at Cultural Strategy Partners, was one of the lucky few (okay, lucky 350) who attended Chicago’s homegrown TED a few weeks ago. The conference took place at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago on October 14 and 15. I asked Tom to share a few thoughts about the gathering with our readers. Here’s Tom’s take.” – Peter Linett
I found TEDx Midwest immensely enjoyable and often engrossing. It was fascinating to witness both the “TED-ness” of the event—a communal, anticipatory giddiness of being privy to something “important”—and the speaker’s talks themselves. While listening in the darkened theater, I observed three themes, not about the content, but about the conference as a whole.

Selling Collections: A Letter to the Arts Editor
To The Editor:
Re “Whose Rules Are These Anyway?” by Jori Finkel [Dec. 28, 2009]: Ms. Finkel asks the right question but stops short of answering why museums should be restricted in how they use proceeds from art sales. The argument in favor of using proceeds for general operating purposes is: The museum needs money, and art sales generate money.
Re “Whose Rules Are These Anyway?” by Jori Finkel [Dec. 28, 2009]: Ms. Finkel asks the right question but stops short of answering why museums should be restricted in how they use proceeds from art sales. The argument in favor of using proceeds for general operating purposes is: The museum needs money, and art sales generate money.