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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.