27 July 2020

Normal, Disrupted

What normal are all of us in museums—leaders, workers—trying to get back to? Is there a better "no-normal" out there?

13 July 2020

Museum Leadership for the Rest of Us

Is it time to stop looking for leaders to guide us out of this pestilential age—and start looking to networks of people to rise to the challenge?

06 July 2020

Agile for What?

The museum sector has been talking for years about the need for agility. But just what are we trying to be agile for?

06 May 2020

The Museum at the End of the World: "I Didn't Mean It Literally" Edition

What should museums do in the apocalypse? Stop talking about leadership, realism, and the new normal, to start.

17 February 2020

How Museums Can Really Have Engaged Employees

Surveys on museum employee engagement are now commonplace. But real engagement comes from accountability, and that starts with respect for all staff.

20 January 2020

The Schrödinger's Career of Working in Museums

Museum workers are calling out the contradictions of their institutions and the field. Are museums—and workers—ready for the changes required?

13 January 2020

The Museum at the End of the World: 2001, An Organizational Culture Odyssey

Let's look at the classic movie 2001: A Space Odyssey—for the meetings.

03 November 2019

The Not-So-Fine Art of Being Wrong in Museums

Changing your mind? Open to opinions? The museum field doesn't seem to value I-don't-know-it-alls.

11 August 2019

The Burnout Dilemma

Is burnout in the museum field something particular to the sector, or just another expression of the rotten Matrix? And which do we tackle first?

28 November 2017

Is MCN now the Museum Change Network?

The Museum Computer Network 2017 conference was heavy on change, leadership, and navigating the org chart. Have we entered a "post-digital" era of "always be changing" in museum technology?

30 October 2017

Can the Museum Workplace Be More Human?

Two intense, long, emotional days at the personal-authenticity-and-development end of the organizational culture spectrum.

04 March 2017

Mindfulness is a Terrible Thing for Museums to Waste

Workplaces are only getting busier. How do museum workers find time to think?

16 January 2017

Keeping Ourselves Real in Our Museum Work

The workplace psychology movement of the week is a call for authenticity. Do museums have a particular office honesty problem?

19 November 2016

Museums in an Age of Despair

If you work in a museum, the title of this post is a no-brainer, but it is also part of the problem.

08 November 2016

Call It The Human League: Museum Computer Network 2016

MCN2016 was a great, positive, uplifting conference, and it happened—and election night doesn't change that. A commitment to real, impactful change was never more important.