“Do Something” explained

Yesterday, I said the third thing for museums to do during a recession is to DO SOMETHING. I wish I could have expanded on this and given some more insight/suggestions. Words failed me in trying to describe that economic changes meant “everything else” changes and that the creative and innovative will shine, or something like like.

I’m glad to see today that Elizabeth Merritt, director of the Center for the Future of Museums and guest blogging at Museum 2.0, has put it far better than I ever could.

“But everything now points to a profound shift in the economic, demographic, political, social and technological environment in which we operate. I think we need to encourage museums to be more opportunistic—try lots of new things with relatively small investment of resources, knowing that most of them will fail and learning from those that succeed. Maybe we need to encourage experimental start-up museums to try entirely new ways of operating, accepting that many of them might close if their approaches don’t work out.”

I strongly suggest reading the whole post. It may be one of the most important blog posts of the year so far.