Why I picked it up: I'm interested in why some people are connected to their community, and others are not so much. Does connection to community correlate with engagement with the broader world? Why might that matter? And how might museums help? I didn't expect this report to answer all of these questions, but instead shed some light from a very reputable source (I love the Pew Research Center, BTW).

What you need to know: Those who engage with their community more are also more likely to consume local news and more likely to vote. Or, in my words, the "do mores do more." The big concern I see coming out of this data, as well as my own and that of other sources, is that only a relatively small percentage of people are truly engaged with their community and/or broader world. Which means a rather big chunk of Americans have little or no external engagement or connection. That has some pretty big societal ramifications.

Implications for museums: This report doesn't mention museums, but based on my data (findings I am in the process of releasing over on The Data Museum), I think it is safe to assume a correlation between a high engagement with community and museum-going. The larger questions, however, are: how can museums help boost citizen engagement with community and the broader world; how may museum methodologies be particularly effective at this; and why does broader engagement matter in the first place?

Read or skip? Skip. It is a high-quality research project and a go-to report. But you get the gist of it from this review. The only exception might be if a museum was seeking a specific collaboration with a local media organization or if a grantwriter needed solid data points for a relevant community proposal (though it still would be of limited use since it does not include museum data).

The Nitty-Gritty (for those interested, my page-by-page commentary):

P. 3 - Starts off with some clear statements, noting that the civically engaged "play a key role in civic life" and are "more likely than the less engaged to use and value local news." Totally makes sense. But civic engagement is more than voting in local elections and consuming local news. What are the other factors of community engagement? How do they contribute? And, ultimately, what gives the civically engaged that outward view of life in the first place? That seems rather important to know (and, admittedly, out of the scope of Pew's report).

P. 5 - Pew characterizes about a third of US adults as more highly engaged in their community through perception or action (or both).  This makes sense to me based on my own data sets as well, but that also means there are a lot of people who are only somewhat or not at all engaged in their community. In my data there is a very strong relationship between high civic engagement and museum-going. Museums are simply more relevant and useful to the engaged citizen.

P. 6 and P. 16 - The data shows that young adults are less civically engaged than older adults, and my data generally agrees. I find a general uptick in engagement begins in the 25 - 34 age band, while Pew notes it in the 30 - 44 band. The question that Pew doesn't raise is why. That is, is this a problem (and the current generation of young adults won't grow into civic engagement), will they transition into civic engagement with age, or did Pew not provide a broad enough range of answer choices in their survey?

I suspect it is a mixture of the second and third factors. Young adulthood is about establishing your life, so it makes sense that civic engagement happens a few years later. But I also strongly suspect Pew wasn't capturing the things young adults are more inclined to do. On p. 16 they note that they tracked "activity in seven different types of civic groups, from sports leagues to church groups to charity organizations, and six political activities." Since the report did not actually list all of those activities, based on this language my hunch is that it doesn't include newer, more informal, forms of engagement. To give one example, in my research I am finding that food is a catalyst for community engagement for a strong segment of young adults. While I can't be sure, I doubt that was on Pew's list.

P. 8 - People's interest in sports news has no correlation with other forms of civic engagement. This is what I expected to see as well (though I was surprised they noted it).

P. 14 - A frustration I felt throughout this report is that they did not distinguish between those who felt connected to their community by virtue of birth (and lifelong residency), and those who had moved in and worked hard to establish roots. While many lifelong residents work hard to keep their roots healthy, I suspect there are quite a few others who feel strongly connected by birth but are, in actually, not that civically engaged. I would have liked to have seen that broken out … especially since they asked the right questions to do so.

P. 21 - Political persuasion has little effect on local news consumption or attitudes. While national news may be rather polarized, local news seems to cross political boundaries.

P. 28 - Republicans are more likely than Democrats or Independents to say they know "all" their neighbors. This makes sense to me. According to my data, moderates and liberals are more likely to have moved away from their childhood hometowns, and that mobility would make knowing "all" your neighbors less likely. Conservatives are more likely to reside in their childhood hometown, and that lifelong residency gives respondents a whole lot more time to know "all" their neighbors.

P. 29 - Pew asked how respondents rated their community, and what leapt out at me was how differently white, non-Hispanics answered than people of color. Whites were 50% more likely to rate their community as "excellent" than people of color (who were, in turn, well over 2x more likely to rate their community as only "fair" or "poor"). That indicates to me some difficult divides based on lived experience. Do museums contribute to this, or can they be catalysts for change? Let's be honest that this is a more difficult question to answer than we would like it to be.

Final thoughts: The report backed up some of my assumptions with data, and had few surprises. The do mores do more. But I want to dig deeper into generational differences (as some of my tweets have indicated) and consider how museums can increase civic engagement among those who are not-so-engaged now.

Full citation: "Civic Engagement Strongly Tied to Local News Habits." Research report published by Pew Research Center. Released November 2016.



Have a suggestion for my reading list?  Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com.

What is it: Forced From Home is a traveling exhibition created by Doctors Without Borders (MSF, for their legal name, Médecins Sans Frontières) to raise awareness about refugees.
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Why I went: I had a lot of questions about this exhibition before I even went with a group of museum friends. Why would a humanitarian organization decide that it was part of their mission to create an exhibition on refugees and tour it around the United States? Is that a good use of their resources? Shouldn't those resources go to help others? Or is there a long-game that they are playing? Do they think that what is, essentially, a museum exhibition, is useful and efficient for continuing their work? If so, how and why?

Quick description of exhibition: I'll be honest. The exhibit itself was solid, but nothing special. A short introductory movie (good), and then several exhibits that essentially took you through a general refugee journey: unexpectedly leaving home; the journey; legal status; refugee camps; medical care at camps; and ending with VR videos. It was logically laid out, and had what my friend Rainey Tisdale referred to as the "material culture" of refugees: refugee tents, a latrine, water jugs, etc.  Most powerfully, they had a small raft that many in our group "boarded;" we then learned that typically 40 refugees would cram onto a raft of that size … for a week. Gulp.

But the exhibition, except for the raft, was very generic. It was not the story of Syrian refugees, or Honduran, but instead a generic stage set. This was likely by design, because you cannot visit the exhibition on your own. An MSF fieldworker provides a guided tour of the exhibition. This makes the exhibition personal through that fieldworker's own experiences and stories, which can happen anywhere in the world.

MSF's big goal - empowered empathy: For the exhibition to work, that fieldworker/guide is key. Our guide told his stories, putting a human face on what we read about in the media. He wielded the ability to make it emotional. He bore witness, which is, to my surprise, part of the MSF charter: 

"We may seek to bring attention to extreme need and unacceptable suffering when access to lifesaving medical care is hindered, when medical facilities come under threat, when crises are neglected, or when the provision of aid is inadequate or abused."

If I had to boil down the exhibition's goal to just a few words, I would say "empowered empathy." Let's pick apart why that is, and why I think they only succeeded at meeting half the goal.

Empathy.  As our guide said, "no one ever wakes up and says they want to become a refugee." It is forced on them. It is a trauma inflicted on them. The guides tell specific, personal stories so we can connect to refugees as people, not statistics. That's why the drowning of three-year-old Alan Kurdi last summer viscerally hit so many of us. Or why the impassive face of five-year-old Omran Daqneesh in Syria was so searing and shocking for us. By bearing witness with their own stories, the guides put a human face on the millions of refugees around the world, and we feel empathy and compassion. That is a mission as worthy as caring for those in need, because without bearing witness, how would the rest of the world know enough to understand or care? 
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Note, however, that the guide is what made engendering empathy possible. The material culture of refugees that was shared in the exhibition only served to support what was said. Normally, I am opposed to guided tours as a forced march, but this was different. I struggled with why until Rainey observed that "… he was a different kind of docent … chosen based on the life stories and deep knowledge [he] can share, not whether [he was] available to volunteer regularly …" Rainey raised a good point. While a guide at a museum may be committed, and genuinely care about what they are sharing, the interpretation generally doesn't come from lived life experience. They are one or more degrees removed from the content. Not the case for our guide at the MSF exhibition. It was real. 

That realness also made another friend, Matt Kirchman of ObjectIDEA, reflect on what it  means to financially support MSF. He shared that if he were to do so, "I’m helping people help people. The exhibit experience does not emphasize the largeness of the agency, rather, the close and personal attention of the people in the field." Or, rather, compassion translated to action.
  
Empowered. Clearly, by bearing witness, MSF wants us to do something about it … to empower us. But here I felt they fell short. I came out feeling far more knowledgeable about the refugee crisis, but did not feel I had gained new information to do anything about it. I wanted them to be more proactive and forceful. To specifically tell us how we could help. Not necessarily a strict fundraising ploy, but specific ways to educate ourselves further, advocate for and support refugees, and yes, give financially. Instead, the experience ended rather abruptly, and fell short in helping us, as participants, follow through with action. (Though to be fair, I am already a donor to MSF, so I didn't stop at their donation table at the end. Yet I wonder how many people did stop.)

So what does MSF get out of this? Bearing witness is part of their charter, but that is only meaningful if creates change. Does this exhibit do that? That is not so clear. In Boston, the primary audience seemed to be groups of students from area high schools. Short-term, the outcomes are likely to not be meaningful for that audience base.  

If the long-game is their goal, however, I suspect it may reach enough youth to effect some change in perspective in enough of them to matter. If I were running the exhibition, I'd do something to capture visitor contact information (no, they didn't even do that for any kind of follow-up). Then I'd reach out to all visitors (students and other adult visitors) a year from now and ask about the experience. True, not many would respond, but enough would to capture the exhibition's capacity to change people. Or to find out that if this isn't the most effective way of reaching people after all.

Politics: An exhibition on refugees could have easily gone political. Especially given events in Mosul over the past week and the bulldozing of "the Jungle" in Calais. It is a hot, political topic globally. Yet MSF managed to avoid politics completely. Instead, it was about witnessing and presenting a human story. In some ways, despite emotional content being presented, it was presented neutrally. That is an impressive feat, and one that museums could model instead of their general tendency to avoid these topics altogether.

Should you go? Yes, absolutely. It is in Pittsburgh now, and headed to Philadelphia soon. MSF plans to take a few months off and start up again on the West Coast (so they told me). When they reach Seattle, I plan to volunteer so I can learn more about how people actually responded to the exhibition … and because I support MSF.

Have a suggestion for my reading list?  Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com.  (Note: I don't intend to regularly review exhibitions; this was an exception because of how this exhibition originated.)

Why I picked it up: Early this week I came across the annual impact report of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (WCIJ). Annual reports are common. They share financial statements and perhaps a few accomplishments of the year (not the same thing as impact). This is different.

This is an annual impact report. Real impact. With evidence. I loved it, and immediately started picking apart its purpose and considering why it would be a good idea to emulate. (WCIJ is the impact report I came across doing other research; others exist but they are few and far between.)

What you need to know: As philanthropy continues to shift towards a higher expectation of impact, organizations that cannot clearly articulate and provide evidence of impact will not be sustainable.

This report pulls together why an organization matters into one tidy document. Why WCIJ matters. And why WCIJ is deserving of philanthropic gifts over other organizations that may simply not be as effective. If I was an executive director/CEO or development director, having this at my fingertips with a major donor would be gold.  I suspect it is also a fantastic tool for staff morale, retention, and recruitment, as it allows them to point to a clear document of why their work matters.

Implications for museums: In a world where there is so much strife and trouble, museums are in the long-game of improving our communities and world, one visitor at a time. Through our own distinctive medium. If we don't champion that, we have no pro-social or educative purpose (and do we deserve that charitable status then)? 

But few people make the connection between museums and changing lives (Michael Bloomberg excepted). Thus, we need to articulate and provide evidence of impact, which is why this example of an impact report is so compelling. It forces us to make our case, clearly and concisely … and then back it up. It also exposes the holes in our arguments, which we can acknowledge and then commit to studying and understanding. And for donors and funders, it enables the long-term connection between meaningful experiences with art, history, and science, and a better community and society. To thrive in the future, we need that too.

Frankly, if your organization cannot put a compelling impact report together, it indicates to me that impact probably doesn't really matter to you. And if a lack of resources to track impact is the issue, maybe putting together this report, acknowledging the gaps in evidence, and instead positioning impact as hypotheses, will help secure resources to track that evidence. After all, with evidence you will know for sure what is working (and what isn't).

Read or skip?  Read. It is seven pages. Read it and emulate!

Page-by-page commentary, and how I would adapt for a museum (for those who want the details):

Who We Are (p. 2)

Starts off with a short description of the organization and what they do. They did this concisely and effectively by hitting four main things:

1. Sharing their deep social purpose and why what they do matters 
2. Provides their "guiding values," which are three definite things that do matter
3. Brief description of their reach (with data backing it up)
4. How they operate

For museums: For a museum, I'd start off by not assuming it matters, but taking time to articulate why. Why does the history of this community matter? Or why does art matter? Play matter? Once I had prepared my answer, I would then ask again "why does that matter?" And how does that mattering make a difference to individuals and communities? 

For example, a local history organization might first say that it matters because it helps people understand their community. OK. Why is understanding their community important? Answer that in the report, and place history as a key tool for getting there. 

Can you boil down your guiding values to three definitive things you do that do matter? It won't be things like share (insert art/science/history), but things like expand knowledge. Cultivate compassion. Increase understanding. You get the idea.

Then, your reach. If you reach a traditional museum audience (and I'll be blunt here) of affluent, well-educated, white folks, well, that's not going to cut it. Glad you help them (everyone deserves museums!), but you probably don't need my support. But if you tell me how you are expanding your audience, and acknowledge you have to do better (and talk about how later in the report), you'll keep my interest. 

And yes, I want to know how you do this. But keep it short here. 

Highlights (p. 3)

For WCIJ, they created 8 blurbs that tell us in more detail what they do:

1. Big stories they broke
2. New ways they shared their stories (aside - one was a traveling exhibition!)
3. Awards they received
4. The great people who work for them
5. How they fill a service gap/need in Wisconsin
6. Training the journalists of tomorrow
7. Organizational sustainability (i.e., fundraising)
8. Why they matter to the journalism field

To be honest, I felt like this was too many, and it was a wordy page. Five would have worked better. That being said, it did give me a strong sense of what this organization tries to do based on what they have done in the past year. To be clear, however, that's not the same thing as impact. 

For museums: Taking it down to five things, for a museum I would probably share:

1. Big projects inside my museum building (e.g., exhibitions, programs)
2. Community partnerships and initiatives outside of my museum's four walls
3. People who make my museum great (e.g., staff, volunteers)
4. How my museum fills a service gap/need in my community
5. Big-picture comment on how my museum, along with other museums and informal learning organizations, help individuals

Major Investigations (p. 4)

WCIJ broke some major stories in Wisconsin. This shares six via a picture for each and a one-sentence description. Yes, that concise.

For museums: This is where you get specific show off the great stuff you did. 

Impact (p. 5)

The most important page of this report. I want to frame it and hang it on my office wall. How their stories really mattered to Wisconsin citizens. And I am impressed by how many they are! 

For museums: This is going to be the hardest page of writing your own version of this report. To be truly effective, you have to understand, and share, evidence that what you are doing matters over the long-term. And link it back to your exhibitions and programs. Pieces of this evidence could (and should) come from high-quality evaluation of specific exhibitions and programs, but that typically doesn't convey why the museum methodology is better than alternatives, or longer-term effects. There also needs to be high-quality community research to track long-term impact trends and provide community context. You need both. 

Put them together, though, and this one page could clearly make the case of why your museum matters. To individuals and to a community. It won't make the financial support come in by its mere existence, but man would it make raising money a whole lot easier.

Audience Matters (p. 6)

For WCIJ, putting their operations into numbers. How many investigations, how many news outlets picked up their stories, how many readers. It conveys depth and reach.

For museums: This could start with attendance numbers, of course, but I would go further to use data to track how the audience is (ideally) shifting over time in ways to better reflect the community, broadening and deepening engagement. How you show who you matter to. 

Investigative Reporting + Art  (p. 7)

WCIJ mounted what is, essentially, an art exhibition on water quality and traveled it through Wisconsin. Basically a deeper look at one of their initiatives and how it furthered their work. What I find most fascinating, however, is that they chose a museum methodology to do this. 

For museums: This could be a page that also takes a closer look at one major initiative that really mattered (and why).

Financial Information (p. 8)

This is fascinating. It is not the annual report of the organization, with balance sheet, etc. It gives the operating budget, and plainly states that they have a goal of doubling it. And then shares two paragraphs about funding and how it does not affect editorial decisions. It does list some of their largest donors, but keeps it short. The point here is that this isn't the financial nitty-gritty, but instead an acknowledgement of the budget they have to deliver the impact they share. And it is an articulation that the impact is only possible if those donors cannot influence their day-to-day work.

For museums: Go and do likewise. Your normal annual report can (and should) still exist, but the two main outcomes here are different and crucial. Share what your budget is so readers know the resources you have to deliver the impact you have. If the numbers are not in alignment, discuss how that will change. That is, if you have a relatively large budget and little impact to show, talk about how you will focus those resources to deliver more impact. And if you are doing amazing things on a teeny tiny budget, be proud and demonstrate how more resources could extend that impact even further. Additionally given some of the controversy around museum trustees whose political positions are in conflict with either the historical or scientific record, it probably isn't a bad idea to also state that donors cannot influence the scholarship at museums (especially if it is true; please be true).

My final response: Museums are in the long-term impact game. But if we cannot provide evidence of that impact, we are seen at nice but not necessary. Or even fluff. That cuts me to the quick since I know museums have the capacity to change lives (they did mine, after all!). 

One thing missing from this report, however, is a failure statement. I'd love to see that included as well. Whether it is a long-standing exhibition or program that simply isn't effective (and you axed) or a new initiative that didn't live up to your expectations, share failures. It tells me you are willing to try new things and to make the appropriate decisions to focus your efforts on what does work. It also tells me that you learn from failure. No one expects you to be perfect.

Finally, I believe in this impact report so much that if you send a draft impact report for your museum to me, I'll be happy to privately comment on it. So do it! (I'm thinking about how I could develop one for my practice.)

Full citation:  Report to Stakeholders.  Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. July 2016.

Have a suggestion for my reading list?  Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com.

Why I picked it up: Design thinking is big. Bill Burnett and Dave Evans from Stanford are two of the most notable gurus of design thinking. Even though this book is written through the lens of designing your life, I thought it might serve as a good primer for design thinking in general. 

What you need to know: To think like a designer, you need to internalize five mind-sets (pp. xxvi - xxvii):

1 - Be curious. See opportunities everywhere. "Get good at getting lucky." I would add to that the willingness to absorb a lot of disparate things and then work to make unusual connections. That's not luck. That's curiosity, thinking, and work. It just appears like luck to those who are not willing to put in that time and effort.

2 - Try stuff. Take risks, try different things. Prototype, fail, and try again. I would add to this perseverance.

3 - Reframe problems. Approach from many different angles. Don't anchor on one solution. It may not work. If you have ever heard me say "let's step back," that's me reframing a problem.

4 - Know it is a process. Toss out initial ideas or hypotheses if they are bad … or even simply not good enough.

5 - Ask for help. Participate in what they call "radical collaboration" so you get new advice, new ideas. I think this also helps tremendously with #3, reframe problems. 

The mindset they don't include, though they hammer it home in the conclusion of the book, is that design thinking never ends. Ever. That's a pretty big one to come around to as well. Every project, program, exhibition, is part of a larger endeavor that never ends. We should know this. Museums are in the forever business after all, right?  Yet we forget it all the time.

Implications for museums:  Although this book focused on how to design your life, I found it more useful to think about how a savvy executive director/CEO could apply design thinking to the life of a museum. That is a rather smart, long-term, yet extraordinarily nimble perspective, and one that would likely do much to create deeper impact in a community and with audiences. 

Read or skip?  It depends on what you need.

• A solid introduction to design thinking. Read the introduction. It does this very well.
• To use design thinking personally, in your own life. Absolutely pick it up. It has some self-help book characteristics that I personally am not a fan of, but the core of their advice is worthwhile.
• To use design thinking to strategically rethink your museum. Ah, now this is interesting. I would love to see these guys rewrite this book as "Design Thinking Your Organization." But until then … if you are good at mental leaps, yes, read it and consider how to apply this to an organization, not just a person. Heck, maybe I'll just write that article someday. Doesn't need to be a book.

My final response: I love design thinking, probably because it is how I operate already. What I appreciated about this book is that it has me thinking more deliberately about how I could develop ways to lead the senior leadership at a museum through a design-thinking process to plan their future. This isn't strategic planning (though it is both strategic and planning), but instead an exercise to open up paths of inquiry for research … which could all feed into a more effective strategic planning process.

The Nitty-Gritty (for those interested):

Introduction. 

Design starts with a problem for which there is no one best solution. Because there is not necessarily a clear goal, or existing data to inform a decision, it requires new thinking to create a solution. How that problem is framed is crucial. To effectively design a solution start with empathy, and use empathy to reframe the problem from the perspective of those affected by it. 

My response. That's why design thinking works well for human conditions. Emotion is involved, and humans are rarely that predictable. So of course empathy is the right place to start!  If you want your museum to matter to your audience, to your community, you have to take the viewpoint of your audience and members of your community. What matters to them? What problems do they need  solving? For a visitor, the problem they need solved is unlikely to be the science of bubbles, or class issues in 17th-century English portraiture. It is wanting to have well-rounded children, or to have an enjoyable outing with a loved one. It may even be wanting a powerfully human experience that puts what it means to be human in this world in perspective (though almost no one will be able to articulate that!). As museum professionals, if we can start with this empathy for our visitor, we'll be far more effective in what we do, and our museums will likely matter more. So yes. Love this (but then, when it comes to me, they were preaching to the choir here.)

"To speak authoritatively, you need data." (p. xxii)

My response. Amen.

Emphatic about enforcing risk, as it is less risky than the status quo (I think Seth Godin was the first to say that). And that the "... best results come from radical collaboration ... the principle that people with very different backgrounds will bring their idiosyncratic technical and human experiences to the team. This increases the chance that the team will have empathy for those who will use what they are designing, and that the collision of different backgrounds will generate truly unique solutions." (p. xxiv)

My response.  This makes the case for museums of different types to work together. (I know from experience that history museum people think completely differently than children's museum people … and that they have much they can learn from each other.) But it also makes the case for museums to work with completely different organizations to solve community and societal needs. Go bold! Take risks! 

They say a couple of times that designers build their way forward, not think (italics theirs). 

My response. This I don't agree with. It takes both. If you are not thoughtful about what you are building, you are going to waste a lot of time and resources.

Goes on to discuss the five mind-sets, which I covered in "what you need to know." 

The individual chapters of this book are the steps and framework for reinventing your life.  I don't feel it is necessary to recap it here. 

Full citation: Burnett, Bill, and Evans, Dave.  Designing Your Life: How To Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016.


Have a suggestion for my reading list?  Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com.

Why I picked it up: Hispanics and Latinos are the second-fastest growing minority group in America (after Asian Americans), and the largest, and youngest, minority group. If museums are going to thrive in the future, they have to adapt to meet the needs of a broader swath of Americans; Hispanics and Latinos have historically been underserved by museums.

Best thing in report: A chart showing how how different racial and ethnic populations follow news topics. (See below.)

Two findings in this chart particularly fascinate me:

1 - That whites are far more interested in local town or city news than African Americans or Hispanics. It makes me wonder if there are barriers to connecting with a local community that African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to feel. And if so, what can we do about it? Lots of questions here.

2 - That Hispanics are more interested in science and technology than whites, with African Americans significantly less interested. That seems like a great opportunity for museums to tap into (as well as work to be done).

Why I picked it up: Young adults are foodies.  A number of studies have indicated that, compared to older Americans, they are more likely to self-identify as a foodie (Ypulse) and they also spend more on eating out, despite having relatively lower incomes (Restaurant Marketing Labs). True, foodie-ism seems to be increasingly more prevalent across generations, but is there something specific about this generation of young adults that make them even more prone to it? If so, is this an opportunity for museums as they seek to engage young adults (and teens)? 


The gist of it: Overall thesis is that yes, young adults are food obsessed.  Suggests that a main reason is that food is a very analog, multi-sensory experience and an antidote to their screen-based lives:

• "…this generation is, without doubt, lacking in sensory stimulation, and we're finding a remedy in food." - Kindle location 638

The book is very much written from the perspective of a well-educated Millennial, so while the assumptions made may hold for those with the financial resources to support "foodie-ism," they seem unlikely for those of lower socio-economic status.  Goes on to explore Millennial farmers, etc. 


Implications for museums:  Two overall thoughts.

1. Data does seem to bear out that young adults are more likely to be foodies than older adults, especially among the well-educated.  Thus, high-quality and interesting food programs and events, held on-site or at an interesting location, likely would do well.  Especially if you make an excellent tie-in with your mission.  See the Interpreting Food Facebook page for ideas.
2. If the second part of her thesis is true, that food is a rich, multi-sensory, and analog antidote for the virtual lives of young adults, then museums may be in an interesting position to build on the very multi-sensory experiences we already provide.  How can we use high-quality, interesting foods to further enrich the object-based, tactile experiences museums are capable of?

Read or skip?  Skip.  While I think the overall thesis about  young adults being more food-obsessed than older adults is generally true, this book is lacking substance.  Sources were scarce for the data she shared; a definite concern, especially when she states things like nearly 60% of young adults grew up in upper-middle-class or wealthy families.  How is that possible?  This makes me also question the direct line she draws between virtual lives and food as analog antidote.  It is a good hypothesis, but not proven.


Two additional tidbits:

1. Food is the new art for presenting oneself as educated and sophisticated, per a William Deresiewicz op-ed:  "Nobody cares if you know about Mozart or Leonardo anymore, but you had better be able to discuss the difference between ganache and couverture." - Kindle location 820

1. Outdoor history museums and historic sites may be sitting on a gold mine: "…the farm wedding may be hipster chic - Mason jars, mismatched China and burlap runners …" - Kindle location 2185

Full citation:  Turow, Eve.  A Taste of Generation Yum.  (Amazon ebook)


Have a suggestion for my reading list?  Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com.

Why I picked it up:  Demographics is destiny, right?  Well, not necessarily.  But understanding how the population is shifting is rather important to long-term planning in museums. Additionally, this book is grounded in research by the Pew Research Center, one of my most trusted sources on major societal shifts in America.

What you need to know:  Our population is aging rapidly, and as more people live longer, shifts in resources that already disproportionately help seniors (possibly at the expense of children) will only be exacerbated.  If we want our society to thrive long-term, we need to think long and hard about this resource allocation. Additionally, Americans are sorting themselves in ways that align with political persuasion. 

Implications for museums: 

1. Aging population.  With a rapidly aging population, there may be opportunities to reach more seniors in meaningful ways, providing cognitive and social stimulation that promotes healthy aging (and are cost-effective in the long-term to society).  Larger museums may want to add an educator that specializes in senior learning and engagement, while smaller ones will certainly want to stay on top of research that helps them with this audience as well.  On the flip side, however, if museums cannot position themselves as vital to senior health, sources of funding may disappear as resources are reallocated. 
2. Childhood shifts.  Poverty is disproportionately affecting families with young children, and children in the US have a harder time achieving economic stability than in other developed nations.  Consider how museums and other informal learning organizations can serve these children more effectively, particularly out of the classroom. 
3. Societal sorting, aka "The Big Sort".  The self-sorting we do as a society, even if not intentional, likely isn't the best thing for our country or our communities. What are the places in a community that truly bring people together to trade ideas?  Can museums, and libraries, be places of cohesion?  Is that our mission?  Why or why not?  More questions than answers for this one.

Read or skip?  Skip.  If you really need hard, national data to back a project you are working on go straight to the Pew Research Center's excellent website or the ultimate source, the US Census Bureau (though they field different, yet complementary, research). 


Running synopsis (for those who want the real meat):

Chapter 1 - Political Tribes

Overall thesis that Americans are "sorting themselves - by ideology, age, race, ethnicity, wealth, gender, education, religion, immigrant status, neighborhood - into silos that align with their [political] party affiliation" (p. 2).  Through Pew Research Center's questions, they can place respondents on a liberal-to-conservative continuum and then look for differences in societal perceptions, etc.  States that conservatives value "teaching children religious values and obedience, while liberals are more inclined to stress tolerance, empathy, creativity, and curiosity."  On some of these factors, the difference between "consistent liberals" and "consistent conservatives" is enormous.  But individuals of all political persuasions tend to value responsibility, independence, hard work, and good manners (p. 9).  Concludes that conservatives are slightly more siloed than liberals, and that people seek out places to live that generally align with their political ideology.

My response:  Interesting.  Are there people who actively choose to not silo themselves?  Who are they?  And do they actually take action, or are they really just as siloed as everyone else? Is anyone willing to admit that the silos are OK?  (Not that they are, just curious who might think they are good.) 

With the huge differences in opinion on some of the values they tested, does that affect museum visitation?  Are there differences in perceptions of museums, and visitation rates, based on political persuasion?  If yes, does it matter? If not, how interesting.  And should we find out?  I have mixed feelings about fielding this work because it could be incredibly useful, but it could also be incendiary given the polarity of our political climate. 


Chapter 2 - Demographic Destinies

Three facts jumped out at me from this chapter.
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1. "A teenager has less chance of being raised by both biological parents in America than anywhere else in the world" (p. 34). 
2. The market for adult diapers in Japan exceeds that for baby diapers (pp. 35 - 37).
3. Children in Canada and Europe are statistically more likely to reach upper socio-economic status (SES) than children in the US (p. 39).

My response:  I have nothing to say on the teenagers thing except I am shocked.  That is just stunning. 

As the US population ages, how will we deal with the significant shifts in resources?  The population of seniors will likely exceed that of children in just over 20 years. Will museums begin to have specialists in senior learning who work alongside school program educators?  And how can museums help promote healthy aging, especially cognitively?

Finally, what can museums (and other informal learning organizations) do to help children from lower SES households achieve more?  I bet a lot. 


Chapter 5 - Battle of the Ages?

As our population ages, and entitlement programs have changed, we have become a country that supports seniors, but possibly at the expense of children.  Programs like Social Security and Medicare have done much to provide a stable quality-of-life baseline for seniors (and seniors were the cohort least affected by the Great Recession), but has that been at the expense of children?  Currently, "the federal government now spends about $6 per capita on programs for seniors for every $1 it spends per capita on programs for children" (p. 79) and young adults with children are the poorest age cohort in America. 

My response: Given that children do outnumber seniors by quite a bit now (23% of population vs. 15%, though this is changing quickly), the disparity is rather significant.  Even taking into account that senior healthcare costs are more than children's educational costs. What will this mean, long-term, for children? For society?  (Also, see my comments from chapter 2; this book was a bit repetitive!)


Chapter 9 - Whither Marriage?

Discussed in fair detail decreasing marriage rates, especially among those with less education, with marriage now perceived as a capstone, not as part of a one's path to adult stability.  That is, one is not "marriageable" until one has economic prospects.  Thus, those with more education are marrying at higher rates than those with less education.  And since marriage in and of itself tends to support greater economic stability and prosperity, it is a bit like a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Meanwhile, single motherhood has increased as marriage rates decrease.

Shifts in parenting philosophies are also discussed.  Generation X parents have gained a reputation for being engaged parents who are a bit prone to helicopter behavior.  Yet they may be outpaced by Millennials:  52% of Millennials say being a good parent is "one of the most important things in life" compared with only 42% of Generation Xers when they were the same age (p. 146). 

Finally, a warning sign for economic and social vulnerability among Baby Boomers as they age: one in three are single (p. 152).

My response:  If leading indicators are that Millennials are going to be even more engaged parents, what does that mean for museums that primarily serve children and their caregivers?  Can children's museums give us a preview? 


Chapter 10 - Nones on the Rise

Generally, a discussion of how the US population is gradually growing less religious, with younger adults in particular less likely to have any religious affiliation.  But two things jumped out from this chapter:
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1. "Numerous studies indicate that people tend to report going to church more often than they really do" (p. 164).
2. "Americans do not generally become more affiliated [with] religion as they move through the life cycle from young adulthood to middle age and retirement.  Rather, the percentage of people in each generation who are religiously affiliated has remained stable, or decreased slightly, as that generation has aged" (p. 166).

My response:  So let's pick these two things apart. 

First, over-reporting.  In a survey, people often like to present a "face" that is more positive than reality.  It isn't necessarily intentional, but trying to present well, even to anonymous survey analysts.  Thus, this finding that people over-report going to church.  My hunch?  People over-report their museum visitation too.  Actual results should thus always be either taken with a grain of salt or adjusted to compensate for this (and that adjustment should be duly noted).

Second, the fallacy that as people grow older they will "return" or "grow into" something.  Cultural organizations that primarily serve older audiences may count on this too much, assuming (for example) that the Boomers will flock to their offerings once they retire.  Well, some Boomers are 70 now and have these organizations begun to see audience growth?  Most have not.  If the groundwork isn't laid early and often, why should those audiences miraculously appear? 


Chapter 13 - Empty Cradle, Gray World

The world's population is aging, and while Japan may be at one extreme, and the US on that pathway, this is a worldwide issue.  According to UN estimates, the worldwide population of children under 15 will only grow by 10% by midcentury … but the global population of seniors (65+) will nearly triple (p. 211).  What kind of resource allocation will be necessary with that shift?  And have elected officials, here and abroad, put off the "day of reckoning" that this generational inequity has created, with programs for the young being neglected in order to continue the current social safety net for ever-more seniors? 

My response: Fascinating to see the global numbers. But does this have to be an either/or?  How can we make it a both/and?  If it is an either/or, the ramifications for neglecting the young may be devastating.



My final response:  The book was rather heavy overall on the generational shifts, especially aging and discussions of resource allocation.  Makes it a fascinating read, with lots of numbers to back up the case … but it also was a challenging read because it was repetitive and unwieldy.  Not for the faint-of-data-heart. 


Full citation:  

Taylor, Paul.  The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Showdown. New York: Public Affairs, 2015.



Have a suggestion for my reading list?  Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com.

I read. Voraciously.  And I read a variety of things to keep abreast of societal trends and changes that may matter to museums and cultural institutions. 

Some of what I read is fantastic.

A lot is pretty useless.

Regardless of the quality, I'll cover it here, because sometimes knowing what not to read is just as important as what to read. That's part of the Knowledge Curation™ I provide.

For each post I'll share anything interesting, pick apart methodology or logic, and discuss implications for museums. I'll cover books, articles, and reports I finish … and ones I don't.

What you need to know about each review will be right at the top, and for those who really want to get into the weeds a "running synopsis" will cover the details.  You can then quickly decide what merits your attention (and how deeply) and what really doesn't matter to you and your museum.

All of this is with the primary goal of giving you what you need to know from each book, article, or report, so you can make more informed decisions in your work.

Let's get reading ... critically.  


Have a suggestion for my reading list?  Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com.