As we enter the second month of 2025 with some anxiety and trepidation about what lies ahead, here are three resources to inspire and encourage you to put people first, prioritize equity, and share the wealth moving forward.

We’re excited to share a thoughtful blog post by Samantha S. Snow, a valued data collector from one of our past projects and a graduate student in Museum Education at Tufts University. In this post, Samantha reflects on her experience and provides a unique perspective on the challenges and rewards of collecting data in museum settings. Her insights offer a behind-the-scenes look at the data collection process and emphasize the critical role it serves in shaping museum research.

In this talk, Cathy Sigmond explores how formative evaluation supports the process of creating audience-centered exhibitions. Cathy covers the ins and outs of formative evaluation for exhibition development, from core principles to strategies for doing formative evaluation in all types of museums. 

This month, we’re reflecting on the importance of cultural context in shaping human experiences. Whether we’re assessing cognitive development, measuring program impact, or designing community spaces, context influences everything—from how we interpret behaviors to how we foster belonging.

About two years ago, my colleague Amanda Krantz wrote about the problematic assumption that museums are inherently “trusted” institutions. I was recently considering how this idea of “trust” connects to other mythology surrounding museums, including the idea that they are the Switzerland of non-profit organizations—“neutral”—an idea that was brought to the forefront in 2017 with the Museums are Not Neutral Campaign created by LaTanya Autry and Mike Murawski. In a 2023 MuseumNext post, the author quotes Murawski as saying “Museums have the potential to be relevant, socially-engaged spaces in our communities. Yet, too often, they strive to remain ‘above’ the political and social issues that affect our lives – embracing a myth of neutrality.”

What does it look like to give in a way that emphasizes inclusive and meaningful relationships rather than traditional, transactional approaches? This month, we share resources that underscore the importance of knowledge sharing, trust-based philanthropy, and repatriation as ways to promote a culture of giving and mutual respect.

Museum educators, does any of this sound familiar?

You care deeply about making a positive difference in museum audiences’ lives, yet...

• You are pulled in many directions by competing needs and agendas

• You have limited resources and capacity

• You need to raise money to fund your programs

• You feel you are having a positive impact but you have no evidence, and 

• You have been told to consider expanding or scaling up your program

If any of these are true of your museum program or department, you probably need a logic model.

Interviewing visitors is a valuable way to gain insight into what they think of your museum, either during or as they finish their visit. Their feedback can also help shape the development of future exhibitions and programs. I’ve had the opportunity to interview many museum visitors onsite at museums, and I personally really love chatting with them. I get to meet a lot of great people and hear so many unique and diverse perspectives. To help out anyone interested in trying out interviews, I would like to share a few tips as a seasoned interviewer!

This month we explore three resources that are focused on expanding perspectives and ensuring that different voices and needs are heard—whether it's women in design, underrepresented groups in Census data, or Gen Z in historical programming.

At the Visitor Studies Association (VSA) conference in July 2024, I co-presented with two museum exhibition practitioners about questioning the status quo of exhibition evaluation practices. We each approached the session with questions and skepticism about traditional summative evaluation for exhibitions. The big question I explored was: Are summative evaluations worth the cost (money and time)?

We have seen a surge in requests for audience research projects over the last couple of years. All types of museums, from science to history to botanic gardens, are asking for studies that can help them understand more about their visitors. And with this flurry of audience research projects, we have been doing a lot of thinking about museums and their audiences.

These three articles explore the evolving role of museums as spaces that go beyond an authoritarian curatorial voice to being community-centered spaces that encourage active meaning making by diverse audiences.

A common mantra of mine is that museums can’t be all things to all people. For a museum to have real impact in the world, it must prioritize the audiences that are most important to it, construct a clear picture of who they are, and allocate resources to support those people.

What’s the difference between the “real thing” and something simulated or superficial, and when does the distinction make a difference? This month, we explore this question by looking at true (versus token) relationship building, an AI-generated (versus living) artist, and dynamic (versus static) maps.

With increasing conversations around artificial intelligence (AI) and how we can use AI tools in our work, I constantly find myself apprehensive of what new waves of AI technology (like generative AI) are offering. Don’t get me wrong though—I’m all for technological advancement and I fully understand that AI is already around us, but I’ve been finding it hard to fully get behind the usage of AI in mainstream fields. Most of my apprehension comes from ethical and justice issues that, in my opinion, organizations and companies are ignoring. My main issues with incorporating AI technology into client work can be summarized into the following categories. 

In my last post, I asked how museums might create meaningful and fulfilling community partnerships and I offered my musings to this question. This month, I return to briefly consider a few activities and techniques geared toward establishing and strengthening community partnerships. Again, as museum staff, how do you “build genuine, reciprocal relationships with your visitors and local organizations? How do you work toward a common goal with your local community?” Below, I explore how using metaphors and walk-and-talk conversations might help those involved in community partnerships (primarily museum staff and community partners) communicate the more intangible aspects of “community” and ground their collaborations in shared understandings.

Intentional action improves personal and organizational practices. Our picks this month highlight using reflection, alignment, and purposeful decision-making to enhance effectiveness and well-being.

Design is always on my mind. It’s no secret to my friends and colleagues that I love using my skills as an evaluator to support designers in creating meaningful experiences for people. I get excited when we work with experience designers to see how visitors make sense of concepts through exploratory front-end evaluation, lead visitors in prototyping sessions to refine exhibits and messages as part of formative evaluations, and measure the impact of visitors’ experiences in multi-method summative evaluations.

The idea that “you can’t be all things to all people” can feel paradoxical. Few people would disagree, but when push comes to shove, it can be hard to fully embrace. Museums, in particular, have a hard time surrendering to this notion because of their desire to be seen as inclusive by providing something for everyone; the need to attract funding, grants, and donations; and an over-reliance on using attendance numbers as markers of success.

I’ve been a fan of collaborative research ever since I learned about it when working on my dissertation on the role of Whiteness in the gallery teaching practices of White art museum educators (like myself). Initially, I was trying to study Whiteness through a traditional approach, where I developed study questions, recruited participants (other White museum educators), designed instruments, and analyzed data on my own. But several months into data collection, my findings just weren’t addressing my questions with the richness that I expected. I finally realized: I need to examine Whiteness by critically examining it in myself.