Open Forum

Hi everyone!

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about how museums manage technology. Not just which tools y'all use, but how those tools relate to each other (or don't). The crossover between spending time here in this generous community, and my daily work, has me a bit obsessed with museum tech. 

Over the past several weeks, with the help of a great team I get to work with, I put together a Museum Technology Ecosystem framework that maps out nine core categories of software most museums are running in some form: CRM, fundraising, marketing and communications, collections management, ticketing and commerce, operations and events, analytics, website, and all-in-one platforms. The goal wasn't to prescribe a stack, but to make visible something that usually lives only in people's heads or in a tangled spreadsheet somewhere.

What I kept coming back to while building it is how rarely these categories are talked about together. So...many...silos. We debate individual platforms constantly, but the bigger question, how does your whole ecosystem function as a system, gets less airtime. Especially when you factor in where AI is heading and how dependent those tools are on having clean, connected data underneath them.

I'm excited to share the framework here: Why Museums Are Drowning in Disconnected Tech

But here's the thing. It doesn't feel "done." I'd genuinely love to turn this into something more than a one-way resource. One thing I've been mulling is a community research project. Basically I want to embark on a survey project asking what tools institutions are actually using across each of these nine categories (or maybe I missed the mark on categories?). Not to rank vendors or declare winners, but to get a real picture of what the field looks like in practice. What's common, what's niche, where the gaps tend to cluster... a real understanding of how to serve the museum professionals community here.

Before I go further down that road, I'd love to know:

• Would something like that be useful to you?
• And if you've already done your own ecosystem mapping, formally or informally, I'm curious what you found.

Thanks! 

Hi Daniel,

I love this subject. I really enjoyed your article and appreciate that you're digging even deeper with the community here.

Could I suggest a tenth tech category for your list? Project management software such as Asana-or in my case, ClickUp. The role itself is starting to become more prevalent in museums. The Oakland Museum of California, for example, has a dedicated department with multiple staff focused on project management, and I'm hoping to add the title to my own job description this year.

The tool has been a revelation for both me and our curatorial department. It provides much greater transparency into what it actually takes to mount an exhibition. Instead of people guessing when their work is due, everyone can see exactly where their contribution fits within the broader sequence of tasks. It also makes the downstream impact of delays much clearer-something that's hard to communicate otherwise.

I could go on, but I'll stop there.

In any case, thank you for exploring the broader role of technology in museums-it's an important conversation.

Best of luck,
Matt

Hi everyone!

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about how museums manage technology. Not just which tools y'all use, but how those tools relate to each other (or don't). The crossover between spending time here in this generous community, and my daily work, has me a bit obsessed with museum tech. 

Over the past several weeks, with the help of a great team I get to work with, I put together a Museum Technology Ecosystem framework that maps out nine core categories of software most museums are running in some form: CRM, fundraising, marketing and communications, collections management, ticketing and commerce, operations and events, analytics, website, and all-in-one platforms. The goal wasn't to prescribe a stack, but to make visible something that usually lives only in people's heads or in a tangled spreadsheet somewhere.

What I kept coming back to while building it is how rarely these categories are talked about together. So...many...silos. We debate individual platforms constantly, but the bigger question, how does your whole ecosystem function as a system, gets less airtime. Especially when you factor in where AI is heading and how dependent those tools are on having clean, connected data underneath them.

I'm excited to share the framework here: Why Museums Are Drowning in Disconnected Tech

But here's the thing. It doesn't feel "done." I'd genuinely love to turn this into something more than a one-way resource. One thing I've been mulling is a community research project. Basically I want to embark on a survey project asking what tools institutions are actually using across each of these nine categories (or maybe I missed the mark on categories?). Not to rank vendors or declare winners, but to get a real picture of what the field looks like in practice. What's common, what's niche, where the gaps tend to cluster... a real understanding of how to serve the museum professionals community here.

Before I go further down that road, I'd love to know:

• Would something like that be useful to you?
• And if you've already done your own ecosystem mapping, formally or informally, I'm curious what you found.

Thanks! 

Hi everyone!

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about how museums manage technology. Not just which tools y'all use, but how those tools relate to each other (or don't). The crossover between spending time here in this generous community, and my daily work, has me a bit obsessed with museum tech. 

Over the past several weeks, with the help of a great team I get to work with, I put together a Museum Technology Ecosystem framework that maps out nine core categories of software most museums are running in some form: CRM, fundraising, marketing and communications, collections management, ticketing and commerce, operations and events, analytics, website, and all-in-one platforms. The goal wasn't to prescribe a stack, but to make visible something that usually lives only in people's heads or in a tangled spreadsheet somewhere.

What I kept coming back to while building it is how rarely these categories are talked about together. So...many...silos. We debate individual platforms constantly, but the bigger question, how does your whole ecosystem function as a system, gets less airtime. Especially when you factor in where AI is heading and how dependent those tools are on having clean, connected data underneath them.

I'm excited to share the framework here: Why Museums Are Drowning in Disconnected Tech

But here's the thing. It doesn't feel "done." I'd genuinely love to turn this into something more than a one-way resource. One thing I've been mulling is a community research project. Basically I want to embark on a survey project asking what tools institutions are actually using across each of these nine categories (or maybe I missed the mark on categories?). Not to rank vendors or declare winners, but to get a real picture of what the field looks like in practice. What's common, what's niche, where the gaps tend to cluster... a real understanding of how to serve the museum professionals community here.

Before I go further down that road, I'd love to know:

• Would something like that be useful to you?
• And if you've already done your own ecosystem mapping, formally or informally, I'm curious what you found.

Thanks! 

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Dan Moyle
Solutions Consultant
Digital Reach Online Solutions
(he/him/his)
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