I am still smiling from my experience at the annual conference last month in Kalamazoo! It was so wonderful to see everyone and get to spend time together (in person!) talking about the important work of museums. I am already looking forward to next year’s conference, which will be in the Greater Lansing area October 13–15. The tentative theme of the conference (we might still wordsmith a tad) is “The Future is Now,” and I wanted to share a little more about that.

As I headed downstate to do site visits to select the location for the 2025 conference, I recalled that at the 2015 conference we asked people what changes the field would see by 2025. During our site visits we saw a lot of manifestation of the innovation in the field that had been developing for the last decade or so. It was a lightbulb moment for me to see how so many things that were “coming” in 2015 have now arrived.

Thinking about that gave me pause to consider not just change, but the pace of change. Yes, the future we envisioned (or never saw coming) in 2015 is here, but so is the future we envisioned yesterday. It feels like the speed of change is accelerating and happening almost before we see it coming. 

Thinking about the idea of the future made me wonder what other conversations we might have around it. I have some thoughts, and I hope you will think about it too and consider being part of the conversation next year.

If you are interested in being part of the 2025 conference, we will have three planning teams (programs, events, and activities) that will meet January through May. We will also invite people to submit proposals for concurrent sessions, conversation stations, and Pecha Kucha-like presentations this coming winter and we expect to have the conference fully planned and open for early-bird registration by summer.

Lisa Craig Brisson
Executive Director