Tag: food for thought (Page 6 of 6)

The third Monday of April is recognized in Boston as Patriots Day. On paper, it’s a commemoration of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, one of the major events – perhaps THE major event – during the beginning of the American Revolution. Every year, there’s a large reenactment in Lexington and Concord. Local Minutemen reenactors wake at the time at which their towns were alerted that the regulars were out and march to Battle Green.

Yet, the event that everyone really celebrated today was the Boston Marathon. The news coverage this morning guessed that 500,000 people lined the marathon route. How many of those people knew that the real (on paper anyway) reason that they had the day off was because of the shot heard ’round the world? Why could I spend four hours watching live coverage of the race and during that time didn’t hear a single mention of the reenactment?

Similarly, Evacuation Day has always seemed to most people a thinly veiled excuse to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. How many people even know Evacuation Day exists?

I’m sure there are similar crossovers outside of Boston. Holidays celebrating public history are the result of years of lobbying by public history interest groups. They must have had some expectation or hope that it would raise the profile of the particular event they were commemorating.

How can museums help keep that profile higher? Is there any use to these days if we ignore them or treat them as yet another three day weekend? Are there better ways to commemorate important historic events? Why do we bother creating those holidays at all? How can we keep interpretation of them fresh?

I’m going to make what I think is a fairly safe assumption and call most of you overachievers. Grad school is tough. Museums are tough. People who do both have a lot of passion and a lot of talent. Probably you’re not thrilled about the idea of screwing up.

What if someone gave you a glass of wine and encouraged you to talk about all the projects you tried to push through that just didn’t work? What if you could be in a safe, supportive environment and discuss with other smart people how to learn from your mistakes?

That’s the idea behind FailFaire, which encourages nonprofits to talk about technology projects that went belly-up.

How can you encourage more frank discussion of failure? Even better: how can you encourage more failure? If you’re 100% successful at everything you do, are you daring enough, or are you just that awesome? Do you have to talk about failures in order to learn from them?

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This post is part of our Food for Thought series. To submit Food for Thought questions, or to write a response post to any of our questions, please leave a comment.

Merriam-Webster’s defines inflation as “a continuing rise in the general price level usually attributed to an increase in the volume of money and credit relative to available goods and services.”

We’re most familiar with the concept in an economic context. Each year, a dollar buys less. In times of high inflation, it buys a lot less. A loaf of bread costs more now than it did in 1912. There are all sorts of inflation calculators online to help you figure out just how much more.

Can this concept be applied to museums?

According to the 2010 census, Boston’s population increased 4.8% from 2000. Does this mean that a museum in Boston should have aimed for a 4.8% increase in attendance from 2000 to 2010 just to keep treading water?

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This post is part of our Food for Thought series. To submit Food for Thought questions, or to write a response post to any of our questions, please leave a comment.