Q&A Series
Since 2017, I’ve interviewed museum leaders, thinkers, and creatives from around the world, exploring the ideas, issues, and changes shaping museums and culture today.
The series started on LinkedIn and now continues through the American Alliance of Museums. I’m thankful to everyone who reads, shares, and joins the conversation — your curiosity keeps it going.
Featured Q&A
The Promise and Peril of AI: A Q&A with Marion Carré
In this Q&A, I speak with Marion Carré, CEO and cofounder of Ask Mona, about her new book The Moving Walkway Paradox: Resisting Intellectual Laziness in the Age of AI.
We explore how cultural organizations and individuals can navigate the tension between innovation and automation — deciding whether to move actively on the “treadmill” of AI or passively along the “walkway.”
Our conversation touches on the implications for jobs, training, and policy, and what it means to stay intellectually engaged in a rapidly changing digital world.
Spare Change 2026 Q&A
What do a public library and a regional newspaper have in common? A Q&A with Eli Neiburger, Director of Ann Arbor District Library.
All too often, the news focuses on organizations shutting down—museums, cultural groups, and newspapers closing their doors. But what if, instead, the story was about these organizations starting a new chapter? Their second story is that a new organization joins an existing one to keep serving the community with the same services and offerings.
That’s the story happening, or in progress now, in Ann Arbor, where the public library is exploring new territory. It’s no longer just a content provider but also a content creator, in the process of becoming the new home for a beloved local newspaper. It’s an unusual idea, but also a revealing one. What happens when a trusted public institution steps in to help sustain another community resource?
While this story starts with a library and a newspaper, the questions it raises extend well beyond the library world. Museums and other cultural organizations might one day find themselves in similar situations, supporting, stewarding, or helping to stabilize institutions that serve their communities.
To gain a clearer picture of how this effort is unfolding and what it could mean for the future of civic institutions, I spoke with Ann Arbor District Library Director Eli Neiburger.
What Does It Mean to Truly Experience an Art Museum? A Q&A with Johan Idema
Back in 2017, at the MuseumNext conference in Rotterdam, I met Johan Idema, and we discussed
his book, How to Visit an Art Museum.
The book focuses less on what museums display and more on how we interact with them. When I saw that an updated edition had been released, I didn’t hesitate. I wanted to catch up, revisit the ideas, and see what’s different now, especially as museums continue to adapt to a changing world.
2026
2025
- Exploring Jason Polan’s Art Through the Mail: My Q&A with Jason Fulford
- Catching up with András Szántó on his third book of Q&As
- The Promise and Peril of AI: A Q&A with Marion Carré
- The Four-Day Workweek: A Q&A with Taft Museum of Art CEO Becky Beaulieu
- Museums for Midlife: A Q&A with Chip Conley
- The Path to Director: A Q&A with Jay Xu of Asian Art Museum
- Innovations in Relevance: A Q&A with Stephen Reily of Remuseum
2024
- Following the Attendance Numbers: A Q&A with Angie Judge
- Peering into Percentages: A Q&A with Susie Wilkening
- Getting Civic with Gen Z: A Q&A with Caroline Klibanoff of Made By Us
- Catching the Data Bug: A Q&A with Colleen Dilenschneider
- The Greater Good: A Q&A with Author Sandy Skees on Purpose
- Museum as Living Room: A Q&A with Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts’ Victoria Ramirez
- How Book Bans Might Impact Museums: A Q&A with PEN America’s Jonathan Friedman
- Speaking the Audience’s Language: A Q&A with James Heaton
- Define Museum: A Q&A with the Museum Glossary Project Team
- Neurodivergent Needs: A Q&A with ADDitude Magazine
2023
- Sealed with a Kiss: A Q&A on Gallery Belvedere’s Multimillion-Dollar NFT
- Lessons in Co-Locating: A Q&A with the Denver Public Library and Denver Zine Library
- Museums as Disaster Responders: A Q&A with Former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate
- A History of Museum Resilience: Q&A with Author Samuel Redman
- Taking a Stand: A Q&A with Micah Parzen, CEO of the Museum of Us
- What Does a Curator of Sustainability Do? A Q&A with Chris Hobbs
- The Museum System Upgrade: A Q&A with András Szántó
2022
- Q&A with Vincent Francisco, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Community Health and Development, on what a community is.
- Q&A with Melissa Russo on the San Bernardino County Museum’s Covid-19 Community-Based Response
- Q&A with Dennis Markatos-Soriano, executive director of the East Coast Greenway
- Q&A with Nick Gray, Museum Hack founder & author of the newly published 2-hour Cocktail Party
- Q&A with John Marks, Director of Public History Research Lab at the American Association for State and Local History
- Q&A with author and marketing expert Seth Godin & his latest project, the Carbon Almanac
- Q&A with Ken Harman Hashimoto, Guest Curator, Art of the Skateboard Exhibition, Fort Wayne Museum of Art
- Q&A with Katrina Latka, Curator of Education and Interpretation at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, NM
- Q&A with Dr. Bill Hettler, MD, the father of American wellness
- Q&A with Joanne Tiongson Perez, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Penn Museum
- Future-focused Q&A with Elizabeth Merritt, VP Strategic Foresight, & Founding Director Center for the Future of Museums at AAM
- Q&A with James G. Leventhal, Executive Director at the Institute of Contemporary Art San José
- Q&A with curator Caleb Neelon on his work with picture book artist Ed Emberley
- Q&A with Soren Brothers, Curator of Climate Change at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto
2021
- Q&A with Dr. Tim Sharp, Australia’s Happiness Doctor
- Q&A with Jason Porter on his new book “Museum Education for Today’s Audiences.”
2019
- Q&A with Tim Hallman, Director of Communications and Business Development at the Asian Art Museum
- Q&A with Ben Garcia, former Deputy Director at the San Diego Museum of Man
- Q&A with Elizabeth Pierce, President and CEO of the Cincinnati Museum Center
- Q&A with Emily Quist, Director of Visitor Engagement at SFMOMA
- Q&A with Chris Taylor, inclusion and diversity officer for the state of Minnesota
- Q&A with Karleen Gardner, director of learning and innovation at The Minneapolis Institute of the Arts
- Q&A with Chase Rynd, Executive Director of The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
2018
- Q&A with Donna McColm, Associate Director of Audience Engagement and Learning, National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia
- Q&A with Molly Wilson, experience designer and professor of human-centered design and innovation at the HPI School of Design Thinking in Berlin
- Q&A with Alex Capriotti, deputy director of The Main Museum in Los Angeles
- Q&A with Allison Agsten, director of The Main Museum in Los Angeles
- Q&A with Conxa Rodà, Head of Strategy, Innovation and Digital Transformation at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya
- Q&A with Marilyn Johnson, author of “This Book is Overdue”
- Q&A with Kristin Prestegaard, Chief Engagement Officer at the Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Q&A with Monica O. Montgomery, an arts and culture consultant, and educator
- Q&A with Angela Cassie, VP of public affairs and programs at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights
- Q&A with Elizabeth Chew, VP of Museum Programs at James Madison’s Montpelier in Orange, Va.
- Q&A with Laura Lott, President & CEO of the American Alliance of Museums
2017
- Q&A with Amy Hutchins, marketing and communications manager at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C.
- Q&A with Leslie Greene Bowman, president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson.
- Q&A with Aaron Huey, founder and creative director of Amplifier, a social action arts organization.
- Q&A with illustrator Christoph Niemann
- Q&A with Anabeth Guthrie, chief of communications at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
- Q&A with Paul Spies, director of the Stadtmuseum Berlin and chief curator in the Humboldt Forum
- Q&A with Kathrin Hasskamp, Executive Director of the House of One Foundation
- Q+A with Birgitta Müller-Brandeck, Administrative Director for Berlinische Galerie for Modern Art, Berlin.
- Q&A with Robert Rucker, Director of the German Spy Museum (Deutsches Spionage Museum) in Berlin
- Q&A with Krist Gruijthuijsen, Director of the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin
- Q+A with Christine Feuerhake, Deputy Head of the unit for museums, libraries, archives, and memorial sites, Berlin’s Senate Department for Culture
- Q+A with Annette Meier, program supervisor of the Long Night of Museums in Berlin
- Q&A with Sascha Perkins, head of marketing & communications, Jewish Museum Berlin
- Q&A with Gordon Freiherr von Godin, director of the DDR Museum (German Democratic Republic), in Berlin
- Q&A with Maria Prawelska and Katarzyna Wincenciak of the Museum of Contemporary Art Krakow
- Q&A with museum consultant, writer and curator Johan Idema
- Q&A withJim Richardson, MuseumNext founder and director
- Q&A with Zuzana Pavlovská, head of the education department at the Jewish Museum Prague
- Q&A with the Museum of Communism co-founder Glenn Spicker – Prague, Czech Republic
- Q&A with Constanze Hell of Mozarthaus Vienna – Vienna, Austria
- Q&A with the founders of the Museum of Broken Relationships – Zagreb, Croatia