Your museum's growth depends on showing up where your audience lives: AI, Google, and social media. But how do you know if you're standing out—or even showing up? This session delivers a modern marketing playbook for the digital age. Learn to use AI tools to sharpen content, harness the $10K/month Google Ad Grant, reach new audiences through smarter segmentation, and prepare for a future where AI handles everything from customer service to ticket sales.

What does it mean to lead with vulnerability in museum spaces? Grounded in Brené Brown's research, this panel explores how courage, trust, and authenticity strengthen teams and institutional culture. Presenters will share real-world examples, challenges, and practical strategies for applying vulnerability-based leadership in museums. Attendees will leave with actionable tools to foster connection, resilience, and innovation within their organizations.

How do you design galleries that reflect a divided public? This session shares a process for developing exhibitions that give equal authority to stakeholder perspectives and historical evidence. We will discuss the internal framework that kept our team steady while navigating social and political tensions as we collaborated with stakeholders across the state. Attendees will learn a practical path for balancing historical facts with authentic, object-based storytelling to create galleries where visitors see themselves in the stories being told.

This session explores the many starting points that shape exhibition concept development. Through case studies of temporary exhibitions at our various institutions, we will examine projects sparked by a variety of motivations such as specific collections, community partnerships, milestones, and more. Participants will also take part in a guided, interactive exercise, developing a "big idea" for an exhibition from a hypothetical prompt while considering the mission, audience, and constraints of their own institutions.

Inventory is crucial for stewardship, but it can be daunting. Learn to transform your collection inventory from a compliance task into a strategic tool for advocacy, accessibility, and institutional leverage. Four collections stewards from municipal, county, and state organizations will share practical, scalable processes and successful outcomes for initiating or refining your own inventory project.

You don't need a title to lead. This session brings together three museum professionals at different stages of their leadership journeys — from influencing without authority to running an organization. Through honest conversation and guided reflection, you'll explore your own leadership style, discover what it looks like to lead from where you are right now, and walk away with real tools to grow yourself and the people around you.