Growing Our Community

Today’s session – Generation X: How Soon Is Now – at the California Association of Museums annual conference was a standing-room-only affair. We probably crammed close to 100 mostly GenX-ers into a room at the Napa Valley Marriott – as I joked, probably all of the GenXers at the conference were in the room!

Our presentations ran the gamut from personal stories about growing up as latch-key kids to introductions to 19 international museum leaders (who happen to be GenX) to career advice to look for institutional needs and match them with your own strengths. 

As at our original session at AAM in 2012, we struck a nerve. The Q&A following the presentations went on well past the official end of the session – until finally I “pulled the plug” at 11:30. 

Hopefully some of you reading this were at the session – we’d love to know what you though. Tell us in the comments – or if you have a lot to say, become a blog contributor! Email me jennifer at caleshu dot com and I’ll be happy to invite you.

 

Come to our GenX session at CAM and maybe you’ll win a button!

We’re baaaaaack….

It’s been almost two years since we started this movement and community, and the Gen X Museum gang is back together again – this time for the California Association of Museum‘s annual conference in lovely Napa, California.

Join me and this diverse group of museum GenXers for our session: Generation X: How Soon Is Now from 10 – 11:15 a.m. on Thursday, March 6:

• Jennifer Caleshu, Director of Earned Revenue, Bay Area Discovery Museum;
• James Leventhal, Deputy Director for Development, Contemporary Jewish Museum;
• Amparo Leyman Pino, museum consultant;
• Renee Donmon, Membership Director, Charles M. Schulz Museum;
• Salvador Acevedo, Principal & President, Contemporánea;
• Jada Hansen, Executive Director, Hennepin History Museum;
• Michael Wall, Vice President of Research and Public Programs, San Diego Natural History Museum;
• Paloma Patterson, Museum Staff for Development and Administration, Mendocino County Museum

Gain a wide perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing Generation X and reflect on your own leadership practice as we fly through our presentations pecha kucha style – 20 slides each for 20 seconds per slide. We’ll have a rockin’ soundtrack and plenty of time for our open mic.