In this politically charged time, the Saint Louis Art Museum has come under fire for lending one its paintings for use during President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The controversy has caused Colleen Dilenschneider of Know Your Own Bone, a resource for museums and cultural centers, to ask this important question: “Can an organization in today’s world (a world that increasingly values transparency, connectivity, and blurs traditional personal/professional lines) claim to not be held accountable for taking a position, while taking an action that supports a position?”

The museum has said that the decision to allow the painting to be used was nonpartisan and that it was simply honoring a pre-election commitment to a bipartisan congressional committee.

But Dilenschneider notes, “Though it may make good, intellectual sense that the museum has made such a nonpartisan statement, the statement on the action may matter less to the public than the action itself.”

Read more of her thoughts on the difficulties of owning public perception in a rapidly changing world.

Sparking Innovations

Innovation: The 5-Step Process #AssnChat #AssnSuccess https://t.co/ghgJm317zK

— ESSAE (@EmpireStateSAE) January 18, 2017

How does your association come up with new ideas?

Writing for Association Success, Smooth the Path’s Amanda Kaiser walks us through the five-step process many associations use to come up with innovative programs.

Try following them to help foster inventiveness in your organization.

Other links of note

Japan to dumb down high-tech toilets: The Japan Sanitary Equipment Industry Association wants to standardize the messaging on its high-tech toilet seats “to avoid bafflement among foreign tourists.”

Goals for millennials: Inc. provides five employee goals to help you guide your millennial teams this year.

When it comes to data science, do you lead or lag behind? Forbes provides insights from new Forrester research that calls out three types of groups from a data science perspective: “Insight Leaders,” “The Pack,” and “Laggards.”

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