In 2026, EngagingPlaces.net marks its 15th anniversary. What began in 2011 as a modest professional blog has grown into a widely used resource for history museum and historic site professionals working at the intersection of interpretation, engagement, sustainability, and leadership.

The numbers tell part of the story. In 2011, the site received 1,108 visitors—mostly colleagues and friends in the field. In 2025, EngagingPlaces.net recorded more than 37,000 page views from 22,000 individual visitors, a level of readership that reflects both the scale and the consistency of interest in applied museum practice.

Most readers are based in the United States, with international readership extending—at a distance—to the United Kingdom, Canada, and India. Within the U.S., the largest audiences come from Virginia, California, Texas, and New York, states with dense concentrations of museums, historic sites, and cultural organizations navigating rapid change.

What Readers Come Here For

The most-read posts over time reveal a consistent pattern: practitioners are looking for clear frameworks, practical language, and decision-ready thinking.

Among the most visited pages on the site are:

• Values of History: Encyclopedia Edition: A 2016 overview of the social, civic, and institutional values of history, written in a clear, reference-style format that helps museums articulate why history matters to communities, funders, and the public. Now that HistoryRelevance.com has expired, this is now one of the few places online with the Values of History (it also appears in several publications).
• HBR: The Truth About the Customer Experience: A summary of a 2013 Harvard Business Review article by Alex Rawson, Ewan Duncan, and Conor Jones on value of customer journey maps and the need to integrate them into management plans.
• Excellence in Museum Mission Statements: Some Examples: Based on 2018 evaluation by my graduate students, these are seven mission statements that rose to the top out of 20 they studied. I’ve written extensively on mission statements because they are so fundamental to good management, but I’ve increasingly paired it with vision and values to be even more useful. Look for my chapter on this three-legged stool in the forthcoming Transforming Museum Culture edited by Rebekah Beaulieu.
• Let’s Give SWOT a REST: A critical look at the limitations of traditional SWOT analysis. Posted in 2012, I didn’t propose an alternative but I have one now: Michael Porter’s “Five Forces That Affect Strategy.” I discuss the Five Forces in Reimagining Historic House Museums and in my workshops, but I haven’t discussed it in a blog post. Something for 2026?
• Welcoming New Members: Examples from the Field: Another post from long ago 2012 with examples and ideas from museums and cultural organizations on how to welcome new members thoughtfully, emphasizing onboarding, relationship-building, and long-term engagement rather than transactions. It was an experiment that I should repeat more often (although there’s a cost!). I have written occasionally about membership programs and it is influencing my thinking about community engagement (my next book with Ken Turino).

These posts span more than a decade, yet they remain highly active—suggesting that museum professionals return repeatedly to questions about mission, audience, strategy, and organizational clarity. Tools endure when they help people make better decisions, not just better arguments.

From Reading to Doing

The most downloaded resources reinforce this same point. The top downloads include:

• Visitor Journey Maps for Historic Sites
• Eight Ways to Engage Visitors
• Strengthening Interpretive Themes
• Common Target Audiences: Research for Museums
• Journey Mapping for Arts Organizations

These are not trend pieces or commentary; they are working documents—materials meant to be printed, shared, adapted, and used in meetings, planning sessions, and workshops. Their continued use reflects a field that values translation: moving from theory to action. I’ll aim to provide more of this type of material.

Fifteen Years of Change—and Continuity

Over 15 years, the museum field has changed dramatically. Digital engagement, DEAI work, sustainability, AI, pandemic closures, and financial uncertainty have all reshaped professional conversations. Yet the core challenges remain familiar: aligning mission with practice, understanding audiences, working within constraints, and leading change with limited resources.

EngagingPlaces.net has never tried to be comprehensive or authoritative. Instead, it has aimed to be useful—a place to test ideas, share tools, and reflect honestly on what works, what doesn’t, and why.

Looking Ahead

As EngagingPlaces.net marks its quindecennial during the Semiquincentennial, the goal remains the same: to support museum and historic site professionals with grounded thinking, adaptable frameworks, and respect for the realities of practice.

Thank you to everyone who has read, shared, downloaded, questioned, and applied these ideas over the past 15 years. Your work—and your willingness to keep learning—is what gives this site its purpose.